I’m Vish and I’m 29. Living five minutes away, I’ve driven past the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (RNOH) for many years, but I never thought I’d be here as a patient.
I had a tumour in my spinal cord that was pressing on my nerves, and they had to do an emergency operation to take it out. Because of the nerve damage, I ended up becoming injured.
When I first got to hospital, it was quite overwhelming getting to grips with my injury, with what had happened. It’s a lot to take in over a short space of time; it’s quite challenging, I think. Over time it’s gotten better, and the facilities here have helped me navigate through everything.
The day I was admitted to the RNOH, I had a visit from the Horatio’s Garden team. I had a little tour of the whole area, and it was honestly amazing to see. When I think of hospitals it’s quite gloomy, kind of dull and depressing. But having this space has been great for me and my family to use.
My mum and dad only live five minutes away too, so they’ve been able to come and visit me in the garden or the hospital every day. My injury has been hard on me, but it’s had a big impact on them too – maybe even more so, because they feel helpless. But just having them by my side has been a huge help, and I think we’ve all supported each other in getting through it. They visit, they bring me home cooked food, and help me feel like I’m not really away from home.
I use the garden pretty much every day, even if it’s just going via the garden to get to my physical therapy sessions. Whenever I have visitors too, we either go to the garden room to play games or to the pods to have conversations. It’s great because we tend to be quite loud and we don’t want to disturb anyone, so having the pods and the garden room is perfect.
There are loads of activities here that I’ve enjoyed. One of my favourites was the glass fusing, which is when you kind of fuse a lot of glass pieces together in different colours. All my friends got involved too – we made sun catchers, and it was really, really fun. I’m not much of an artist, but my mum is. When there was plant printing in the garden room, she made a sign using plants with my name on it and I put it on the front of my room door, so everyone knows that’s my room on the ward.
One of my favourite memories here was a poker night in the garden room! We were just playing with chocolates, nothing serious, but it brought a lot of people there together. We had a great laugh, and that’s one memory I know I’ll really take with me when I go home.
When I leave the hospital, I think I’ll probably just be readjusting to normal life. I’ll hopefully be returning to work, unfortunately you might say! But I’ve definitely learned a lot from being here, and I think I’ll take that with me. There are skills that I didn’t have before, and also an awareness. Having this injury has made me more aware of the people around me, that there are people who have permanent injuries, and I know I won’t forget that.
I couldn’t recommend Horatio’s Garden highly enough. It makes such a big difference to the state of mind you’re in. When you’re not certain about the future, having somewhere like the garden to take a moment to yourself and just reflect on life is amazing. It’s a great space to have, great for patients to do different activities. It’s just great in every way.
The garden is like a different kind of rehab – emotional, more than just physical. It’s quite brilliant.
To watch our video interview with Vish, click here.
The creative workshops Vish mentions in his story are part of the charity’s Arts Programme, generously supported by Arts Council England.
