I hate waiting for anything.
So you can imagine how much I like hospitals.
I spent the past thirty years in waiting rooms as my poor wife had appointments, treatments, surgeries and tests. And finally those agonizing last days and weeks waiting for her to die.
At first, I sat in waiting rooms and worried about my wife. Sometimes, I’d get updates from the information desk. Usually I’d get nothing until it was time for me to go see her. That time could be as short as an hour or as long as half a day.
In time, I learned to deal with it. I’d bring headphones, work on a laptop, go for walks, load up on caffeine, read and exercise outside. I spent a lot of time simply sitting by her side so should would not be alone whenever her eyes were open.
I would do my best to stuff my fears deep down and focus on my task at hand – be sweet to my wife, be her advocate with the “system” to ensure she got the best care with the minimum pain, take care of her and get her back home as soon as possible.
That was my role and I did it well.
When my wife died, my waiting days were over. I vowed to never step foot in a hospital again.
Until yesterday when I found myself laying in a pre-op bed waiting for my hernia operation.
I waited for 4 hours in a small 6×8 roomlet on an active pre-op ward. My head started throbbing in the first few minutes as caffeine withdrawal, dehydration and agitation set in.
The staff were kind and sweet. But they could only tell me, “The surgery before yours is taking longer than expected so yours is delayed.”
It was delayed at 11:30AM, then 12:15, then 12:45.
With my head feeling like it was splitting apart, with nowhere to go because I was prepped and had an IV in my arm, lying in a puddle of sweat and just wanting to get this surgery over with, I started thinking about Ellen.
I thought about the countless times I waited in frustration for her procedure to be over and how it must have felt to be her, my wife, laying in a puddle of sweat with a painful IV in her arm, thirsty beyond imagination from being NPO for 12 hours, head throbbing and heart racing.
I thought about her first back surgery, her knee surgery, the second back surgery, her second knee surgery, her eye surgery, the two years of chemo, her lung lobectomy, the new rounds of chemo, the colonoscopies, endoscopies, scopes, radiation treatments and more.
I wept for her.
How hard must it have been on her side of the wall? How could she have come through so many times, being wheeled out by staff who were laughing and joking with her. She was brave beyond belief. She was strong. She never let the person she was inside disappear, no matter what.
I never thought much about this when we were together. She was Ellen, the love of my life and my wife. I was Steve. The strong and reliable husband who took care of her.
I had no idea.
She was the strong one all along.