I'm sitting in my hospital bed, eating orange Jello and watching Friends reruns. I just took my first shower in 3 days and am now scrubbed and moisturized and propped up in my clean sheets and hospital gown.
There's a severe winter storm raging softly outside my window.
I had a really bad night last night and have to stay one more night here in the hospital. Last night as the hours grew later, my stomach grew bigger, becoming bloated and distended and causing me so much pain. Greg finally came up here at midnight, after several tearful phone calls, and he stayed on the pull out couch while the nurses finally gave me things to help me feel better.
I don't know that I've ever really been in physical pain. And I can officially say that it's horrible and I didn't expect it to be like this. Sitting on the edge of my hospital bed, tears streaming down my face because I had to cough and it made my incision burn like knives inside me. And then trying to walk up and down the halls with Greg but only wanting to curl into a ball on the bed and cry myself asleep.
And all that to say that I'm feeling better now and am not in as much pain as the previous 12 hours.
I thought a lot about my mom today. I remembered all the million times I sat next to her in a hospital room, holding her hair as she threw up into a little pink, kidney-shaped dish or waiting with dwindling patience as she took maneuvered oh-so-slowly into a sitting position, only to have to pause on the edge of the bed for another 5 minutes before she rose to standing.
So many times I grew impatient with her in my head. I didn't think she was trying hard enough to get better. I thought that maybe she liked the drama of it all or that perhaps she had simply given up. I stood sullenly by, in my lithe teenage body, watching her with disdain.
For years after she died I beat myself up over these thoughts and feelings. I had never thought she would actually die...and then when she did, I realized that I'd been wrong; that she'd really been a sick as she was. It took me many years to release myself from that guilt, finally letting myself accept that I was young and scared and hurting too.
But this morning, slowing pushing my way into a seated position on the edge of my bed, hissing through the pain and pausing before trying to stand, I thought of her again and for just a moment let all that guilt once again wash over me. I'm so sorry, Mom. I loved you so much. I just didn't want you to die.
