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WHAT I LEARNED LYING IN A HOSPITAL BED
But I'm nothing if not ornery, and the moment I was wheeled into intensive care I was lobbying for release. But since no one seemed inclined to let me go (I think I must be a very popular patient), I decided to make the most of the experience and learn all I could -- to be used as blackmail material in a subsequent book. Here are some of my most important discoveries: 1) A patient's personal comfort is not a high priority. I was not gently deposited onto a Sleep Number mattress and allowed to choose my ideal firmness level. A concrete slab has more give and take. 2) To distract the patient from noticing that her pillow is probably registered as a lethal weapon with the FBI, nurses and doctors engage in a sadistic version of Hot Potato. One stays long enough to stick something in you, then quickly exits before you notice and hands you over to the next and the next and the next. Before I could say, "I'm calling the cops," every vein in my body was occupied either giving or receiving. 3) Sleep is for wimpy healthy people. We sturdy death-bed inmates would much prefer a constant barrage of hospital personnel and a chorus of blips and whirs and groans from machinery that obviously wants to be there about as much as the patient does. There's something very disconcerting about listening to the sound of a heart monitor. When I complained about it to the doctor (it was disrupting my enjoyment of Nick at Night), he rolled his eyes and said, "Call me when it shuts up." Which is what, I suppose, he was hoping I'd do someday soon. 4) When a patient actually miraculously manages to doze off, it is hospital policy to awaken to a strange face inches from yours, staring at you intently. It was not all that encouraging that inevitably they'd sigh with relief -- or possibly resignation -- that I was still around to complain about something. 5) After days and days of ignoring a patient's pleas to be fed something that doesn't enter the body through a tube, the doctors and nurses practically make an event out of granting her wish. That is truly payback time. For some reason a party was scheduled to begin 1.5 minutes after they shoved me out the door. As I passed by orderlies and nurses aides, I saw many of them confronting my doctors and nurses and saying, "You saved her." For some reason it sounded a little more accusatory than jubilant. But indeed, those wonderful souls did save me. Considering my chances of making it through the first night were non-existent according to one optimistic doctor, they actually managed to steadily increase my chances every day, and I was walking to my freedom a mere five days after being sent there. They truly were amazing.
The care didn't end with my hospital stay. I returned home to find out that these incredibly special friends had been busy saving my life in other ways while I was on vacation. They came up with wonderfully creative ways to rally the writing community to help defray the staggering hospital bills (My health insurance had run out a few months earlier, and I hadn't scraped up the money to get more before disaster struck) and keep me from worrying that Ross and I were soon going to be out on the streets. The medication I have to take is mind-boggling and expensive, but it's keeping me alive. Our friends made certain I could continue to take it. To not list them among the many people who worked to ensure I'd be around to annoy everyone for a while longer would be a gross oversight. I love them more than I can say. I can never repay their generosity, although I keep trying to come up with creative ways to say what I'm too choked up to say most of the time. I completely understand Lou Gehrig's parting words now. Even if I don't wake up tomorrow, I'll still have felt like the luckiest person on earth. And then to add blessings to blessings, the wonderful ladies at NovelTalk designed this spiffy new website for me. Are they amazing or what? So for any of you who want to complain about any of my upcoming books, you have a plethora of people to choose from. Final self-congratulatory pat on the back. By the second day in the hospital, the tray on my bed was strewn with the galleys for my January book, which were due back to my editor the week I took the unexpected vacation. Any notes I tried to make made absolutely no sense, I'm sure, but I gave it the old college try.
But rest assured, we will live happily ever after. December 27, 2004 |
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As
some of you may know, I recently had something of a scare. Well, I suppose if
you are ranking them on a scale of 1-100, 1 being seeing a cartoon mouse on TV
and 100 being asked what kind of flowers you want at your funeral while the
But
they had help. If it weren't for the dogged persistence of my fiancé, the loving
vigilance of my family, and the incredible support of the greatest friends on
earth, I'd be haunting some poor, unsuspecting sap by now.
The one good thing to come out of this experience was
that I finally accepted my love's marriage proposal. We initially
planned to have the ceremony on January 17th, 2005, but drat it, the courthouse
will be closed because it's a holiday. So we've set an alternative
date and have decided--on the advice of Brad and Jennifer--to not publicize
it because of the constant threat of paparazzi and the relentless press
who insist on using all those pesky helicopters in hopes of snagging a
million dollar tabloid shot of us saying our vows.