IT'S ALIVE!!!

And by it, I mean me! 

I’m home, appendix free and with my brand new semi colon.  There is still a lot of pain and swelling, but I have never been more grateful to be home in my entire thirty-eight years of life.

Home is nothing short of pure bliss right now, and I promise to never complain about my kitchen again. 

Okay.  I promise to never complain about my kitchen again at least until the end of the month.

Here’s what I need to tell you about hospitals; (I used a semi colon there just for irony – thanks A!)

There are many wonderful people inside hospitals.  

Hospitals are one of the most horrible places on earth.

I spent three and a half days in a highly reputable Atlanta area hospital, 24 hours of which I was so strung out on anesthesia and pain meds I slept and vomited my way through them.  And I NEVER WANT TO GO BACK.

We have excellent healthcare available in America, and I am fully aware of the lack of healthcare many people face in developing countries.  My surgery and consequent hospital stay were in a facility I’m incredibly blessed to have such easy access to, and there were hundreds of others there receiving quality care at the same time I was.  The doctors and nurses were trained professionals, educated in some of the most widely respected medical schools in the world.  I had my own recovery room, complete with a bed, full bathroom, and a television, and I had access to any medicines or health products I could have needed at the push of a button.  Someone came in each day to clean my room, and offered to use only soap and water because of my nausea.  Someone came in each day to deliver my liquid only meals, and didn’t say a thing when he had to remove them an hour later untouched.  Someone delivered me one foot away from the car door in a wheelchair upon my discharge. 

I. Am. So. Grateful.

And yet, I NEVER WANT TO GO BACK.

I know there are children who will not get a meal today, liquid or otherwise.  I know there are babies who won’t get the medicines they need.  I know they are people who haven’t showered in three days and feel as disgusting as I did but won’t get to shower for how knows how long because they don’t have a shower or a house or food or a bed or a television or a hospital.  Please know I KNOW these things and I am so grateful. 

But y’all, hospitals are truly horrible places, and after three and a half days in one, I think America can do better.

Hospitals are supposed to be places of healing.

How can healing come when medicines are being pumped into a body that can’t take them?  When the patient, in fact, has to be the one to suggest perhaps all the heavy-duty pain meds on a continuous drip into a body that hasn’t consumed food in days might be what is causing all the nausea?  When the patient, who thankfully was coherent enough to speak and think for herself (not always the case in hospitals) has to ask if we can just try something by mouth instead?  (Advil is working just fine, my friends, and the nausea was gone almost as soon as that pain pump was removed – I really should have gone to med school, don’t you think?)

How can healing come when one person enters a room where a patient is trying to rest every couple of hours to listen to her heart and bowel sounds (it sounds like a hot tub down there in case your curious - the neighbors can hear my bowel sounds right now without a stethoscope), and then another person comes in every couple of hours, BUT NEVER AT THE SAME TIME, to take the patient’s pulse, blood pressure, and temperature?  Thinking maybe that could be the same person, since the entire process would then take a total of three minutes instead of two minutes but everything would be done at once, instead of every stinking hour throughout the entire stinking night? 

Just a thought.

Along those same lines, they could use a few more classes on time management and multitasking in nursing school, in my opinion.  Please be aware that this very humble opinion comes from someone totally and completely inadequate as a caregiver who could never be a nurse in her life and thank you to that wonderful man who held the barf bag for me and cheered for me every time I vomited into it like I had just finished a marathon.  Still, I’m pretty sure there is someone out there who could train nurses to be able to get both a bandaid and a cup of ice at the same time, preferably within less than seventy minutes.  (Just so you understand I'm not trying to be ungrateful - this was not a one time incident - this happened with every nurse, every time, with everything I needed.)

How can healing come when the food given to someone who just had almost a foot of her colon removed is full of artificial colors, flavors, preservatives and even sweeteners?  Seriously?  Italian Ice and orange Jello for someone who wants to get healthy and never have to go back to the hospital – are you kidding me?

I'm home, and although I know it is wrong, I am finding great joy in my circumstances today.  I’ve showered.  I’ve brushed my teeth and combed my hair and even had a cup of coffee with my creamer that has nothing whatsoever artificial in it.  I’ve taken a few more Advil and I’m resting comfortably in a chair in my home, and I am so very grateful.  There are people in downtown Atlanta who didn’t get to leave that hospital yesterday.  There are people all across the world who don’t have a hospital and need one.

