The Haunting Hospital Encounter

My wellbeing had not been the best for a long time. I had made several trips to specialists, attempting to discover what was wrong. At the end of September 2022, I was sent for a series of tests, including an electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) to measure my heart's electrical activity and a full blood count. That night, we received an urgent call from the specialist about the concerning test results.

Rex rushed me to the emergency department at the hospital. The nurse on duty took one look at me and said that my paleness was perilously dim. Over the following fourteen hours, I would receive two blood transfusions, along with a bag of plasma.

While I was waiting for a room to be arranged in the ward upstairs, the woman in the next bed became irate at the medical staff. The doctors had ordered more tests and checks for her, and she was dissatisfied that they seemed not to analyze her recurring illnesses. Her reproving voice soon rose in volume, getting the attention of everyone on the floor.

By that time, it was nearly midnight. The tumult level was almost a palpable presence in the place. I felt chilled and did not think it was due to my low blood count.

"I need to see the specialist NOW!" shrieked the perturbed woman.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP. The monitoring devices went haywire all at once, emitting warnings and sounds of mechanical trouble. At each single bed, medical staff were rushing from bed to bed, quickly pressing buttons to halt the ear-splitting booming, and attempting to reset each screen. All the while, the woman continued a persistent tirade, steamrolling over the nurses' efforts to calm her down.

Rex and I looked at each other in bewilderment. What was going on?

Eventually, the Head Nurse managed to mollify her. She arranged for the woman's release and assured her that any further tests could be done as an outpatient. It was odd how all the machines on the floor died down to calmer beeps once she left the emergency department.

Hospitals are never the most comfortable places to be. It was early morning, and Rex had gone home by the time they got me into a room on the fourth floor. I was connected to awkward tubes and a heart monitor, my arm was throbbing from the cannula, and my limbs felt frail and rubbery.

But I was still in a much better state than the elderly lady in the other room. During the nurses' handover at the change of shift, I caught one say to the other that the patient had been denying her nourishment. They were now trying to get her into palliative care, but it was likely that she might not last long enough by the time there was an available bed. Tragically, past making her as comfortable as possible, they could do nothing more.

Sleep was impossible that night. My lower back hurt, and I could not figure out how to adjust the bed. The temperature in the room had gone very cold. It was bizarre for me to be bothered by the air-conditioning. I ordinarily enjoyed the cold, and the nurse had made me comfortable for the night, wrapping me up like a cozy burrito in cotton blankets.

The lights at my bed were turned off, with the door slightly open for the duty nurse to be able to check on me at a glance from the shining corridor. I could hear the steady scratching and wheezing sounds from the next room. That poor woman's labored breathing sounded particularly loud in the stillness of the night. It reminded me terribly of a passing shiver, like the time I had sat vigil a long time prior for my father and Rex's mother.

My vision had gotten used to the dim lighting. A movement to my left caught my eye. I squinted once, twice, but the figure was still there at the window.

It was a slight-built woman or a young girl, dressed in a dark outfit and a wide-brimmed dark hat. Her face was pale, the features covered up in shadow by a gauzy veil from the hat. A coat was hung over her shoulders like a cloak. From the point of her head, she was peering in at me.

For a moment, I thought it was a guest who had gone for a walk outside, taken a wrong turn in the dark and was trying to find the entrance back to the ward. Then I recalled that the room was four stories above the ground.

Was she an otherworldly guest? But I did not feel any malevolence from her, just a dubious sense of curiosity.

On an impulsive drive, I waved to the woman in dark, acknowledging that I knew she was there. Then I quickly turned on the bedside light. The figure was gone.

Getting out of bed, I checked the room for any reflection that might be reflected in the glass. There was nothing that matched the figure. The closest thing in stature was the IV stand, but it was too lean. It was also close to the door, which meant that its reflection was in the wrong position.

When I mentioned this to the night nurse in passing, she eagerly announced that such things never happened there. She looked so completely spooked that I chose not to say anything more about the occurrence. The hospital was a decently modern one, but there had already been a number of detailed mortalities there.

In the morning, I checked the view outside the window. It overlooked the rooftop of the adjacent building, a carpark, and the main street in the distance. There was nothing that could have shaped a dark figure the night before. The edge running along the side was too narrow for even Spiderman to stand on tippy toes there.

The patient was still there in the other room, her condition unchanged. But I did not get another chance to see if the woman in dark would return in the night.

My daily blood tests were showing that my blood count was much improved, oxygen saturation and irregular heart rate had settled. By late evening, the doctors decided to send me home for recovery, and to be scheduled for surgery at a later date.

That night, as part of my sleep schedule, I did my online crossword. One of the crossword clues read: "You see like you've just (seen a) ghost!"