a different christmas
Grandma is in the hospital this Christmas. Truth be told, she has been in the hospital since shortly after Thanksgiving. And she was in the hospital for a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, too. She was home for Thanksgiving, though.
So I spent a fair portion of Christmas Day in a hospital room. Hospitals are possibly my least favorite place on Earth, so it really wasn't where I wanted to spend Christmas. Something about the smell of a hospital makes me want to run the other way. I tap my foot and fidget impatiently the whole time I'm there. I wonder if this makes me look insincere and selfish. I wonder if I am insincere and selfish. I start to feel insecure. I tap my foot and fidget some more. Repeat until exit.
I am not very good at hospitals.
She should have been home by now. She should have been home for Christmas. For the better part of a week the doctors have been jerking everyone around with when she is supposed to be released. "Probably sometime today." "Not today, but probably tomorrow." "Definitely today." "Maybe tomorrow." Christmas Eve was an all-day holding pattern of "she'll be home sometime today," only to see that dashed almost as an afterthought in the early evening. "Oh, didn't the doctor tell you? She's not going home today."
This wouldn't bother me so much if I thought that having her in the hospital was really doing any good. It's really only a matter of time before either her kidneys or her heart give out, and I can't imagine that one more dose of whatever trumps one more Christmas at home.
It's hard to see her like this. She's confused and scared all the time. She's most afraid of wherever she isn't. At home, the hospital is a terrifying monster that she can't even contemplate. At the hospital, the very mention of sending her home sends the heart monitor into fits. We can't even tell her she's going home or she might not be well enough to go home. Oh irony, you son of a bitch.
Anyway, I didn't intend this post to be a bitchfest. I actually had a very nice Christmas, spent with family. It just happened to be in a hospital room, is all.
Merry Christmas!
So I spent a fair portion of Christmas Day in a hospital room. Hospitals are possibly my least favorite place on Earth, so it really wasn't where I wanted to spend Christmas. Something about the smell of a hospital makes me want to run the other way. I tap my foot and fidget impatiently the whole time I'm there. I wonder if this makes me look insincere and selfish. I wonder if I am insincere and selfish. I start to feel insecure. I tap my foot and fidget some more. Repeat until exit.
I am not very good at hospitals.
She should have been home by now. She should have been home for Christmas. For the better part of a week the doctors have been jerking everyone around with when she is supposed to be released. "Probably sometime today." "Not today, but probably tomorrow." "Definitely today." "Maybe tomorrow." Christmas Eve was an all-day holding pattern of "she'll be home sometime today," only to see that dashed almost as an afterthought in the early evening. "Oh, didn't the doctor tell you? She's not going home today."
This wouldn't bother me so much if I thought that having her in the hospital was really doing any good. It's really only a matter of time before either her kidneys or her heart give out, and I can't imagine that one more dose of whatever trumps one more Christmas at home.
It's hard to see her like this. She's confused and scared all the time. She's most afraid of wherever she isn't. At home, the hospital is a terrifying monster that she can't even contemplate. At the hospital, the very mention of sending her home sends the heart monitor into fits. We can't even tell her she's going home or she might not be well enough to go home. Oh irony, you son of a bitch.
Anyway, I didn't intend this post to be a bitchfest. I actually had a very nice Christmas, spent with family. It just happened to be in a hospital room, is all.
Merry Christmas!