How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways....
Yes, I hate Mondays. No, let me clarify that. I have this evil vortex of bad juju that spills down across my life and anything I touch on Mondays. I don't know why. My usual plan is to keep my head low, duck and weave, and hopefully make it to Tuesday without too much mayhem and carnage. I don't dwell on the whys and wherefores.
Against my better judgement I accompanied KD to the hospital today because... well I'm on pins and needles waiting to find out about his blood tests and bone marrow test. No results on that. His blood test showed his white cell count was slightly back up so he's at least off the neutropenic diet and back to normal food. But the bone marrow test will be back first thing Tuesday. He's due to start the next chemo cycle Tuesday but they don't want to do that until the bone marrow biopsy is back in.
Good gravy. Well we still had to sit around because he needed that second unit of blood. I guess the hospital has worked out where mistakes have happened and have all this protocol in place to stop it from happening again. So when they're about to give blood, there are two nurses there going through steps like a couple of British navy men doing cannon drill. (If you've been out to the fort in St. Augustine and watched them set off the cannons, you kow what I mean. Except there wasn't a loud bag after of course. Duh!)
It was packed at Shands today because of Monday. In the waiting room was a young-ish guy and his girlfriend looking like it was their first day as out-patients. KD thinks the guy was across the hall from him in the in-patient ward. I'm sure we looked that nervous and reality-challenged our first day in again after KD's release too. They say he was discharged but that sounds too much like puss or phlegm so I don't call it that. Eeeew, why did I have to say that?
Most patients go to the "infusion room" for treatment. It's a big room with reclining chairs around it, each with a curtain divider which no one ever closes. So you basically get to see everyone getting blood or an IV drip or chemo or whatever. They have this big thing that looks like a fridge but it's actually a blanket warmer. KD likes those. A toasty blanket puts him right to sleep :-)
Anyway, in the infusion room, it's a little like AA or group therapy because you talk to the other patients and their families because it's dull watching an IV drip for hours. So when a regular has a problem or a setback it's kind of depressing to everyone else.
There's this one big guy who looks like he was a football player in his distant past. They discovered he had an irregular heartbeat today and had the ER come up and get him. We all sat there for a half hour while they were arranging his departure. For a half hour we all sat listening to his heart monitor and the not-quite-regular beat of his ticker. Everyone was listening. We couldn't NOT listen. Everyone felt it. The bump-bump-BUMP-wait-for-it-bump that was the man's heart .. his actual heart... not functioning right. I mean .. his heart! Can you imagine that? You only have one of those, and if it stops working right, you're out of luck.
He was doing his best to look calm so his wife would stop pretending (badly) to be calm. But you could feel it much louder than the heart monitor. Everyone felt it. Not just for the guy with the heart beat broadcast around the room. And not just for the wife in her sweater set and slacks, clutching her purse. And no, each person wasn't worried just for their own hearts either. I'm not lying. You could feel it in the room. Each person was worried about everyone else in the room. Even after that guy and his wife took the trip to the ER and someone else was in his seat. You could feel it. This is the good stuff. This was real love for fellow man.
So before I get even soppier, I'll stop with the original poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I still hate Mondays, but this is the real stuff that people feel about each other when they forget to be petty and self-involved.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
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