……..is a wondrous thing, she thought as she gently melted into another of the hospitals rare blessings: a great nights sleep.
At 6:00 am sharp, Lilly, the 6 foot tall blonde solidly built phlebotomist came to take more of her blood and give her the prescribed morning inhalation doses. Our heroine Evie loved Lilly especially because she was so tall, but then again, Evie pretty much fell in love with every nurse who cared for her during the so far 6 day hospital stay!
Nurses rocked! Evie decided, and she felt like maybe choose nursing as her profession in her next
lifetime.
When she was 7, in Atlanta, she’d go with her grandmother to her foot doctor.
She didn’t much care for her grumpy grandmother, whom they called Honey. She couldn’t understand why such a sour old lady would be called by such a sweet name. But she was pretty curious about what a doctor would do to her grandmother’s gnarled feet. So, she went along. Also, she was allowed to push the elevator button to the 9th floor, and she liked the pressured feel of the button, resulting in her small finger having the power to determine which floor they were going to – it felt like control – so she decided to be an elevator operator when she grew up.
But, after watching the doctor scrape and pare away at Honey’s ancient heels and bunions, she wanted to be a foot doctor, because she wanted to do all that peeling, all that shaping. Again, control over something, changing its shape.
Then, on long summer afternoons, she’d devour the Nancy Drew mysteries (she owned every volume), and she was sure she wanted to be a famous detective. She had visions of speeding around the countryside in a shiny red roadster convertible, solving peoples’ problems. Everyone would love her and she would wear sweater sets and a single strand of pearls. Next, after deciding she’d be an ace reporter like Lois Lane on the Superman TV series, she knew her wardrobe would be slightly shabbier, but thoughts of clattering away on a typewriter and munching late night cheeseburgers while casually propping her high-heeled feet on her desk made up for that. Everyone would love her, and she would find a man to adore who was strong and could fly. Finally, as she matured and good sense prevailed, shedecided on a more stable profession.
She’d be an actress.
On the stage.
And for half a century she had good fortune and great roles in wonderful plays and musicals but now,retired and writing, she was finally taking care of medical things she’d ignored for decades and so right now she was “Patient in Bed 1, Room 7115 in a fine Michigan hospital.
And her nervous system was already higher in sensitivity than the planetary stratosphere so being in a hospital even dealing with a fixable problem like atrial fibrillation had her on edge, needing Atavan to sleep. She also needed her husband by her side, in the chair next to her bed… which he constantly was…until she awoke this particular morning from her drugged sleep coma and realized he had gone home to do a days work from his home office.
She sighed……if she had only
Known he was going…..she felt nauseated….unmoored….unsafe.
She knew basically she was safe but…..well, the temperament of an actress has its blessings, but it also had its nauseating curses!
Feelings were sometimes very inconvenient !