Smiles amidst the tears

These past few weeks have been tough since my dear Mother passed away. In spite of the sadness, I try to find brightness in every day. Here is the story of my visit to the hospital with her.

1. The Emergency Room.

I thought I was over being amazed at the 12 year doctors running around. Okay, so I know they aren’t really 12 years old, but they sure look young to me. I guess that means I must look ancient to them.

We went to the Emergency Room at a Boston Hospital on Saturday night. I think you may be getting the picture . . . big city hospital, Saturday night . . . We kept hearing the PA announcement, “Would security please report to Bay 5.” That announcement came through every 20 minutes or so.

It was also disconcerting to be walking around the Emergency Room and see people on stretchers who were secured by handcuffs. I know bad guys need treatment too, but I am used to our little suburban hospital where the worse injury is a someone cutting their hand while preparing dinner.

2. Wandering the Intensive Care Unit.

Mom was moved to the Intensive Care Unit(ICU). Since this hospital is a big one, there were three ICUs on the same floor, all next to each other. When I had to leave her side and go outside the ICU to go to the bathroom, you would think I could easily find my way back in. After all, I am just walking down a straight hospital corridor. Well, my mind was elsewhere and when I would come back I would go into the wrong ICU. I would take several steps inside, realize my mistake, turn around and walk out. This didn’t create too much notice at first, but when this happened for the third time, the ICU nurses were giving me funny looks. Oops.

3. Calling home.

I had to call Mr. Ken at home. I have lived in my house for 23 years, you would think I would have memorized my phone number by now. I dialed what I thought was my number and got the message, “You have reached the Verizon Account Activation Center. Please press 1 to activate your account.” So did I hang up? No, I pressed 1. Who knows what sort of account I just activated. Let’s hope I don’t have to pay for it.

4. Adventures of Mr. Ken.

Mr. Ken has been my rock throughout all of this. Not only has he provided support, but he has also provided some unintentional comic relief. As Mom condition worsened, they moved her to a private room and provided a cot for me to stay with her. The hospital also provided a “comfort pack” that had coffee and snacks. I didn’t feel like eating. Mr. Ken was ensconced in the small solarium down the hall. Mr. Ken absconded with the comfort pack. At least he got some comfort from it. 🙂

Dear Nurse Liz took wonderful care of my Mom. She comes into the room on Saturday morning to care for Mom and to see how I was doing. She also mentioned that Ken had come to her saying that his earplug was stuck in his ear and he needed help getting it out. (Ken also spent the night in the hospital.) Nurse Liz didn’t bat an eyelash; she matter of factly got some tweezers and helped. What a wonderful caring nurse, caring for people who weren’t even her patients.

So amidst this sad time, I still find a reason to smile.

Photo from Patti Hanan.com.