The Prone Trolley

 When I worked In Sheffield’s Spinal Injury unit, the occasional patient would have been able to mobilise out of bed by using the Prone Trolley.

These patients were usually ones with older spinal injuries but with new, more acute skin problems or pressure sores on their bottoms and sacrum. 

The prone trolley was in fact an adapted theatre trolley , which the patient could like face down upon, usually with strategically placed pillows supporting hips , sternum and feet. 

The patient would move the trolley with his arms, which would propel the front wheels, allowing him or her the freedom to navigate the Spinal unit, and at the same time no pressure would be exerted on the more vulnerable sore bits , allowing them to heal naturally .

These patients would generally be covered with a light sheet , below which they would be naked and paralysed .

One patient I remember who used the trolley was a bit of a wag , I shall call Norman

Now Norman was in his thirties, and it would be fair to describe him as a bit of a joker and a wide boy. He would spend his time with the newly injured and sometimes more sensitive patients on bed rest and was one to joke around and play tricks on them and the nursing staff , who put up with his antics with uncharacteristic thin lips.

I remember one day when Normal pushed himself onto the balcony garden of my ward, he entered into some ribald joshing with several of the patients on bed rest. Unbeknownst to the staff, a couple of the patients had clubbed together and with the help of a visitor turned the tables on poor Norman and an hour after he came he announced to the staff sitting at the nursing station that he was returning to his own ward for tea. 

The staff said nothing as he wheeled himself past the nursing station and allowed him to pass my office which was at the end of the corridor without further comment.

As Norman wheeled himself merrily part he shouted out a greeting which I answered 

And I turned to watch him pass I saw that his fellow patients had secretly removed his sheet  allowing the world to see a large expanse of buttock with two large capital W s drawn in lipstick on each cheek.

And placed very carefully between the butt cheek itself was a hastily picked daffodil, standing proud, yellow and very tall.