EDITOR’S COLUMN – Contradictions

“Life zips by and next thing you know, you’re laying in a hospital bed.” ~ Grandpa Sam

I spent the last few days in St. Mary’s Hospital with my grandfather. In trying to maintain my sanity, I wrote quite a bit. I’m sharing some of those reflections here this week. Mostly, it’s because I am too tired to write anything else, but I’m also proud of myself for trying to be present in an increasingly complicated family situation. I know it’s not the usual fare, but it’s all I’ve got. Thank you to everyone who has wished Grandpa well, and please forgive us our typos this week, as we forgive the typos of others.

I am listening to Grandpa regale the nurses with tales of hobnobbing with Aspen’s elite back in the golden age of newspaper delivery. Chatting with Goldie Hawn. Fighting with Hunter S. Thompson about paying for his New York Times subscription. People were mostly nice, he says. Some real characters up there.

He’s a character himself, perched in a hospital bed being happy and agreeable, even though he really, really wants to go home to his wife of 57 years. One hospital-issued grippy sock on, one off.

The circumstances are less than ideal, but he is in good spirits, rolling with the punches—or rather, the pokes. A few decades with no medical care whatsoever means multiple IVs, regular blood draws, and tests galore.

While Grandpa has spent his time being (cheerfuly) turned into a human pincushion by exceptionally kind nurses and staff, I’ve spent my time getting repeatedly lost in the hospital. I was not blessed with a sense of direction, but for some reason hospitals make it ten times worse. Crises are also not my strong suit. I much prefer to dissociate, so I’m trying my best to pay attention instead.

On the long and circuitous walks I take trying to find my way back to the right room each day, I reflect. What stands out most to me is that hospitals are places of contradictions.

There’s urgency and emergency, but test results always seem to take days. You’re there to find answers, but sometimes the answer is a specialist referral.

Privacy is of the utmost importance, but also you can’t close the bathroom door and you’re wearing a backless gown for the duration of your stay.

It’s the most real of places, but it’s also stuffed full of fakery. Faux flowers, fuzzy art prints, giant balloons yelling, “GET WELL SOON!” even when the diagnosis is terminal. Even the gift shop is selling soft, fuzzy, exceedingly lifelike “pets” that can breathe but will never be able to open their eyes or lick your face or throw up on your carpet at 3 a.m.

It tries hard, but the fluff can’t quite cover up all the hard, shiny, disinfectable, surfaces, sharp pokey objects, or fluorescent lights that feel like they are burning a layer of your eyeballs off.

First breaths and last breaths. Pain and relief. The best news and the worst, maybe only a few doors apart.

Maybe a hospital is just a very organized, very bureaucratic, very maze-like portal to the next dimension. It most certainly doesn’t feel like reality.

As I write this, sitting in the cafeteria trying to eat a rather small, rather expensive salad, the Guns N’ Roses version of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” comes over the speakers.

Appropriate?

Inappropriate?

I guess it depends who you ask.