Resting in the Hospital

After returning home triumphantly from a 15-day stint in the hospital, Jared is doing much better. Although there is a road ahead involving convalescence at home for quite some time, the fact that we are home is enough to make our dog dance and sing with joy.

Now, you might well remember the days when people used to 'check into the hospital for a rest'. I recall hearing older people say that when I was just a kid. Now that I am an adult, I think they were either kidding or hospitals have changed a great deal since then.

During Jared's tenure in the hospital, sleep was at a premium. Between the caregivers and nursing staff coming in to ensure the healing and maintain the wound for a very sick boy, there was a 24-hour hum of activity that would have rivaled the nearest beehive.

That level of sustained interest in his behalf is important to a critically needy patient. That is why we have trained professionals who can intervene in a crisis and help the body to begin the process of healing and repair.

But I have to tell you, it can take a toll on the participants, both the patient and those who only stand and wait.

I recall at another juncture when Jared was in the hospital following another major surgical procedure. The nurses would cheerfully perform their tasks at all hours of the day and night to ensure that our little man was doing well and keeping all of the important numbers critical to his improvement heading in the right direction.

We had been up and down so many times during the intervening nights, that not only were we seeing ourself coming and going, but we were beginning to talk to the passing selves as if it were a routine matter.

A chipper young nurse, who looked like a teenager in Snoopy scrubs, came in to collect a blood sample for the vampires in the lab. Flipping on the room's lights to apparently guide a 747 in for a landing near Jared's bed, she happily announced that she was there for a blood sample.

Only people who have 'enjoyed' their restful stay in a hospital will be able to appreciate this...

I groggily raised up from the chair/bed in the room and said, "Take his blood, take my blood, take all the blood in the room, but PLEASE do it quietly and turn OFF THE LIGHTS!"

She looked stunned as if the mode of her work had been assaulted.

After that, I noticed the other nurses didn't turn on the runway lights when they came in anymore. It didn't shorten his stay, but it made the night time a little less brilliantly lit.

This time, the room he was in following the latest procedure had been renovated to include special 'night time' lights. Less bright than the L-4 runway lights, it still allows the workers to do what they need to do without roasting the retinas of any unsuspecting patient or parent who might be trying to catch 40 winks between the incessant beeping of the pulse oximeter or the IV pump.

I honestly believe the IV pump Jared had this time was haunted. As soon as the nurses would set it up, get all required medicines flowing and leave the room, the tender beckoning beeping would begin. Trust me, had I known how to operate the myriad layers of instruction that are required for this pump, I would have silenced the beep.

As it was, that particular skill is best left to the professionals who know what to do without employing a baseball bat to accomplish it.

I cannot express the joy that accompanied the announcement that Jared no longer needed continuous IV's. It was like Christmas arriving early! Though he still had to maintain a line for the antibiotics, they were only given a couple of times a day.

The very last day in the hospital, one of the über-efficient nurses came in and saw that we were down to our last little sack of antibiotics and hooked up the lines to dribble the medicine in with a normal saline flush to accompany the medicine. She cheerfully commented that 'this will only take about 30 minutes or so to complete'.

The machine beeped for 29 of those minutes...

Thankfully we are home.

And though I was awakened several times during the night for phantom beeping that is most certainly a remnant of our haunting... we are home.

Thank God for hospitals when we need them and the caring people who make sure we can receive the help we need when we need it.

But thank God also for a quiet home where rest can happen. Because phantom beep or not, you just can't rest in a hospital - there are too dang many sick people and too much interruption to get any sleep at all.