The Hospital

I have been trying for two days to create a sterile clinical atmosphere.
But I feel that I have failed in that attempt.
                  The best I can do is place two vertical lines on a green background.
Sunday morning: Alley Cat sits on top of the scanner, I look out the window at our new day.
I want to rewrite about my stay in the hospital. Laurel is watching a movie about Dorian Gray, I hear Dorian's
friend say something point blank and insensitive and I am reminded of my self and what I wrote above about
being clinical. That is me, insensitive and clinical, but still wanting the world to be at peace.
Our lives are full of paradoxes.
The Hospital:
Sitting, waiting, looking off to nowhere, no place to go, confined by circumstance. A hospital room,
scattered apparel, a myriad of activity in the hallway. There is movement, coughing, groaning and whining.
There is green trim on plain tan walls, music drifts in and out of sight, sounds of footfalls are out in the hallway.
The television speaks of life in another world. I see tiled baths of cold comfort from this chair.
I look to the window, it looks like a nice day, but I think of the doctor and all his activity, he moves, we lay,
he moves, we sit, he moves, we wait. We think that our nurse is paging our doctor, we do not know for sure.
A friend of the patient in the next bed who has just walked into the room says to the man who has just had his
tonsils removed, "Gee you look bad today, do you have a fever? "And turns to his wife who slumbers in an
uncomfortable chair and says to her, "You look bad too!" Laurel and I look at each other and inwardly groan at
the insensitivity of those remarks.
The air conditioner hums and I wait. I write and Laurel knits an afghan for Allison. This is an old hospital with a
new façade that hides the old stainless steel and green trim. The quality of care is good, slow and right. It is old,
cluttered and clean, sterile in an old fashioned way.
I am lucky, not knowing my condition; we wait for a diagnosis in my blue booties and my blue gown.
Our doctor has too many fingers in too many pots, people are dying, and I am just waiting.
I look out the window at a ladder that is ajar on the roof; it stands on gravel pushed over by the wind.
All the folks in this wing look out at that ladder; surely it will be gone by this fall.
The green trees are swaying in the breeze beyond the loose rock and concrete roof. Lunch has arrived.
He finally arrives and apologizes for the inconvenience and delay. He says he does not know what my
problem is my heart is fine. He does not say, "Son loose some weight."
But he suggests that I see my local doctor and check out my lungs before doing any physical activity.
badaba
July 01, 2001 bongaJuly 01, 2001
July 01, 2001 bongaJuly 05, 2001
July 08, 2001bongaJuly 14, 2001
July 15, 2001 bongaJuly 15, 2001
July 15, 2001 - A Letter to Baby Purcell  by Laurel Diaz

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 .Words & Graphics by Tomas