A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A WIFE IN THE ICU WAITING ROOM

December 1, 2004

Up at 4:30 am snuck back to bed for a couple more minutes but got up by 4:15 am. Jan had to be out the door by 6:15 and at the hospital by 6:30. It was a dark and rainy morning. The leaves where piled high on the sides of the streets. They were blowing over the road. Creating that wet leafy shinny slimy muck that covers a wet rainy road. Visibility was dim, yet onwards and outwards we went.


I had a couple of minuets before we left the house so I bleached my teeth, Dr. Handy would be proud of me, checked my e-mail, played a couple of minutes of bridge on MSN Zone, blogged to my webblog http://www.misfitmom.blogspot.com/, checked my friend Andrew’s blog at http://www.tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com/ then folded some laundry. All accomplished within 8 or so minutes. Andrew’s father died while he was enroute to his brother’s funeral in Australia. That’s a lot of grief. I decided not to mention it to Jan this morning as I was taking him for his own procedure that had risks associated with it.

I’m sitting in the ICU waiting room. Why I can’t wait with Jan I do not know. I delivered him to the area where he gets prepped for surgery. The nurse instructed me to go wait in the waiting room. So, here I sit waiting. I’m going to be doing a lot of waiting today. Maybe I should have worn my nurse’s uniform then I could have come and gone at will? It’s probably because of malpractice that they want to keep the family as far away from the medical activity as possible. I have a very different idea but then again that’s me. Maybe I could have cleared it with the doctor in advance to stay with Jan? I wonder what Shirley Corts did when her husband was undergoing cardiac surgery one surgery after another. Shirley was the Pastor’s wife at Calvary. She too was a nurse and very vigilant. I somehow think she didn’t take no for an answer. I could call her but maybe she wants to forget as well.

I’m sitting next to a woman who brought her mother here at 2 a.m. hemorrhaging; she’s in an advanced stage of cancer. She together with her whole family of 12 or more are gathered around us. The teenagers are laughing and making the most of the situation, the other adults just look numb, blank and tired, especially the women. I moved 10 feet to the TV area where I could watch the news. I answered a couple of calls that were being unanswered in the ICU. The phone kept ringing and ringing I guess everyone wanted someone else to pick it up, so I did. I answered several phone calls for others in the ICU, calling out the names of the families that the caller was inquiring about.

Two hours after first entering the ICU waiting room I found out that I was in the wrong waiting room. For the prep nurse said that she’d call before Jan was taken up for his surgery. Two hours later no call so I started asking questions. I asked a lady who worked in the pharmacy and she told me that I was in the wrong waiting room. I should have been in the cardiac catherization waiting room, so much for instructions and communication. The elderly volunteer at the reception desk gave me a piece of page about 1/3 the size of a regular sheet with instructions to the right waiting room. I even asked along the way because I didn’t want a further detour. I was told the follow the yellow dots. Have you ever felt like a mouse in a maze. Well that was one of those moments and that’s how I felt. I guess others have had those mouse moments because why would they have put the dots on the floor? Here are the directions they gave me to the Cath Lab waiting room from ICU. Take a right out of the ICU waiting room. Turn right at the second hallway, go the end of the hall and turn left. Go to the elevators and turn right. Here we have some confusion for there are several elevators. This is the place I asked for help. Continue down hallway, waiting room is on the left. The dots appear somewhere near the elevators. They didn’t tell you about the construction going on and that a wall that was there the day before had been removed. I got there in the end.

I prayed this morning that I would keep my focus upwards and not on the situation. I likened it to walking on water. If I just kept looking up I wouldn’t sink emotionally or spiritually. I could handle what was before me. The whole day at different times felt like a spiritual hurdle race. Taking one at a time trying not to fall.