HOSPITAL OBSERVATIONS

Health is not valued till sickness comes. – Dr. Thomas Fuller (1654–1734)

This morning I was riding down the elevator in the hospital where my father-in-law has been this past week. Sharing my elevator was a nurse who got on at the second floor. Obstetrics. I had come down from the 5th floor, where the cardiac patients are kept. We were heading for the ground floor, destination…the cafeteria.

She said to me, “I hope they haven’t closed yet.” I told her we still had five minutes. She said, “Oh, do you work here?” I said, no, I don’t, but hang around here long enough and you get to know the rhythms of the place.

My father-in-law, at 84, is struggling with the weight of the years. Her floor deals with the opposite end of life.

I wandered through there a couple days ago, looking through the windows of a room where they keep the premature babies in little see-through plastic cribs under what look like heat lamps. They are tiny, struggling for their shot at life. A beginning.

Last night outside the main entrance I saw a woman sitting on a wooden bench, staring out into the darkness. In her eyes was the weight of her burden, her concern. I have seen her wandering the halls inside. She has someone on the 5th floor, too.

On the other side of the main entrance, about 20 feet to the south, was another woman. She was wearing a hospital gown. She had come outside to smoke a cigarette.

As I walk past her on my way back into the hospital I remember reading somewhere that the broadcast report (on CBS Radio) of the news of Edward R. Murrow’s death from lung cancer was followed by a cigarette commercial.

(To email Brad click on his picture above right and click Email)