Hospital Room

I just spent 21 hours in a hospital room watching over my  mom. That wasn’t long,  I know people who for weeks on end, have sat by someone they love, sponging hands and faces, feeding with a spoon and watching respirations.  They live in sweat  pants, acclimate to the ebbing 12-hr shift cycles, learn the names of the staff and eat out of coolers.

My 21 hours wasn’t even 2 cycles of the room. But it was long  enough to see where I was. And maybe who I am.

During visits, Mom was engaged and talkative. Then she’d rest. In between, our dialogue meandered, “Hand me a tissue.” “Did you call
Merle?” “That nurse looks like Jean?” And she talked; UNC  basketball, stories about my father, and details of death . Then she’d close her eyes and tilt her
head left.

I sat and looked around the quiet room. It  was a logistical marvel. There were 20 or more electrical outlets – not spaced  around the baseboard – but  clustered in banks midway up the wall. They were arranged this way for machines; pumps, monitors, the mechanical bed. Mom’s not hooked up to machines. Except for oxygen,  ‘built-in’ –  supplied through an ‘outlet’.

The room was designed to cycle life:

• For nutrients, fluids and meds – there were ceiling
  hooks and hangers.
• For waste – there were hooks along the bottom of her bed.
• For supervision – there were trees and hangers for monitors.
• For protection – a call remote,  a rack of latex gloves, a hand-sanitizing dispenser and a biological waste container.
• For company – a phone, a TV, chairs that folded out into a bed.
• For privacy – a curved curtain rack.

Through a 4 ft door revolved a myriad human care teams; food service, house-cleaning, RNs, NAs, MDs, residents. In the 21 hours, at least 12
different staff came through the door.

I sat like a time-lapse camera. I began to realize how truly massive is human need. And I saw how God made the world like that room – designed to sustain massive human need. And I saw, though ambulatory, I am like my mom – dependent and needy.

Sleep mom. God knows our needs.

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