Maternity wards are not exactly the most peaceful of places to spend your day. Especially if you are a Nosocomephobiac such as myself.
Nosocomephobia - The fear of hospitals. Just in case you didn't know. Thank you Google.
The women screaming and sometimes crying and the "Mama! Mama! Mama! Pleeeeease just let me die's!" are enough to run even the sanest of men up the wall. And I'm already not all that sane.
Thankfully though, I'm not here to watch anyone pop out a baby. In fact, I'm here to visit the woman who popped me out. It was a minor surgery. Nothing major. She's doing great. The wound is clean, the wound is dry. Apparently you cant even see the incision. She gets discharged tomorrow.
When we pulled into the gate of St. Mary's Hospital Lacor this morning I felt all the familiar dread descend upon me. Every breath felt like I was inhaling the sickness of every admitted patient while exhaling every crumb of health bouncing around inside of me. And this was even before entering the actual hospital. When we did actually enter it (it was unavoidable after all) a gang of weird smells assaulted my nostrils; anti-septics and anti-biotics and the such like jousting with septic wounds, bacterial infections and other such things that just thinking about bring bile to the back of my throat.
But this is my mother, the woman who gave birth to me and so I have to be here. Initially I was worried that I would enter her room and she would be a shadow of her vibrant, smiling, talkative, wonderful self. I needn't have been worried. The surgery was on Friday morning and the weekend has been enough time for her to recuperate considerably. More than anything, she looks as if she's just chilling in bed on a quiet Saturday morning. The only real signs of sickness are the plaster and IV pin in her left hand and the slowness and caution she takes to get out of bed and walk across the room whenever she gets up to go to the bathroom. She holds her stomach where the incision was made whenever she does because even though she knows it's not the case, she feels like her stomach may fall out of her at any second.
As I type this she is reclining in her bed reading Wessex Tales, a collection of short stories by Thomas Hardy ("But this man also. I'm reading this short story of his that has refused to end. I thought the whole point of a short story is that it is short. But as for this one, nope, it has decided that it's going to go on forever. Kale, let me read.") while my cousin who spent the night with her dozes on the other hospital bed. I brought her a couple of my books to read as well, The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson & Binyanvanga Wainaina's One Day I Will Write About This Place, I wonder which one she will like more.
Now, my mother has always very much been the mistress of her own domain and so has gone to quite some lengths to make sure that her room is less hospital, more homey. The room is full of framed pictures, potted plants and flowers in vases; she even went as far as carrying her TV, her favorite rug and even her bedroom curtains from home.
"I'll recover quicker if I have my things around me to help me take my mind off the fact that I'm lying here stuck in a hospital bed." is what she told me. It seems to be working for her.
It's been a while since I've spent any extended period of time with my Mother and so I plan to relish the next few days with her as she continues to recover and slowly ease herself back into her perpetually busy life.
"Maybe less busy now. I think I'm getting to that age where I need to let up on the gas a little bit. The doctor says that I tend to internalize stress a lot. That it's unhealthy and that I need to find some sort of release. Maybe I'll write. What do you think Lloyd?"
"I think it's a wonderful idea." I told her. And I cant wait to read what she comes up with. And knowing my Mom, it'll be a doozie.
Nosocomephobia - The fear of hospitals. Just in case you didn't know. Thank you Google.
The women screaming and sometimes crying and the "Mama! Mama! Mama! Pleeeeease just let me die's!" are enough to run even the sanest of men up the wall. And I'm already not all that sane.
Thankfully though, I'm not here to watch anyone pop out a baby. In fact, I'm here to visit the woman who popped me out. It was a minor surgery. Nothing major. She's doing great. The wound is clean, the wound is dry. Apparently you cant even see the incision. She gets discharged tomorrow.
When we pulled into the gate of St. Mary's Hospital Lacor this morning I felt all the familiar dread descend upon me. Every breath felt like I was inhaling the sickness of every admitted patient while exhaling every crumb of health bouncing around inside of me. And this was even before entering the actual hospital. When we did actually enter it (it was unavoidable after all) a gang of weird smells assaulted my nostrils; anti-septics and anti-biotics and the such like jousting with septic wounds, bacterial infections and other such things that just thinking about bring bile to the back of my throat.
But this is my mother, the woman who gave birth to me and so I have to be here. Initially I was worried that I would enter her room and she would be a shadow of her vibrant, smiling, talkative, wonderful self. I needn't have been worried. The surgery was on Friday morning and the weekend has been enough time for her to recuperate considerably. More than anything, she looks as if she's just chilling in bed on a quiet Saturday morning. The only real signs of sickness are the plaster and IV pin in her left hand and the slowness and caution she takes to get out of bed and walk across the room whenever she gets up to go to the bathroom. She holds her stomach where the incision was made whenever she does because even though she knows it's not the case, she feels like her stomach may fall out of her at any second.
As I type this she is reclining in her bed reading Wessex Tales, a collection of short stories by Thomas Hardy ("But this man also. I'm reading this short story of his that has refused to end. I thought the whole point of a short story is that it is short. But as for this one, nope, it has decided that it's going to go on forever. Kale, let me read.") while my cousin who spent the night with her dozes on the other hospital bed. I brought her a couple of my books to read as well, The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson & Binyanvanga Wainaina's One Day I Will Write About This Place, I wonder which one she will like more.
Now, my mother has always very much been the mistress of her own domain and so has gone to quite some lengths to make sure that her room is less hospital, more homey. The room is full of framed pictures, potted plants and flowers in vases; she even went as far as carrying her TV, her favorite rug and even her bedroom curtains from home.
"I'll recover quicker if I have my things around me to help me take my mind off the fact that I'm lying here stuck in a hospital bed." is what she told me. It seems to be working for her.
It's been a while since I've spent any extended period of time with my Mother and so I plan to relish the next few days with her as she continues to recover and slowly ease herself back into her perpetually busy life.
"Maybe less busy now. I think I'm getting to that age where I need to let up on the gas a little bit. The doctor says that I tend to internalize stress a lot. That it's unhealthy and that I need to find some sort of release. Maybe I'll write. What do you think Lloyd?"
"I think it's a wonderful idea." I told her. And I cant wait to read what she comes up with. And knowing my Mom, it'll be a doozie.
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