Reflection 7 Anchors


I felt untethered in the hospital – adrift and swept away from my world that I had thought was safe and real. Many days I was miserable and afraid. People were nearby, but they were strangers. I found during those times that faith, family, and friends are more valuable than fortune.

When I felt the weakest - from illness, treatment, or when I was hungry – I had many helpful staff persons if not by my side at least within a button press, or, when I couldn’t find the switch, a desperate scream away. They were generally very sweet and tolerant of my less than amicable moods. A night nurse could be a savior when he or she would bring me nourishment (even if that might be just liquids pumped in through a tube). Sometimes just someone coming in and rearranging the sheets (which I always seemed to mangle) could be the high point of my long night and might mean the difference between my drifting off for some escape sleep or staring at the walls all night long. But the people came and went in the night and at shift changes, so I learned better than to get too attached to any individual. Many doctors saw me, and I appreciated their attention, but I often received mixed diagnoses and advice. Right or wrong, I viewed this as their confusion, and not just mine. And although “on call” meant something, it was not enough.

The consistent support from my family meant far more. I could count on my wife to bring in food or wash my hair or find the lost remote when hospital personnel were busy seeing other patients. I could depend on her to correctly re-insert the tube I accidentally yanked out when a nurse wouldn’t do it for fear of some legal repercussion from me if she did it wrong (fortunately for Becah, I may gripe if she erred in replacing my tube but I wouldn’t sue her). I longed for the pictures my kids drew far more than looking at the results of another test that was run on me.

The gifts from family are immeasurable.