Published: August 27, 2009 07:46 pm      

So far so good; now it’s time to hang in there!

Everything you could possibly think of, I thought I thought of.

That would include losing my balance, forgetting to use my walker, thoughtlessly kneeling on my new knee at church, crashing into things out joyriding in my wheelchair. What I didn’t think of was having the whole knee replacement start to work well — and then getting an infection in it!

Not my idea at all.

But that’s what happened. A few days after I got back home, I went for physical therapy — and the therapist looked at my knee in horror. “That’s not right,” he said. You were right, John; thanks for catching it!

Within a few hours, back I went to the hospital and another five days of intense antibiotic treatment there and IV antibiotics twice a day for 10 days after that, along with other antibiotics here and there along the way.

Yep, it was a scary time.

Fortunately, as I write this, all seems well that ends well, though we won’t know for sure for awhile. Meanwhile, I have to get a column out. Have you already guessed what this one’s about?

Hospitals, mainly. And any similarity between this column about hospitals and any other columns I have written in the past about hospitals, is probably not that coincidental.

Several good things have come out of all this. As I’ve said before, Memorial Hospital has these wonderful plastic bags to hold your belongings in when you go home, and they are great for the permanent storage of your taxes. I now have enough tax bags to last me through 2012, and you can’t imagine what a relief that is.

Visitors, flowers, cards, new acquaintances — it seems a pity one is not at one’s best to experience all these wonderful developments. Somehow, when your hair is a week past wash-due date, and you have to make sure when leaving the bathroom in your hospital johnny, that your back is not turned to the open door (just in case Prince Charming might be walking by in the hall), you miss some of the fun. But that’s OK.

Because the most important thing I noticed this time was similar to what I have always noticed about Cumberland’s hospitals in the past, and I’ve had a good deal of experience with them They may both be old enough to be replaced, but one thing I surely do hope they move into the new one, right along with everything else, is — well how do I put this?

The niceness.

By the end of my treatment, I will have had to visit both hospitals on a fairly daily basis for treatment for several weeks now, and the one thing that stands out is this: not one single person I have met so far was anything less than welcoming. Not one single person did not smile at me; not one single nurse, doctor, office worker, food person, or housekeeper did not make me feel cared about as well as cared for. (Oh, yes, Happy Retirement, Jenny!)

Hey, I’m not saying they actually all cared about me for every second of the day — I’m just saying that was the feeling I got. (I would say almost the same for physical therapy, except they have to be cruel there, of course.)

Niceness is undervalued, these days. Just the word makes a lot of people snicker. Some folks think being nice is some kind of weakness and they wouldn’t be caught dead in that state of mind. But none of them seem to work at the local hospitals. At least I didn’t meet anybody like that. Even my daughter from out of town remarked about it. “How come they’re not like this down in Washington?” she wanted to know.

After I got out of the hospital the second time, I needed some rides for my antibiotic IVs. And there they were again — the nice people, six good friends volunteering to save my intown daughter from having to get up every single morning at 5 a.m. to cart me around to the hospitals, not to mention every evening.

There are several pictures I will take with me from this experience. One is ED, the volumetric infusion pump, who supplied my IV experience for several days at Braddock Campus, until one day I think he collapsed from the pressure. ED was scribbled across his side in Magic Marker, and I am told it meant Emergency Department, but he will always be good old ED to me. (”You know you need help,” one nurse said kindly, “when you start naming the equipment.”)

Another is the constant chirp of IV machines that have run out. Close your eyes and you can easily imagine yourself lying, dreaming, in some sun-drenched pasture listening to the lazy distant sounds of late summer all about you.

Well, that’s if you are a very peculiar person, as some of us are.

Memorial Campus has a lovely little bulletin board in a waiting room, all decorated with flowers and lists of healthy fruits, vegetable, grains, and legumes. Written on it is “Love your colon.” A colon is not a pretty thing, and neither can be some stays at the hospital. But the caring, helping people who work there make it in some ways a beautiful experience, no matter how things turn out in the end.

Maude McDaniel is a Cumberland freelance writer. Her column appears on alternate Sundays in the Times-News.