name and status

this was something else i noticed about being in hospital this time, but i need to explain a couple of things first.

firstly my first name is elizabeth - though i have always been known by my second name of sarah (mum didn't want me to be teased about my name at school, my initials would have been spelt SEW). from talking to others, i know that i am not the only person called by their second name, in fact it is quite common, it just seems to cause confusion.

secondly that i had a very unusual surname - in fact if you come across someone else with the same surname - we're most likely related. for many years i hated my surname being unusual and that no-one knew how to spell or pronounce it, and began to look forward to changing it to something easier. however somewhere in my late twenties i actually began to enjoy having an unusual name (i did once look something up on the internet about the geography of surnames and how they had spread across england over the 20th century, only to be told that they couldn't do my surname as there were under 100 entries on the census).

nine months ago matthew and i got married and suddenly i realised that i was going to have to give up my name, so i compromised and have retained my maiden name as an additional forename and still use it for work - mainly as i have worked around the country and youth work people know me with my maiden name.

so that is the background to my name.

not using my first name is interesting, most people know me as sarah and it is only really the medical/ dental and other official people who ever use elizabeth, so i do answer to it on occasion (but not if they try to be friendly and call me liz - who is she?). previously in hospitals people have referred to me as elizabeth - the doctors, nurses, radiologists whoever. however this time i was very definitely Mrs Hodge, which i found quite strange. probably as after only 9 months of marriage i'm still getting used to it myself, but also the change from first name to married surname. maybe there is some hospital policy? it did take some getting used to and really didn't feel like it was me, though i did tell everyone that i was sarah - some learnt it, others didn't and to one or two i was merely 'the lady in sideroom 2'!

when i was first hospitalised with lupus, many of my student friends came to visit and kept asking for sarah and after some confusion found me (it was a time when a lot of people learnt that i was using my second name). a year later when i went in again for a few days, they very proudly remembered that i was in fact elizabeth - but by then i'd trained the medical people and they all knew me as sarah, so more confusion ensued.

this time there was some confusion, especially for work colleagues who had to think hard about my married surname, let alone what my first name was. but i think everyone found me in the end. so if i did confuse you - i'm sorry, i don't mean to be difficult.