I will remember the man who held the bag and cheered for me as I threw up into it.  I will remember the woman who offered to clean my room with only soap and water.  I will remember the nurse who told me I looked so much better when I could only have looked so much worse.  I will remember the boy who delivered my food and encouraged me to eat my grits. I will remember how lucky I am to have access to doctors with the amazing abilities to provide a higher quality of life for me.  And when I look at the six incisions across my stomach, I will forever remember what a true blessing it is to have wonderful friends who cared enough to pray for me, and a family to come home to when the worst was over.

Thank you, God, for hospitals.  Thank you for all the nurses and doctors who work in them.  Thank you for those unseen in the hospitals – the ones who prepare food and deliver equipment and test blood and stock rooms.  Thank you for medicine.  Thank you for life.  Thank you for friends, for family, and today, maybe more than any day I’ve ever known, thank you, God,

 for home.

Bring On the Semi-Colon!

Surgery is a very interesting thing.  The anxiety dreams I’ve been having are nothing short of hilarious. The brain is miraculous, the way it weaves your fears into a film that plays on repeat while you sleep.  I’ve been late for the surgery, failed to do the prep work for the surgery, and forgotten the surgery altogether, all in the middle of the night over the course of the last week.  And in the grand finale of all surgery anxiety dreams . . . last night there were no operating rooms available, so my doctor threw me over his shoulder, my gown blowing wide open to reveal everything I never want revealed, and carried me on a trip around the OUTSIDE of the hospital to find another location to do his job.  Pretty sure that one’s never happened before, which I suppose just goes to show my brain might be slightly . . . ‘abnormal’ is the first word that comes to mind, but in the name of that whole self-love thing, let’s go with ‘creative.’

Surgery is a lot like pregnancy, I’ve learned.  It ignites an intense desire to nest.  I forced my family to cut short our Christmas trip to the lake so I could come home and get things in order before my three to four day stint in the hospital.  Not sure exactly what I’m afraid of – do I think my home and family will crumble without me?  Is my husband not capable of putting away the Christmas decorations and returning the too-large Christmas clothes and helping the kids write thank-you notes and cleaning the toilets and doing the laundry and vacuuming the basement and painting the powder room because the color is slightly too dark and has been bothering me for months and HOW MANY THINGS CAN I GET DONE BEFORE THIS SURGERY??? 

My husband is very capable.  Well, at least up until the part about painting the powder room.

Of course, my real fear has nothing to do with forgetting to arrive at the hospital on time or failing to clean out the fridge before my 4-6 week recovery period begins.  My real fear is that I might die on that operating table today because bad things happen. 

I know, I know. I could die any day of the week in a car accident or crossing the street or choking on a piece of chicken.  But today, the possibility of death seems just too close. There will be anesthesia and several hours of surgery to remove part of my colon and my appendix and several days in the hospital where people have pneumonia and the staff bacteria thrives and you just never know. 

Bad things happen.

It always sucks the air out of a mother’s lungs when she imagines the thought of leaving her children, but when your children are 8 and 10, like mine, you can’t help but let your mind wonder to the fact that they will likely remember very little of me if I do die in that hospital today.  And that stops my breath altogether.

I keep thinking of the millions of things I still want to do with them.  The millions of memories we still have to make.  The millions of things I still need to tell them.  And just in case I’m out of time, I’m going to tell them one thing, right here, right now.

Be love, my darlings.

BE LOVE.

Be love to your family and friends.  Be love to teachers and classmates.  Be love to people who serve you meals and people who ring up your purchases and people who cut your hair.  Be love to your future college roommates and your future spouses and your future children.  Be love to those you disagree with and those who make choices you don’t understand.  Be love to strangers in your city and the sick all over the country and the hurting from one end of the earth to the other. 

Be love.  The world is seeking it and you can be people who share it.  Sometimes, it will be hard.  Sometimes, you will have to search deep in your heart to find love for someone, because sometimes, people seem unlovable.  But God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son to die for them (John 3:16) and He is love and He showed us how to love and we have His love and we can BE HIS LOVE to everyone we encounter.

I’m sure I’ll be coming home at the end of the week.  I doubt the toilets will be clean, but I know my family and home will be happy and healthy, despite my absence.  I will be sore and tired and incredibly grateful the hard part is over.

But just in case . . .

Be love.