For two weeks I have been in intensive rehab care for a spinal compression fracture in my lower back. I’m home now and continuing to heal as I reflect on my experience. I have learned how enlivening it is to laugh and to remember that, in addition to efficient and capable staff, there is also a patient with a voice in the bed.
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VITALITY: How vital am I? The number of times in a 24-hour cycle someone enters your room while you are in the hospital and feeling drained of energy maybe even of blood itself, can actually cause me to feel devitalized! Oh, some are very polite and kind and ask you if they can “check your vitals” —place an oximeter on your finger and tighten a blood pressure cuff on your arm. Still, you know it will happen whether you consent or not, and even if you are sound asleep. You know you will be judged uncooperative and perhaps resistant to treatment if you refuse. Still, I have a voice, enough to persuade the night nurse to tell them to let me sleep through the whole night after lights out at 11 p.m. till dose #1 at 6 a.m. “She needs to sleep to get well!” She is respected. I have a nurse-friend who can rise above the rigidity of “validity” just for my sake this night. Thank you!
PILLS: Countless in a wee paper cup. These pills come in and go out. Most of them I recognize, like old friends. Nurses are able to recite each one and its worth, also the identity and purpose of any new one, such as a probiotic to guard against a small dose of antibiotics. I do wonder how all these pills can travel my one digestive tract, each discerning its correct healing mission for my lungs, and my back pain, and my aging bones. Like an infant, I trust.
INFANCY: Language thereof. The cries of the aging as each one recedes from full vitality and joins the process of dying, which is like the process of being born into the world and out of the safe warmth of the womb. First there is profound silence, then a touch and yowl of protest—a wail that says, Listen to me, my heart. I’m here. Quickly we hear Touch me. Then Warm me. Then, Swaddle me I’m cold. Then, Take me home now. Cuddle me. And soon Feed me. Suckle me at my mother’s breast or with the fake but nourishing nipple of a bottle and security of a diaper. And at last, the silence of deep sleep, contentment. Let me sleep now.
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Dying and birthing are similar transitional processes. I believe that divine love is present at birth and at death—to welcome, listen, swaddle, warm, touch, feed, pray, and let be, which is not the same as let go.
