December 23
If you’ve ever been hospitalized or stayed to visit any length of time in a hospital, you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say having a small private room is preferable to one that is shared with another sick person. It’s hard enough to deal with the interruptions of your own medical staff and visitors. Not that sharing isn’t a good thing….
When one is sick having personal space aids in the healing process if only psychologically. This hospital opted for private rooms when it was built.
When Doug was transferred from ER to his room on the 4th floor he told the first nurse who knocked on his door, “Welcome to my closet”. Doug wasn’t complaining, he was making his own observation. He also had a high fever!
He asked me if the room had a bathroom. It did but it was behind him as he lay in bed. His bed faced away from the small window and filled the length of the room. The doors into both the bathroom behind him and into the hallway in front of him barely cleared so the doors could open. He felt his feet were sticking out in the hallway!
There was one very large chair in front of the window Doug couldn't see and one straight chair by a closet for his personal things. There was a small 3-drawer chest with the Gideon Bible and the phone on top located to one side of his bed and a bedside service area needed for personal care and for when the food tray was delivered.
We would learn later that the bed was brand new (and thus longer) and that this particular floor had just been remodeled with new paint on the walls, new flooring and a bathroom as nice as on any cruise ship we’ve been on. The room soon became our home away from home.
When the kids from New York arrived on Friday we couldn’t fit another chair into the room. I sat on the side of the bed; one of us stood, or in the case of the kids sat on one another’s lap. Someone up above fixed the space problem for us--unexpectedly.
On Saturday I went into the bathroom and there was water on the floor. I won’t tell you what my first thoughts were….but when I reached for a wash cloth to take to Doug, the cloth was already wet. The two wash cloths and two towels hanging over the towel bar were soaked with water. I looked on the wall above them and water was cascading behind the water-proof paint which was trying its hardest to hold the water back and not let it break through. This gave me a clue that I needed to alert someone right away.
You’ve never seen people move into action as fast as the staff did to remove Doug from that room. In matters of minutes he was in a wheel chair with IV pole and me following. He was wheeled down the hall and into the largest hospital room we have ever seen. It has three windows, one which Doug can look out of from his bed and I can look out from “my” recliner. Another adjacent window lets streams of sunshine in that as long as the shades are adjusted so the light doesn’t hit any of his IV bags the sunshine really lifts Doug’s spirits.
From Doug's bed, he can’t even see the door into the hallway. There is a jog in the wall that is almost like a sitting room one would have in a home. There are three movable chairs and one two-person couch. It is awesome!
And for the record, Bridgette doesn’t work on 5th floor yet!!!! It’s under remodel and no patients or medical staff is housed there during construction. We’ll never know who left the water running or what plumber didn't tighten something on the 5th floor tight enough. What we do know is that one family has more space in which to spend Christmas in the hospital Christmas Eve and Christmas day. We’ve logged another lesson about the way that God provides in unexpected ways.
~Carole
