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| "Just a spoon full of Starbucks helps the chemo go down....in the most unlikely way!" Starbuck's courtesy of my sister, Lynette (big hugs). We won't be giving up our day jobs to be songwriters any time soon, but we do have the tried and true family warped sense of humor! My nurse of the day, Carol wearing the latest in chemo blue fashionwear. |
Now, if my calculations are correct, I have 31 days here at
the Hotel California, one of the club ‘med’ chains where you can check-out when
the doc says it’s OK, but you never really leave. I keep coming back three times a week when I’m
not inpatient and I’m bedding down on night number two for another one of those extended stays. My travel
plans have me checking out Sunday morning if all goes well. I don’t know if
that will put me over the line for the platinum level rewards yet. If I were to guess, I would say it does since I have the nice room, so they
must have sent the special fru-fru card in the mail. No cookies on check-in though, but the room service is pretty nice. Once I finish up in Seattle, I’ll no doubt
have the coveted black card! Not too many of us get that one…and honestly, who
would want one?
There have been a lot of things I’ve wanted and when I got
it, found it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. I can remember a
quotation on Mrs. Van Rosendaal's (my 9th grade health teacher ... impressed I remember her name?!) chalkboard that pretty
much put that sentiment in a nutshell: Far
better to receive not what one wanted than to receive what one wanted not.”
That’s true on a number of levels. Very clearly, I didn’t want to be a ‘frequent
flier,’ so to speak, at the hospital, but there have been a number of silver
linings I’ll write about as I am able to list them out. The term, ‘pay it
forward’ has been poignant for me as I’m seeing so many of the things I’ve done
both in my recent as well as my distant past coming back to surprise me in
so many wonderful ways that I continue to be astonished. People’s true colors have
shone through – thankfully, most for good, but some have risen far above what I
could have conceived. For lack of a better term, I feel truly blessed,
especially considering the extreme circumstances.
Now that I’m physically attached to an IV pole that has the
yellow chemo bag ensign only a few hours a day, I have been wandering about
the hallways and tunnels connecting buildings in the Veteran’s Administration
Healthcare complex. I’ve seen a lot of people who are in pretty bad shape and
not all of our wounds are visible. Some of our guys are returning from war
where the scars are in their minds, some are amputees, some are like me and
battling a chronic or other long-term illness, some are traveling great
distances to be here and just trying to get that ache taken care of. You can see it on the
faces and that of their loved ones. And then there are those you don’t see.
Of the many evenings I spend here, weekends are generally when
the patients who need a little extra attention or are en route to another facility show up in the acute care ward where I am. My first weekend as an
inpatient was in a semi-private room and my roommate was an older gentleman who
had broken his hip and was suffering dementia. Every single exhaled breath was a
moan. I didn’t sleep well that night. I came back Monday for aggressive
chemotherapy and that first weekend brought another veteran suffering dementia
who didn’t have the presence of mind to use the nurse call, but rather shouted
for help. Ear plugs were required for sleep that night. Again, last night, my
next-door neighbor wasn’t suffering from dementia, but he could out-curse any
sailor I ever met. I had heard him shouting for a nurse earlier in the day, but
about 11:30 pm, he was at it again and even though my door was closed, he was
shouting loud enough for me to make out every word, every epithet, and every
threat. My naval officer training was pushing its way up and after about 30
minutes of his tirade, I was ready to walk next door and find out who thought
he was the hospital’s most important patient, but about midnight, it finally
quieted down.
Today, it has been mercifully quiet. I can only assume that he has been given the extra
milligram of the pain medication he had been demanding…or a lovely placebo. That,
of course, makes me wonder truly what it was that he wanted: was he, like so
many veterans here, alone and in severe need of someone to give some attention
or was there some legitimate pain that needed relief? Or perhaps a bit of
both?
Because so many people on staff know me by name now, it’s
not uncommon for them to stop by and chat me up. One of the administrators who takes
the brunt of people like the man who threw the temper tantrum yesterday has much
more patience that I do with that kind of behavior (obviously the person for the
job!) talked to me a bit today and put the event into perspective without going
into any details. It drove the point home that this particular Club Med is for healing,
even if sleep isn’t a high priority! It drove home just how compassionate and longsuffering
the staff is. That’s something I knew already, but the people that are hard to
understand, hard to communicate with, or hard to placate prove that there’s an
unwritten part of the job description for the nurses and med techs that
transcends mere compassion and extends to a kind of love for one’s fellow man that
is nothing short of awe-inspiring. I’ve seen it, I’ve experienced it, and I’m
grateful for it.
This isn’t something I asked for as a frequent flier, but it
took being one to really grasp it both in the big picture and in its many
nuances. It’s more than knowing someone’s name; it took sharing the vision of
hope in a child; it took mingled tears of losing a patient, of surviving one’s
own cancer, of the promise of retiring in good health; it took sharing a smile,
of our mutual humanity. I can’t say that these difficult patients will
understand the kind of commitment that the people who work in health care have
for their patients and their career, but you can be assured it’s completely
devoid of politics and completely full of the qualities that allow for healing
and for a thriving and healthy community.
Today’s music is a blast from the past, but the lyrics seem
to be both a tribute to my medical professionals here as well as a reminder to
myself. Argent’s Hold Your Head Up, originally released as a single in 1972.
And if it's bad
Don't let it get you down
You can take it
And if it hurts
Don't let them see you cry
You can take it
Don't let it get you down
You can take it
And if it hurts
Don't let them see you cry
You can take it
And if they stare
Just let them burn their eyes
On you moving
And if they shout
Don't let them change a thing
What you're doing
Just let them burn their eyes
On you moving
And if they shout
Don't let them change a thing
What you're doing
Thank you for this :)
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