Nobody Reads This Page – “Hospital Humbled”

 

c. 2024 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(9-24)

 

 

When a recent health crisis erupted in our family, for my sister, I was predictably focused on getting information about her condition and nothing else. So, after a few, brief exchanges of text messages throughout the morning, I decided to visit the University Hospitals Geauga Health Center for a first-person assessment. Something I had done many times over the past 40 years, for various reasons, after returning home to my native soil from a residential stint in New York State. Despite being aware that venturing beyond my front porch had become less common, by necessity, I did not ponder this choice for long.

 

Getting to my vehicle required little more than a few cane thumps down the access ramp, and a twist of the ignition key. In a few minutes, I had driven to the treatment depot, and found a vacant, handicapped parking space after one circle of the lot.

 

The main entrance at this particular UH campus is located up a long, slow incline. Something that I bested while using two, mismatched walking sticks for support. By the time I reached their lobby, my chest was heaving, and I had begun to pant like a stray pooch. As I stood at the reception counter, a polite clerk offered assistance with their patient registry. But before I could provide too many details, she vocalized a caveat about where I had entered.

 

“Your relative is still in the Emergency Room, which is located on the other side of our building. Are you parked out front?”

 

I hadn’t considered that my younger sibling would still be waiting in a trauma cubicle. In my haste to figure out what had happened, I simply used the first available point of access. But upon confronting this mistake, I sheepishly agreed to go back to my car, and motor around the facility for a better vantage point.

 

Once again, despite the prevailing rush of needy individuals from across the county, I was able to secure a convenient spot by the entryway. I hobbled a bit due to arthritic numbness in my legs, but took this challenge literally in stride. It was oddly familiar, after years of being disabled and retired. Not anything out of the ordinary.

 

A representative at the window was very helpful, and took me through the ward, directly to a room where my sister was being prepped for a move to their Intensive Care Unit. My niece grabbed a folding chair which matched her own, and I beheld it with a slight amount of personal trepidation. Usually, some sort of seating with arms to steady myself would have been a preferred choice. But I figured that a bit of maneuvering, with my right hip as a target over the landing site, would get me safely on my posterior.

 

Grace intervened as two nurses took hold of the hospital bed where my biological counterpart was resting. Instead of sitting, I skipped sideways, out into the hallway. There I stood attempting to catch my breath, and offer a silent prayer of gratitude at the same time.

 

Another aide offered to guide us through the maze of medical equipment and curtained spaces, so that we could get to the ICU along a visitor’s route. Yet as I positioned my aching bones to walk, it suddenly became apparent that I had already exhausted the meager reserve of stamina on hand. I was whipped.

 

My joints were stiff and uncooperative. I felt like a rubber, Stretch Armstrong toy from the 1970’s, already pulled out of shape by ornery children.

 

In an instant, I flashed back to yonder days, when my father had been kept at the J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital, in Morgantown, West Virginia. A massive institution associated with WVU Medicine. Though this miraculous place offered all sorts of care, from an incredible team of skilled physicians, it was not by any means easy to tour on foot for seniors. A bevy of options were available, but my mother, who was a stout daughter of Appalachia and gifted with unflagging resolve, would not use any implements designed to assist those with compromised mobility.

 

She struggled and stomped and slouched, half-bent forward, as if tilting into a windstorm.

 

Those of us in her brood were gentle in suggesting that she might soften her resistance to being helped. Yet nothing seemed to change her mind. Only once, at the most desperate limit of her endurance, did she consent to being wheeled around like a street vendor’s cart of frankfurters.

 

That lone episode hurt her pride enough that it never happened again.

 

Standing in the ER, with my knees wobbling underneath, I felt pangs of guilt when choosing an opposite path. I was defeated, and yet pragmatic in my outlook. It seemed likely that long before I managed to drag my carcass across the threshold of their special care sector, I would end up sprawled on the floor.

 

I whispered an entreaty to a higher power, while making a plea for myself.

 

“Would it be possible to find a wheelchair somehow? I’ve got to confess that my legs feel like rubber. I won’t even make it to the elevators...”

 

Our slim, skilled advocate was cheerfully benevolent in responding to my query. He pointed toward another corridor that connected with the trauma center.

 

“Of course! Of course! I’ll be right back, it won’t take more than a minute!”

 

I hadn’t given enough forethought to unintentionally volunteering my niece to serve as a beast of burden. But she did not complain. When the wheeled cart arrived, our host provided a quick lesson on how to use the expandable device, safely. I found it to be surprisingly comfortable, even while holding both canes between my sore knees.

 

With purses and tote bags in her hands, the junior member of our bloodline steered my bulky frame around corners and into the visitor lift, without any difficulty. Then into a waiting room near the nursing station. And finally, into the specific room where my sister’s maladies were being analyzed. She had recently been diagnosed with diabetes, and reacted severely while adjusting to new medications. Monitors beeped and chimed, while lights flashed and numbers scrolled across monitor screens around her bed. There were even illuminated displays projected on the floor, something I had never seen being used.

 

Our day ended successfully, with a promise to return after the next sunrise.

 

In the evening, I sat at home with a cold brew, and thoughts of what had transpired lingering in my head. Yet when I spoke aloud, the words that spilled from my lips were contrite, and hesitant. I had failed to project the defiant fortitude of my mater. Something that reddened my face, and jabbed a quiver of insufficiency into my belly.

 

“Sorry, Ma, I just couldn’t do it! I’m a hillbilly kid, but not quite so tough as you!”