Helpless
I suppose one feels most helpless when they themselves are sick, but maybe not because at least you have some direction over how things will go, whether you’ll help in your own recovery or just lie there. When I was visiting my brother in the hospital, I felt truly helpless, this evening with Justin echoed that feeling. There’s really nothing you can do but try to make them feel more comfortable, but you can see it in their eyes that they’re so tired of being sick and they’re miserable not feeling 100% and you’re just helpless. Being a nurse, he is better able to articulate what he’s going through and what he expects, and I’m sure that he’ll be making his best efforts towards a speedy recovery, but after major abdominal surgery, he’s just got to heal first.
My brother was in surgery last night and he’s recovering today, they were checking behind his lungs and he’s on plenty of morphine, but it’s being automatically administered, so hopefully they can dose him down to where he’s self-administering when he needs it. When I was there, he was calling out for more painkillers all the time and the nurses were trying to be sympathetic but also trying to advise that he can’t stay doped up all the time, he’s got to heal. Hopefully I’ll get down for another day trip or weekend to see him visit soon. Between these guys and other stresses, I’m really kinda zombified most of the time now.
I don’t know how I’d feel about whether I’d want bunches of visitors or just to be left alone, probably the former. I find it odd that I thought nothing of just about dropping everything this afternoon and heading over to see him, but that wasn’t about the hospital, it was about being a friend. Still, I can feel a bit of a much-needed emotional release coming on, so I might have a good cry and head along to bed.
But you don’t come here for my maudlin tales, you come for the laughs, right? It’s the ladies again tonight, from a Christmas Special where they make a startlingly accurate description and mistaken identity all in the same line…
