Likelihood of Success

Love hurts

Nov 6, 2009 Heart and spirit, Narcissus Rex

They took away my gall bladder a couple of nights ago.  Ouch!

Observations along the way:

• For some reason the most callous people in the hospital are found in the emergency room.  Is there some deep wisdom at work here?
• Yes, nurses do make a huge difference!
• So do the English language skills of the nurse assistants.
• Some food is not technically poisonous, but should be against the law anyway.
• Somehow, some way, someone in the best of hospitals will do something really, really stupid and at least somewhat harmful to you if you let down your guard.
• It is no easy task not to let down your guard once opoids enter the picture.
• It is no easy task to sleep when you’re miserable in the hospital but the Yankees are keeping everyone else up all night.
• It doesn’t help if your “roomie” falls asleep with his (loud) TV on and you’re lying there awake being too “tolerant” to ask him to lower it a smidge.
• The semi-private room being the best most of us can ever expect to experience in a hospital, imagine just how dismal it must be, and have been, to be in an open hospital “ward.”
• If the choice in “your” hospital, Mrs. Imus, is between a “toxic” bathroom cleanser and one whose smell makes sick people feel even sicker every time they go in there, after two (thank God, short) hospital stays in the last few years I am voting for “toxic.”
• If you’re good with one-liners, the hardware-strewn, peopled path from your hospital bed to the moment when they knock you out for surgery is pure bliss and almost makes the whole thing worth it.
• Almost, that is.
• Calls from friends are very much appreciated, but those returns decline rapidly after the first 90 seconds on the phone.  You need to let them know it’s cool to wind it down without being ungrateful-sounding; they need to be listening.
• T-Mobile is great — good pricing, lovely customer service — unless actually using your cell phone to talk to people or get emails is a priority for you.
• Why do half the buttons (on beds, TV controls, walls) with words on them describing what they’re for not do what they say?
• If you don’t take a punch in the gut from God as a firm suggestion to make a spiritual accounting, what more of a “message” do you expect to get and still be able to respond to?