While Waiting

I’ve been hospitalized only twice in my life, once a dozen or so years ago when I had a heart attack (apparently fully and successfully resolved) and more years ago than I care to count when I partook in what was then the almost-routine process of a tonsillectomy.


But that doesn’t mean I’ve not been in hospitals since. The best time was when each of my children was successfully borne. The most painful and graphic was when I finally arrived at a rural hospital some hours after my father had a fatal heart attack. He died suddenly, which was for the best, because he hated hospitals and missed the final irony was of having this painfully shy man naked on a slab, save for a white sheet.

Though my son was born without major trauma, he was also born with a congenital syndrome that affected his skull and later his hip, necessitating numerous surgeries and overnight stays. Those memories include seeing a 3-month old baby with his head so swollen that his face was indiscernable, and one memorable session when he was about 12 years old and an arrogant insensitve ignorant resident insisted on using a saline IV when his back was raw and it caused him immense unnecessary pain (I finally called the neurosurgeon who came in and straightened her out). I also spent a few days with my wife at the National Institutes of Health when she had major, major surgery (with a positive outcome few predicted) and have been with her for a few others.

Like tonight. Not serious in the overall sense, but she had a suspicious small blob removed from near her heart, which required opening her chest cavity and cutting into some ribs -- and a chest tube that hurts every time she breathes. So I’m waiting beside her, as she finally has dozed off after some intravenous painkillers. Maybe she’ll come home tomorrow, maybe the day after. She doesn’t recover as fast as she used to. But she's coming home. Not everyone here tonight can say that, which makes me grateful that I can.

So I’m familiar with hospitals and their routines, the ebb and flow of shifts, the range of compassion and abilities, from the competent and caring nurse to the cold and callous one, the ones who seem to almost feel the pain and the ones who seem as though they could not care less. Arrogant doctors and friendly ones, cold fish and warm hearts. Most, of course, somewhere in between, as are almost all of us.

We’re in the primary medical center of a largely agricultural state, so a lot of the people I see are from more-or-less rural settings, which doesn’t mean anything in terms of their humanity or their intelligence, but it does mean a lot of them, especially the older ones, are less sophisticated and seem a bit out of place here where it’s crawling with yuppies and aging hippies and university and government types. Farm folk in the big city, decent, respectable, worried people jerked out of their usual environment. Older men with thick glasses and denim coats, slicked back hair, their heavy-set wives on their arms or walking silently beside them, younger men looking a bit defensive and their wholesome looking wives, and then the black leather biker types who seem to suddenly realize that life doesn’t much respect their machismo or tough attitudes. We also have a large Amish population nearby, so it’s not uncommon to see women in bonnets and long skirts beside bearded men in suspenders. The Amish don’t drive, but they accept rides, they don’t use technology except when it’s offered as a necessity -- though I recall one autumn weekend afternoon when I noticed one of the older Amish guys sneaking peeks at the large-screen TV as the local pro football team was in a tight game.

And of course there’s contrast between the social atmosphere of the staff who, necessarily, have to keep their human side alive while they work, which sometimes results in laughter trickling down hallways and into rooms, intermingling with the stress and pain and tragedy that lurks behind closed doors. Such a contrast to the maternity floor which is usually (not always) a place of joy and promises of new beginnings. As long as one stays clear of the NICU (newborn intensive care).

All of this a 21st century American drama, acted out in the context of amazing technology and beeping machines, all in an ultimately futile battle against the cold hard reality of life that comes and ebbs and flows, and ultimately flickers out, as the people we think we know move on to whatever lies beyond, perhaps back to from where we all came.

We’re all waiting.