The World According to Bob

When the results of the latest round of tests came in, I was told that the dosage of the drug that had originally been prescribed wasn’t strong enough. They were going to increase it, but they also wanted to keep me in longer to make sure it actually had an impact.

‘It will only be a couple more days, just to see it works and doesn’t have any side effects,’ the doctor told me.

Belle popped in to see me, dropping off a couple of books and some comics. She told me Bob was fine.

‘I think he’s found someone else to feed him as well as that old guy,’ she said, laughing. ‘He really is living up to the name Six Dinner Bob.’

After a couple of days it was obvious that the new dosage was finally sorting out my DVT. When I looked at my leg the swelling was beginning to go down and the colour returning to normality. The nurses and doctors could see this as well, so they wasted no time in getting me off my back.

‘It’s not good for you lying there all day, Mr Bowen,’ one of them kept saying to me.

So they insisted that I got out and walked up and down the corridor at least a couple of times a day. It was actually a joy to be able to pace around without wincing with pain. When I put weight on my leg, I didn’t get those same excruciating shooting sensations. It still hurt, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as previously.

True to their word, about a week after I’d been admitted, the doctors told me that I could go home. I texted Belle with the good news. She texted me back to say she’d try to come to the hospital to meet me later that afternoon.

The hospital paperwork took longer than I’d hoped so it was approaching evening by the time I slipped out of my pyjamas, got dressed, gathered together my belongings and limped my way to the exit on Euston Road. I still had the crutches but didn’t really need them. I could now put pressure on my leg without any real pain.

Belle had texted me again to say that she would meet me outside.

‘Can’t come into hospital. Will explain when I see you,’ she’d written.

We’d agreed to meet by the infamous new modern art sculpture outside the main entrance. I’d heard people at the hospital talking about the work of art, a giant, six ton polished pebble. It had cost the hospital tens of thousands of pounds apparently and was meant to make patients and visitors ‘feel better’ as they arrived and departed. It didn’t inspire me particularly, but I certainly felt the benefit of it when my body hit the cold evening air outside. I leaned on it for a moment or two as I tried to catch my breath after walking what seemed like miles along the corridors without the aid of crutches.

I was a couple of minutes early so there was no sign of Belle. That was no surprise at this time of the evening; I could see that the rush hour traffic was already building up. I was resigned to waiting a while, but then, to my relief, I saw her emerging from the bus stop across the road. She was carrying a large, holdall style bag which, I assumed, had some clean clothes and my jacket in it. At first I didn’t spot it, but as she got closer I saw a flash of ginger fur poking out of the unzipped top of the bag.

As she reached the bottom of the steps, I saw his head poking out.

‘Bob,’ I said, excited.

The moment he registered my voice he began scrambling out of the bag. In an instant he had his front paws on Belle’s arm and the back ones on the top of the bag, ready to spring forward.

We were still a few feet apart when Bob launched himself off the bag towards me. It was the most athletic leap I’d ever seen him make, and that was saying a lot.

‘Whoaah there, fella,’ I said, lurching forward to catch him then holding him close to my chest. He pinned himself to me like a limpet clinging on to a rock that was being pounded by waves. He then nuzzled his head in my neck and started rubbing me with his cheeks.

‘Hope you don’t mind, but that’s why I couldn’t come in. I had to bring him,’ Belle said beaming. ‘He saw me packing a few things for you and started going crazy. I think he knew I was coming to get you.’

Whatever doubts I’d had about our future together were swept away in that instant. On the way home, Bob was all over me — literally. Rather than sitting alongside me he sat on my lap, crawled on my shoulders and sat up with his paws on my chest, purring away contentedly.

It was as if he never wanted to let me go again. I felt exactly the same way.

They say that there are none so blind as those who will not see. In the days and weeks that followed, I realised that I had been unwilling, or maybe unable, to see what was glaringly obvious. Far from wanting to leave me, Bob had been desperate to help ease my pain and get me on the road to recovery. He’d given me space to recover. But he’d also been nursing me without my knowledge.

Belle told me that whenever I was asleep in my room, Bob would check up on me. He would lie on my chest and even run checks every now and again.