You walk down hallways, through locked doors that open magically
IF the Time Is Right. Doors that make a very distinctive magic opening sound no less impressive than Dorothy entering the grand hallway to see the Wizard. You have entered the inner sanctum—a honeycomb of similar rooms with similar equipment all opening into the one big circular hallway wrapping around the giant nurses' station hub where doctors sit with charts and make important decisions, and staff discusses the latest gossip, diets, and American Idol. I try to keep my gaze straight and lowered, respecting the patients in their honeycomb cells and the “loved ones” with them—tho I'm amazed when from the corner of my eye I spot a solitary visitor sitting far from the bedside, reading the newspaper. It is a blip on my radar that I find a bit painful. If you don't want to be here, could I please have your token so that I could have a little more time here in the Land of Oz? I continue walking past without expectation.
As I'm ushering one family member through the gauntlet to Rich's bedside, she remarks on how different these rooms are from regular hospital rooms. The Large room with a full glass wall facing the nurses' desk and the HUGE doorways. I explain the necessity of monitoring and the large openings are so they can quickly get all the equipment and personnel in the room if the patient Codes. I hear her gasp and I quickly assure her.. “No, really, that's a good thing”.
I catch snippets of staff conversation and smile. This is, after all, their workday, this is normal for them. I take an odd comfort in knowing that this is normal for SOMEONE. I just wish they would talk a bit quieter so as not to distract the doctors with the charts making important decisions. My life hangs on such decisions.
The mystery of MICU is that given the time spans between brief visits, you never know what you will find.
One visit I found him upgraded to a nasal cannula for oxygen, vitals on the monitor nearly meeting goal, eyes open and bright, a smile for me. He was too tired to talk much, but he managed to assure me he would be okay. Six hours later and he was back on a re-breather mask, the monitor kept alarming and he did not respond to my touch, my voice or my tears. You learn to use the long walk in this gated community to breathe deeply and prepare yourself for whatever awaits you.
For the most part, the nurses avoid being in the room during visiting minutes. Maybe they're respecting your privacy, maybe they're afraid you'll ask questions. Let's face it, if your nursing choice is the high stress of MICU, conversation is not a priority for you.
He was always freshly bathed before the visiting hour. I used to bathe patients and I could tell. Everything fresh, bedding neatly arranged and the barest waft of baby powder when I leaned in close to kiss his ear. At one visit there was an odd shift in his posture I couldn't quite put my finger on. The nurse explained he had lost bowel control and asked to be positioned on a bed pan during the visiting hour “so people wouldn't know and there wouldn't be such a mess”. I had two different nurses quote that exactly to me.
In between the brief windows of visiting, I sat in the MICU waiting room. There was no masseuse, manicurist, or the lovely assembly line in Wizard of Oz, preparing one to walk the gauntlet. Not that I expected such a thing, of course, I just happened to notice their absence.
I made the acquaintance of a very nice Amish family who's 20yr old son was in a coma (for two weeks) from a single car accident—he was driving. Most of my time there I spent alone, which I welcomed, but I suspect they found my solitude troubling--the Amish being programmed to community, and the Irish being left to the solitary. It is amazing what voids are bridged in such circumstances. They shared their story with me and inquired politely of mine. You build strange relationships in the MICU waiting room. For some of us it is a home away from home. For others it is a brief holding pattern before touch down; and for a few it is a major, annoying intrusion to their busy lives that must be endured and departed as quickly as possible. It's amazing what you can learn about a person from one side of a cell phone conversation.
I made best friends with the coffee machine. It became a deep and meaningful relationship.
By the third day I stopped living in fear of visiting the restroom lest a doctor might come looking for me to share information. The flow of my bladder was far more reliable than the flow of information. You grow up hard and fast in the MICU waiting room.
I hated the wall of glass between our chilled room of hard seats and the hallway where doctors and staff and the occasional lost visitor walked past, looking in on us like we were freaks in a side show. Except the doctors. They ALWAYS averted their gaze from our wreckage—their discomfort was palpable. I learned early on to sit with my back to the glass wall lest I catch a glimpse of one of Rich's doctors and get hopeful they might have a word for me.
I filled the hours between “the precious minutes” with knitting, or writing, with silent meditation woven through it all. I have a beautiful crystal rosary that I still cherish these many years after I proved to be a horrible failure to the Catholic Church—no hard feelings. I said My Version of the Rosary several times (I'm faithful to the Hail Marys, but I get real creative on the in-between parts). Mostly I sent Reiki to Rich, and his care givers, and the Amish boy and his family, the new babies in my life and the ones on the way.
I remembered what I learned from Richard Bach.....There's No Such Place as Far Away... It didn't matter where I was, I was still with him. It didn't matter if I could see, or know or even understand what was happening at any given moment. All that mattered was that Rich had decided to fight, and I was his wing man, and a wing man doesn't fly in the same plane.
Pardon the “TOP GUN” reference, but I'm asking Santa for a green T-shirt with the word “GOOSE” in gold on the back. Don't think I haven't called Santa into the mix!!
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