Hospitals are Exhausting! (dated 6/25/14)

by Richard Edfeldt

After Jacob's death, Karen created this blog to record insights in her grief journey.  I would periodically write my insights on notes posted to my Facebook page.  We feel it would be best served if we combined our efforts so I am beginning the process of copying those notes to this blog.  They won't be in chronological order but I will put the original date on each one. 

Recently my mother was stricken by a severe stroke.  Thankfully, she was quickly attended to and received excellent care by the emergency medical team and the hospital staff. She was in the hospital for a number of days and today she was transferred to a residential rehabilitation center where she faces some extended rehabilitation time.  Karen and I rushed over (if you consider driving five hours rushing) to see her, my dad, and to help my sister, who is the primary caregiver, out last weekend.  We spent several days in the waiting room and in mom's ICU room. One thing I was quickly reminded of was from our many previous stays in the hospital, mostly with Jacob's frequent time in the hospital - hospitals are exhausting!  Since I had little else to do I tried to figure out why.  Several things started to crystallize in my mind.

1. A sense of powerlessness is overwhelming.

There's nothing you can do to help the situation. A fear of future possibilities and a frustration that you can't do anything to influence it is emotionally draining.  Plus, all you CAN do is sit! You are out of your routine and away from the affairs of normal life. You just sit - maybe talk - maybe read - maybe play games on your phone, tablet, or book of games & puzzles.  There is little sense of accomplishing something as your mental list of things to do keeps growing longer. That's exhausting.

2. You can only talk about so much for so long.

I know this statement may be shocking to see, given my loquacious personality (yes, my tongue is firmly planted in cheek).  Waiting room conversations can be draining, even for an accomplished conversationalist like myself (yes, the tongue has not moved from its in-cheek location). Weather and sports only consume so much time and some people don't even care about those two subjects. Religion and politics are taboo for obvious reasons. Some people can keep a conversation going with the coffee table but for most people .... it is exhausting.

3. The only energy expended is emotional.

When you are on 'sitting' duty at the hospital you exert very little physical energy but it is emotionally demanding.  It is difficult to see a loved one suffer and/or struggle with their illness or injury. You ache to hear or see any signs of good news. Most of the time it eventually comes, but not always.  With any sickness or injury, the recovery has peaks and valleys - times of rapid progress and times of setbacks. You yearn to hear the doctors and nurses share their latest test results or you fixate on the constant readings on the various machines in order to grasp onto any tidbits of good news.  The emotional toll is exhausting.

4. You're living in a parallel universe.

When you are involved in an extended stay experience at a hospital it begins to feel like you have been teleported to a parallel universe or a space station.  You lose touch with time, days of the week, and with the current events of the day. You feel cocooned from things going on outside the walls of the hospital. Sometimes you'll look out a window and wonder what it would be like to be 'out there' much like an astronaut does when he looks out his capsule's window. Occasionally, you catch up with 'the outside' via the TV or a day old newspaper. Other times, you are blessed to have visitors who have passed through all the checkpoints to see you and help you catch up with things that are going in the 'other world'.  From time to time you're able to get a pass and re-enter the real world for a short period of time in order to wash clothes, pay bills, grocery shop, etc., like normal people do. Even then, it feels odd to be back in real life while what concerns you most is in that parallel universe. Trying to maintain your balance in both worlds is exhausting!

Now, more often than not, I am one of those 'visitors' (I even wear the sticker that says so) from the real world coming to bring news and/or supplies to those who are stuck in that parallel universe.  And I understand the exhausted look in their face ... because hospitals are exhausting!