Tight Quarters!!!

Recovery was going to be more difficult this time.  Not only did he undergo a major surgical procedure, but he did it in a compromised state.  For the last 2 and half months he had been very sick, and he had lost a lot of weight.  His little body was already sick and tired before the operation, so that made healing from surgery just that much more difficult. 

It seemed like time was on our side.  With a lot of patience, things would get better.  Besides, it is absolutely amazing how quickly infants are able to heal.  It is really incredible how babies can be so fragile yet so strong at the same time.  In a few days he would be eating and gaining weight.  Then we would be going home.  We were so close to this all being over.  I felt hopeful for the first time in a long time.

As I sat watching Christopher sleep, I looked around the room.  Three other children, all in their respective corners, were enduring their own private nightmares.  Three other sets of parents were doing their best to console their children while feeling completely inadequate and useless at the same time.  I recognized the look on their faces.  It was the same one I was wearing.

Christopher stayed in a crib like this one.

There were no private rooms on this floor.  When you were admitted, you were assigned to one of three possible room types. There were 2 bed, 4 bed, and isolation rooms.  The 2 and 4 bed rooms really didn't seem to be designed for that many patients.  Even though the patients were small, the rooms were even smaller, and it made the possibility of patient privacy and parental sanity absolutely impossible.  I found that the 2 bed rooms were tolerable, but the 4 bed rooms were just over the top craziness!  Just imagine being in a tiny room (really designed for 2 patients) with four sick, crying children and anywhere from four to eight parents plus an occasional visitor or two.  How anyone was supposed to endure this amount of commotion, not to mention heal from a surgical procedure or illness, was beyond my understanding.  It made a bad situation even worse!

On the other hand, isolation rooms offered somewhat of a mixed blessing.  If you were assigned to an isolation room, you had the benefit of a private room, but the unhappy reality that your child had some type of contagious disorder that required isolation from all the other patients on the floor.   Gowns, masks, and a strict hand washing regimen were also required in these rooms.  Privacy and some peace and quiet hardly seemed worth the price of admission.

For some reason, I'm not sure why, I came to call these rooms "2 bangers" and "4 bangers."  It all started one day when my mom called.  We were in a 4 bed room.  There was so much going on in there and so much noise that she asked me where I was.  For some reason I told her that I was in this "stupid 4 banger."  She laughed because she knew exactly what I was talking about.  It was so loud at the time.  The noise was literally banging inside my head!I'm not kidding!  It was ridiculous!  She wanted to know what was going on.  I told her...the usual.  Lots of kids were crying, screaming, and throwing up.  There were lots of parents who were doing their best, but who were busy falling apart, wringing their hands, and wondering how this all could possibly be happening to them.  Then there were the doctors.  It was early in the morning, and that meant "rounds."  That's when gangs of doctors in white coats move from room to room and patient to patient discussing symptoms, diagnosis possibilities, and treatment protocols.  Add a few nurses into the mix, and I counted over 20 people in the room.  I guess it was no surprise that she thought I was at some rock concert or something.  It was just too many people in too little space. 

Needless to say, the sheer logistics of the rooms didn't make for a very soothing and healing environment.  It was extremely tight quarters!  The decorator who designed these rooms obviously NEVER spent any time there.  Looking around the room it looked more like the old circus act- "how many clowns can you fit in a "Volkswagen Bug?" then a hospital room.  I thought I had left the circus at home, but I guess it was playing at the hospital too. 

On the bright side, at least he didn't have some horrible, contagious disease that required lots of hand washing and isolation.  Although, I think both of us would have welcomed the peace and quiet.  For now, this was home, but it was only temporary...right???


 If you have never accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you can pray like this:

More tomorrow...