Thoughts on Hospitals, Singleness and Military Life

Today I accompanied a friend to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. She has been needing to have her wisdom teeth pulled, but like most of us has been putting it off for a rainy day. Today happened to be that day.

We left early this morning, checked into the OR and I sat in the room with her while nurses and doctors scurried around. A Chaplain came in and sat with us for a little while. He prayed for her and wisdom for the doctors. It was especially nice to hear his prayer which was sincere and heart felt and I felt ourselves enter into the throne room of the Lord.

I sat with her and held her hand as she got the IV and gathered her belongings as they rolled her away. I proceeded to the waiting room where I had the rare privilege of watching the whole Dr. Phil show. It was great.

The oral surgeon came in an hour later to let me know she was out of surgery and in recovery and after a little while a nurse came in and took me to see her. There she lay, completely drugged up with these gauze strings hanging out of her mouth, what a beauty! I held her hand and told her all about Mary Lou Retton's appearance on the Dr. Phil show. I gave her kleenex to wipe her face and assured her she wasn't drooling. I walked her around the post op room to get the anesthetics out of her system, called the nurse when she needed assistance, packed up her stuff and drove her back to our house where she will stay tonight. I even pulled off the side of the autobahn and pulled out a handy ziplock to let her vomit. Not only that, I checked the vomit in the bag to make sure there wasn't anything there that shouldn't have been there. I have now made the patient chicken soup and put her to bed.

Today I had to reflect. I was standing with her, in the place of her husband. Her husband is out in the field training and will eventually deploy to Iraq. I was there, but hardly a decent substitute. I am sure this will be one of many opportunities I will have this coming year to stand with a woman from this community.

Today I was glad I was in the place of caregiver. This is probably the first time I have sat in that seat. The first time I was the one who was able to comfort someone in a hospital bed. I can't help but think to my own hospital stays which unfortunately are too many to count. Four years ago I was admitted for four days and it was miserable. My roommate drove me to the ER and stayed with me the whole first night. I had misc. visitors over the following days. The visitors were wonderful, but it is really lonely in a hospital room when you are all alone and family is thousands of miles away. On the fourth day I was finally able to call a friend who picked me up and drove me home.

Last February, while swallowing a pill, it became lodged in my throat. After a day of achy throat I was convinced that it was still stuck and Dave took me to the ER. We spent our first Valentine's Day as a married couple in the ER. At first I didn't find it very romantic, but by the end it became one of the best memories of my married life. I wasn't alone. I was in the hospital and there was someone else with me. And not just a friend who cared, but someone who loved me and who would be with me the rest of his life. What a difference, I just cried as we sat together waiting and waiting. What a gift the Lord has given to me.

My heart is glad that we are here and that the Lord has given me a unique opportunity to stand in the gap for some of these ladies whose husbands are gone. But my heart also aches for them as they go through things in life without their husbands present. I suppose the hope for that ache is that the Lord is good and compassionate. He saw me through many nights in lonely hospital rooms, and he will see them through their lonely times too. I cannot offer them a solution, I can only offer them the bit of hope that I find in the Lord, who cares for us more than anyone in this world ever could, and who never, ever, ever leaves.