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It was late at night when I
arrived.? All was quiet as I entered the room except for the
soft sound of the voice of a lady leaning against the wall,
talking on the telephone.? The tone of her voice was
somber.?
Some of
the chairs in the room were empty.? It certainly wasn't the
time of night that you would expect a lot of people to be
around the place.? There were several benches and couches
being occupied by people who were asleep.? Some of them had
pillows and were covered with white cotton blankets.?
On one
side of the room there was a whole group of people
sleeping.? Their closeness and the fact that there were a
couple of children caused me to assume that they were
probably a family.
Across
from them I saw an attractive woman with long dark hair.?
She sat staring at nothing in particular.? ? Her eyes were
red and puffy as if she had been crying.
Over by
the window sat an older woman.? She seemed to be accustomed
to her surroundings and I thought that she had probably been
here before.
When I
first came into the room, it never entered my mind that I
would actually know any of these people.? I didn't think I'd
be here that long, but I was wrong.? Little did I know that
I would be spending over a week in and around this very
room, and it wasn't long before I became friends with many
of them because we all spent long hours together.? We had a
common bond that caused us, complete strangers, to suddenly
become friends.? This bond or connection with each other was
due to the fact that we were all in the Intensive Care
Waiting Room of a hospital.? As time went by, some of us
shared what happened and why we were here.? We talked,
listened, encouraged, and even cried together.? ? ?
It wasn't
long before I realized my own situation wasn't as bad as
many others who were here.? My own problems weighed less and
less in light of some who had such heavy burdens to bear as
they told me their stories:
Annette
was the lady who was on the phone and she had been in the
waiting room for four weeks.? Her father was in a motorcycle
accident and still had a long road of recovery ahead of him.
Kathy, the
attractive young woman with long, dark hair was there
because her husband had essentially drowned and been
revived.? ? He was on a respirator and had pneumonia now.?
They weren't sure if he would survive and Kathy was
concerned about what to tell her three small children.? If
he did live, there were many questions as to how much
permanent damage there might be to his brain.? Kathy found a
Gideon Bible and we read it together.
There was
Margaret who had rented a room in town because her son had
been burned in a car explosion and he had been there for
seven weeks.? She came every day to see him and spent as
much time as she was permitted in the ICU with him.
I met
Sarah who could only come on weekends because she had to
work to support her family since her husband had been in the
hospital for seven months now.
There was
a family who had a newborn baby.? He was only a few days old
when suddenly he began to turn blue and was rushed by
helicopter to this hospital as the family prayed they would
get him here in time.? After examination, the doctors
discovered that he had a problem with his heart and they had
to do surgery. The family was waiting just for the chance to
touch and hold their tiny son once more, hoping that he
would be all right.
As I had
suspected, the older lady had been here before.? She told me
her husband had received a heart transplant years ago and
was having a problem now that had the doctors in a dilemma.?
She was familiar with the ICU but that didn??™t make it any
easier.? She told me the story of the transplant and how her
husband lived all these years because someone had donated
their heart.? She had corresponded with the donor's family
and been able to thank them.? They, in turn, expressed their
need to know that their loved one who died in a car accident
had given the gift of life to someone else.
Mary came
in one night after her husband had a wreck but they found
that there were worse concerns than a few broken bones.?
While x-rays and scans were done to find out how badly he
was injured, the tests revealed a whole new set of problems
that were unknown before this time.? Several areas showed
the probability of an advanced cancer and life suddenly
turned upside down for them.
The family
that was on the far side of the waiting room was very
distraught over their teenaged son, Steve, who was badly
hurt in a four-wheeler accident.? ? His cousin had been
killed in the same accident and now Steve was barely hanging
on by a thread, yet his family waited for any little sign of
consciousness from him.? Not only did they have the pain and
distress of the situation with Steve but they also had a
funeral to arrange for his cousin that died. ? You could tell
they were a close-knit family as they waited together.? I
found out later that the teen-aged boy with them was Steve's
best friend and he had refused to leave the hospital until
Steve awakened.
I first
met Steve's mother when I found her with her face buried in
her hands leaning against the wall outside the ICU.? She was
crying so hard that she was shaking all over.? I found
myself leaning against that wall with her and I just
instinctively put my arms around her and joined her as she
cried out to God in prayer for her son.?
Later, I
listened as this family talked about where Steve went to
church and when he was baptized and I thought how comforting
to know that no matter what happened, Steve was all right
because he had trusted in His Lord and Savior.?
Day after
day the family continued to talk to Steve and watch him for
any sign of recognition at all.? One morning there was great
excitement in the waiting room because Steve had moved his
finger across his mother's hand.? What normally might mean
nothing at all, in this case, became cause for great joy.
Another
woman I met was Sue.? Her husband died just two weeks
earlier after a long and difficult illness and now her son
suddenly had an accident that could possibly cause him to
lose the vision in one eye.? ?
Like me, some of my
waiting room friends received good news that their loved one
was well enough to go home.? My heart ached for others, like
John, who sat beside me one night, and told me that his
father wasn't going to make it.
People in
the waiting room were kind and tried to help each other any
way that they could.? I watched a young girl give up her
place to sleep to a woman that had a leg that was injured,
and one night Steve's Dad brought us all pillows.?
Each day
we would stop in the hall when we saw one another and ask,
"How is it going today?"? ? We all waited expectantly for any
glimmer of good news at all to share together.
Life is
precarious and extremely uncertain.? We never know what
tomorrow might bring.? Yet, we often argue over meaningless
things and take those we love for granted.? We are but one
heartbeat or one breath away from eternity but we seem not
to notice that very much until we enter such a place as the
waiting room.
By Pamela R.
Blaine
?© July 2003?
?
My Website:
http://blaines.us/PamyPlace.htm
e-mail:
pamyblaine@blaines.us
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To read archived stories, click on this link:?
http://archives.zinester.com/9516/2004?
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Blessings to you today
Bob Johnston
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