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Way back in the beginning, hospital was a sanctuary. Like driftwood washed to the top of the beach by a high tide, salt-bleached, splintered by the storms, you just rest awhile, nestling in the sand. Something terrible has befallen you, but if you lie very, very still, you will be safe. Nothing is asked of you. Hands which you cannot feel will gently position you; quiet voices address you. In intensive-care and high-dependency wards, they turn you frequently in the night to protect your skin from pressure sores, but they do it discreetly and by torchlight in order not to wake you. When you cease to be acutely ill, and move away from those remarkable acute areas where the staff ratio is generous and the NHS functions at its very best, things change. The nurses in high-dependency tried to warn me about the difference in ethos awaiting me. ‘It’s different next door,’ they said. Next door was the adjoining corridor, the forty-bed spinal rehabilitation ward, where, having had your spine stabilised, you would be schooled to cope with your condition. Weeks later, Euphorbia, one of the senior rehab nurses, proudly shared with me the standard joke about the transition.