“How many desolate creatures on the earth have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort, in a hospital.”~Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Project: Live
I never visited the hospital as frequently as I would for my own sake until now. For the record, I have been to Lorma for the Nth time this month undergoing a series of tests for various abnormalities found in me. Oh yes, this is the "old age package deal", comes in free and handy!
For the four days that I have been going back and forth the second-to-my-most-dreaded-place-on-earth, I quickly and ironically made friends with co-patients and other hospital people who had a lot of various short stories told. Could have been, that my accommodating smile must have magnetized them to me that they were comfortable having short conversations with me - the old woman whose bladder was about to burst from waiting too long with his son accompanying her at the ultrasound room during my chest and abdominal ultrasound, lab nurses and another old woman maybe on her 70's panicking over an early day power outage during my second blood test, two "kulit" kids rioting over another kid's helicopter toy and sneaking laughs with me while waiting for our turn at the family doctor's clinic, a former colleague confirming false (rather absurd) rumors about me during the wait at the clinic too, the OPD nurse who was worried why I was at the hospital again, the OB-Gynecologist who was admiring my pair of leather Keds and compared her pair of red canvass Keds with mine during a Pap's smear test, the pharmacist who said she knew my mother and was a student of my grandmother as I was claiming my Rowachol and Lipitor tablets, the dermatologist who knew about our family's unfortunate 2011 fate and politely asked how we were coping with it, and Ethel, a pawnshop employee same as my age whom I shared the same dilemma with and laughing over them (the baby face and height, that is, haha) while I had clear plastic masking my entire anesthetized face for some urgent cauterization (yes I was not embarrassed, at all, umm, until I realized later on hehe).
It was as if the hospital was home for me during those days, not to mention almost living in it during mommy's critical 17-day stay last year and a series of confinements thereafter; except that I shared this space with others looking for answers, for hopes of cures to treacherously deceiving diseases inflicted on us. It is always a relief that during these unfortunate circumstances, there are other people, stranger or not, whom we share the same sentiments as ours and unburden our loads through stories and experiences we share. The unexplainable comfort the short conversations brought, the little smiles and short gestures of assurances were some of the things we freely offered, hoping that at each others' ends we felt even a miniscule sigh of relief too and realize we are never alone if we reached out.
It was as if the hospital was home for me during those days, not to mention almost living in it during mommy's critical 17-day stay last year and a series of confinements thereafter; except that I shared this space with others looking for answers, for hopes of cures to treacherously deceiving diseases inflicted on us. It is always a relief that during these unfortunate circumstances, there are other people, stranger or not, whom we share the same sentiments as ours and unburden our loads through stories and experiences we share. The unexplainable comfort the short conversations brought, the little smiles and short gestures of assurances were some of the things we freely offered, hoping that at each others' ends we felt even a miniscule sigh of relief too and realize we are never alone if we reached out.
In a couple of days I will be back again for some follow-up check ups. From now on, I will never be afraid of hospitals.
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