“How can you compare a young girl like you being sick to a old woman like me being sick?”

This is what was thrown in my face by a fellow patient two weeks ago after I told her I was unable to get up to help her with something. When she exclaimed that she wasn’t well enough to be doing on her own, I pointed out that I too, was in hospital and therefore likely to also be ill.

The reason I couldn’t, or in the old woman’s eyes ‘wouldn’t’ get up to help open my own curtains so she could watch tv from her bed, and not her chair was because I was in a full blown skin flare up. I was in agony, I could barely move my arms, let alone get up and walk about. I’ve had this skin issue on and off for nearly eight…