chapter 12: part 4

continued from chapter 12: part 3

Once you're settled in the hospital room, you have to establish your own kind of routine for those hours spent in that tiny room. Everything is predicated on the doctor’s visits—that person is your pipeline. The first time Hal was admitted to hospital, I felt doubly stressed, dealing not only with what was happening to him but also by trying to find little nuggets of information from "outside" to bring in each day.

Eventually we found our own rhythm. If he felt well enough, he'd get the washing and shaving out of the way before I arrived and he always recognized the sound of my footsteps coming down the hall. I'd kiss him, we'd tell one another anything that was new, and I'd hand him the morning paper. Then, while he settled in with the newspaper, I'd take care of anything that required immediate attention, like collecting his personal laundry or re-arranging his pillows or straightening his sheets, or paying for another week of telephone and television rental. That man didn't just read the newspaper, he blotted up every word and he read me snippets of news while I knitted. I knitted like a woman possessed and every member of the family ended up with a sweater during those periods. In our own way, we found a domestic and comfortable routine.

We took daily walks up and down the corridor; Hal pushing his intravenous pole ahead of him and I tugging at his robe that we never could get on properly over his intravenous lines. Sometimes we sat in the small lounge to watch the baseball game, just for a change of scene. Patients who are more fit can roam about more, visiting the cafeteria, or at this particular hospital, sit out on the front lawn and get some sun.

Hal was a nut about personal hygiene, especially wanting clean hair and I shampooed him in some strange spots. The shower room was always my idea of instant hell. Despite the pleading hand-written notes on the wall, people did not take away their sopping bandages, band-aids, wet towels and stained nightshirts. Certainly the cleaners didn’t bother. God I hated that.

One thing about being a "regular"--you know the location of the valuable laundry cart. As I recall, it came to the floor once a day and that was that until the next day. Weekends were worse. The cart came to the floor on Friday and the next one wouldn’t be in until Monday. I learned to check out that cart in anticipation of a linen emergency and I always stashed an extra nightshirt in case of need.

continued in chapter 12: part 5