Hello Stranger

Twenty-two years old and the solution was nowhere in sight, but I was trying.

I’d looked up the route about fifty times online, but still my heart was thumping like I didn’t know where the hell I was going. I dashed up over the platform bridge, then hurried along Harrow’s main high street, praying that the universe please be kind to me.

I was desperate to make it to day one of my new job on time.

It was a narrow window. The seven a.m. train was the earliest route I could take without any train changes, so I’d opted for it. Opted and prayed.

Thankfully, Harrow District Hospital was a huge bulk of a building out of West Street. I could see it looming taller with every footstep. I repeated the department name over and over. A mantra along with my footsteps.

Kingsley Ward, Kingsley Ward, Kingsley Ward.

I’m Chloe Sutton for Kingsley Ward.

The entrance was well posted. I veered off to the right of the main car park and headed right on in through the reception, and there was the sign. Phew. Easy to spot. Kingsley Ward, six doors along the corridor to the left.

Thank you, universe. Thank you.

With barely a minute left to go I headed across the corridor and stepped on in. The reception was smaller here. A smiling face greeted me as I raced on up and handed my job confirmation letter across the counter.

“I’m here to see Wendy Briars, please. I start work today.”

“Chloe Sutton?”

“Yep, that’s me,” I said with a smile. “Pleased to meet you.”

She leaned forward over the counter to point me along my way. “Welcome to the team! Wendy’s expecting you.”

The waiting room was already filling up, but I was well placed to see a woman stepping out from a door at the other side. She was tall. Red hair and a touch of freckles like mine, but she must’ve been at least twenty years older. I was just a gangly little girl up against her.

I guess that’s when it truly hit me that this really was the turning point in my life – seeing my new boss, the head of nursing, there in person heading straight for me to welcome me to her world.

Chloe Sutton, trainee nurse in patient rehabilitation.

Chloe Sutton, full time employee of the National Health Service, with a vocation to help people who really need it.

I’d always been like that. Mum and Dad said I’d been like it since I was barely walking, a little toddler saying owww and rubbing cream on people whenever I thought they’d hurt themselves. I’d wrap my dollies in bandages and cry whenever something bad happened to a character in a story, and I was always on a one-child mission to protect the schoolyard. Always with the desire to help people; to stop their hurting.

And here I was, about to turn that desire into a reality. One drop in the ocean of medical care in Harrow Hospital, and my new work home. Hopefully forever.

“I can’t wait to introduce you to the place,” Wendy said, once she’d introduced herself. “It’s a great team here. Such a lovely group of people. You’ll fit right in.”

I hoped she was right.

My shudder of nerves turned to a shiver of excitement as she began to show me around. Such a lovely group of people.

Lovely patients in beds, waving and smiling. Lovely people needing help with their clothes, or their meals, or their pain management, or even just someone to talk to.

Scared relatives looking for reassurance about the people they love. Happy grins when people reached a point they were well enough to go home.

I felt like I was already making a real difference as I helped Catherine from the day care team with bed changes. I was beaming bright through a lunch break with Vickie, the girl from reception, dressed up fresh in my new blue work blouse.

“Tell me about yourself,” she said over a hospital cafe snack, so I did.

I gave her an overview of my textbook lovely life with a fresh new smile on my face. I told her about my awesome parents I visited every weekend, and our old family dog. I told her about the boyfriend I lived with over in Eddington. How I’d had a great time at Warwick university, studying psychology.

How I was happy, happy, happy. Always so happy.

She seemed pretty happy herself as she told me her life story right back. She had a young daughter, and a wedding ring displayed proudly on her finger. She started studying beauty, but got more interested in the anatomy part of the course and opted to rethink her talents.

I guessed we’d be friends. Maybe really good ones.

I figured that was a huge extra thumbs-up, given that most of my friends had stayed scattered all round the country, post their degree courses.