Although my world has shrunk – for the moment – to my room and the three corridors I move up and down, it has strangely expanded in one way. For I am able to indulge my favourite hobby – people watching.

Dependent as I am on the nursing staff far more than the doctors, I am at their mercy.

They get me up in the morning after unfolding my brace and, as the leg must never be bent, they need to wash and dress me to the waist.

After that I get on with the rest, sit in my wheelchair, Zimmer the corridors, do my physio until they settle me into the bed again for restless sleep, usually before 8pm.

To be honest I’m ready for any change of position by then.

Unless I have visitors, the day is mind-numbingly long and may get far worse if I cease to have the internet which is increasingly the case as my 4G runs out and no more can be bought for another fortnight.

I don’t even want to think about that now.

And so I study the aides and quiz them about their lives, their reasons for doing this work which, with its intimacy and attention to the myriad functions of the body, horrifies me with the thought.

In its own way it is a microcosm of the world outside, or rather the people outside. That seems an obvious statement but in the main I think as we pass hospitals and clinics we tend to block out that parallel world operating alongside ours.

And it can come as an unwelcome surprise to discover that these men and women we automatically label ‘angels’ take all their human failings into their work.

But it is that very humanity that allows the good ones, for whom it truly is a calling, to go far beyond the parameters kept to by the others.

The staff here work in teams of two aides, one nurse to 15 patients and rotate shifts and floors three times a day, leaving one nurse and one aide during the night.

There are perhaps four who approach their work with a quiet confidence, reassuring manner and, above all, who properly connect with the patients.

They are the ones who look you in the eyes and you know they really see you as a person not a body to be turned and hauled into position for treatment or shower.

Marianne Taylor: It is not transphobic for doctors to question whether a child is transgender

Although no part of the body holds any revulsion or curiosity for them, they respect the ones like me who find the whole process mortifying and move slowly and discreetly, covering one’s nakedness as much as possible.

They take the time to talk and give a little of themselves and one feels the better for their attention and genuine care and concern.

My favourite is an aide in her 50s who re-trained after 30 years in commerce when her office shut.

She adores this work and, cliché though it is, she radiates kindness and yes, goodness.

The next layer are kind, competent but work to a speed and timetable and I can sense their irritation when I try to deviate them from their rota by talking.

They arrive in a whirlwind and leave the same way and although everything has been done as it should be, I don’t feel ‘the better’ for their being there.

Next come the ones I call the blanks. Their faces remain mask-like and they go through their duties like automatons. If I’m being kind I would say they are protecting themselves; unwilling or unable even to really see the person who lies defenceless before them.

They have a fear perhaps of being drawn into the lives of those who must remain mere cases for them to cope.

They rarely make eye contact and are extremely reluctant to make small talk of any kind. And yet when I ask if they enjoy their job, they all without exception say they love it.

There are two male aides – one who obviously finds me a pain because in the early days I sent him away when he came to bed bath me and asked for a woman.

That’s how it is for me, when conscious at least, and I put it down to all those years in the convent. Modesty was the key word in all.

He takes little revenges on me for that – giving me a half of glass of wine instead of a full one, casting his cold eyes on me if I’ve rung the bell for some reason.

And then, ah and then, there are the indifferent almost cruel ones who should not be here. The nurse who does look you in the eye but only to see your reaction as she pushes the nightly stomach injection in with a harshness not seen in the others.

You pray she’s not the one who’ll do the weekly drawing of blood, for your veins shrink at her approach and she wiggles the needle as you cry out in pain.

There are just two aides who have a similar coldness and deal with one as if an intrusion into their ordered day.

But, as in real life, I adapt my approach to all of their foibles and get through it as painlessly as I can.

For, they are only human and in the best of them that is their strength.

Marianne Taylor: It is not transphobic for doctors to question whether a child is transgender