What in heaven’s name is that?

Yes, frame it. That’s a suggestion I received from a regular reader after my previous post. My faithful fans have permission to take me literally, even when I am engaged in a flight of fancy. If I mentioned taking my last catheter with me as a souvenir, the one the nurse deftly removed from my person, with the thought of having it framed, was that something that was really on my mind at the time? The plain and simple truth was that I was too stressed out to entertain any coherent plan beyond getting myself cleared for discharge and getting the hell out of the hospital, and, therefore, I did not lay claim to this piece of tubing that had played such an important part of my well-being only a few hours before (a/ka, one of those little things in life). No doubt, it wound up in the garbage along with the half-filled urine bags that came with it. But now that I think about the matter in the clear light of day, the topic seems to me more likely to be a stand-up routine at an American comedy club.

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And it was morning of the second day. Time for the night shift to leave, their day’s work done, to be replaced by the morning crew, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to be of use to those of us still languishing in our beds. Avi even wrote his name on the whiteboard in my room, so I wouldn’t forget who my nurse would be that day. Would it be too much to ask of you to head down to the family room and bring me back a cup of tea? Being an obliging soul, he did just that, although that’s not what they taught him in nursing school. (‘Place the teabag in the cup and pour in the hot water.’) An hour or so later, the fellow with the breakfast tray would arrive. It wasn’t much, but as they say about beggars… Would it be churlish of me to mention that while my meals would arrive, there was never anyone to remove the tray and whatever was left over. The empty yogurt container and egg shells would await a friend, a family member to do cleanup, or else the trash pile would get bigger and bigger, like the flow of bloody urine in the bags on the floor. Otherwise…Remember, I was still attached, somewhat limiting my mobility.

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One good thing about Shabbat ending at 8:30 and you’re going to be picked up at 8:45 for the ride to the hospital; you don’t have much time to dwell upon all the things that could go wrong while they are supposedly making you better.

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