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The ghost of Christmas only one
Friday, December 3, 2010 at 02:44PM 
I had to go to the hospital yesterday.
No, I did not fall down again. Just wait; be patient. It'll happen when it happens.
Actually I graced oppressed a local medical center with my presence in order to visit a friend who, just this past Tuesday, underwent elective surgery.
Like me, she's a court reporter. We will do practically anything to get out of doing the work we love to hate.
I hadn't planned to plague cheer up my dear friend in person -- on account of, I hate hospitals almost as much as I hate working -- but when I swung by our office to drop off some exhibits, another friend told me our recently-surgeried colleague was still confined to her hospital room.
Who knew? I thought they kicked you out of the joint twelve minutes after you came around from anesthesia. Oh, wait! That's just if you've had a baby.
Turns out they keep you a few days longer for knee replacement because they have to torture you in rehab several times before you're released on your own recognizance.
(Another nice touch is that, once you get home, the titanium knee doesn't wake you for two o'clock feedings or need its diaper changed. Nor does it expect you to send it to college, subsidize an inordinate number of extracurricular activities, and throw it a wedding. You don't even have to name it unless you are tetched and just want to.)
Also? My friend is several years older than me, making neither of us spring chickens, if you get my drift. We bounce back eventually but it does require extra time.
Anyway, I was wearing my "MERRY CHRISTMAS" sweatshirt as I entered the lobby of the huge institution of healing and, predictably, the unique effluvia (ALL hospitals smell the same ... cafeteria, gift-shop, disinfectant, and sickbed fumes combined into a semi-nauseating odor that assails the senses, inspiring an immediate impulse to bolt in the opposite direction) of the place nearly knocked me down.
Determined, I went to the eighth floor. I followed signs, made what felt like sixteen left turns, and finally came to my friend's room.
I walked in.
My sweet friend's pale, tired face broke out into a huge smile when she saw me.
I thought maybe she just liked my sweatshirt, which she has in fact admired before. Actually it had already been commented upon as I'd wended my way to the room on the eighth floor, and would be the subject of additional editorializing during my brief-ish sojourn amongst the unwell.
(Need attention and don't have a baby or a small dog to cart around in public? Wear a sweatshirt with "Merry Christmas" embroidered real classy-like in a Dickensian font and punctuated with a holly-berry-studded wreath, and you'll get your fair share.)
(All evidence to the contrary, people LOVE those two words. They grin and repeat the sentiment on your shirt like someone's pulling a string in back, pronouncing the syllable CHRIST more loudly each time. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas! Merry CHRISTmas! And then we all high-five, at least with our happy eyes.)
(That's what I'm talkin' about, y'all.)
(At least that's what happens to me, but then I routinely promote seasonally appropriate merriment.)
But my ailing friend's positive reaction at my unexpected materialization on the scene was not due to my festive apparel.
The first thing my dear friend said to the young nurse who stood beside her fiddling with some sort of medical gizmo on a rolling cart, and to her own 91-year-old mother seated nearby on a couch, was: "Look, it's Jenny!"
They need to up her meds until she thinks I'm someone else! A more pleasant Dickensian apparition.
Then, addressing me, my friend said something that made me sad: "You're the only one who's come to see me."
Now, I have related to you before at least one instance in which I was told I was the (first and) only one. So there is precedent.
I knew what my friend meant, however. She has a large and devoted family and of course they've been to see her every day.
She meant I was the only friend who had troubled to visit her in the hospital.
(I don't know about you, but if I am in the hospital and do not have access to my cosmetics or the wherewithal to apply them? Don't visit me. Please.)
But my friend is not vain like me. She's a love. And she clearly needed to feel some love from her co-worker friends, none of whom had dropped by to wish her well despite the fact that the office is less than two miles from the hospital.
And my friend clearly craved the attention of her friends. She asked me to accompany her to her physical therapy session, and so I did. I sat there appreciating my two perfectly wonderful knees while a roomful of recently-surgeried older-than-me people endured leg-boarding and other torture as they inched along the road to recovery.
(Once again, I don't know about you but I would've waited until January before succumbing to the knife. There's absolutely nothing to do in January. December? not so much. Like, right now? I should be decorating my tree.)
(I would rather talk to you instead. Because, yes ... to me this really does feel like talking! In other words, oxygen. The proverbial meat and drink, as it were.)
But just like Christmas, I'll wrap it up.
As I left the hospital (I stayed nearly two hours and my friend and I gabbed nonstop the whole time), I was ruminating on that thing of being the only one.
Solitary singularity can be a good thing, especially when in your solisingular capacity you bless the heart of another.
We're all busy and we all have firm plans extending all the way to December 25th and beyond.
But life is not always predictable, and it's good to be spontaneous. Swashbuckle a bit! There's not much time left.
I admit I felt a twinge of guilt that I hadn't planned to visit my dear friend in the hospital. Truth be told? It never crossed my mind. I wasn't prepared with a gift or a card or a pretty flower or anything (my friend just had a birthday last week and I took good care of her so that's going to have to be okay although technically it was bad form to omit a palliative offering, like being a guest at someone's house and not bringing a hostess gift, which I would never do, I guess it's a Southern thing, but I digress).
More truth be told, the planets aligned and although not only were my ducks not arrayed beak-to-tail (I was in possession of no ducks whatsoever), I was in the right place at the right time and I had both the means and inclination to show up in person, and it paid off.
Because in the midst of her painful incapacitation, the heart of my cherished friend was momentarily made glad.
And even if showing up is the only thing you can do for someone? Even if your time and presence is all you are able to invest?
Shine! Be that bright star.
Don't assume others -- even those whose sense of obligation or devotion should by all rights exceed or, at a minimum, equal yours -- are thronging to do the very selfless deed you've received the inspiration to do.
You may be the only one.
And that can be a special blessing in and of itself.
Merry Christmas! God bless us every one.
I love you.
Reader Comments (12)
Great story Jenny, thanks for sharing. Perhaps you were being guided by the Angels for this improptu visit. I'd be inclined to think so, as unexplainable good things happen far too often to be coincidental.
Not looking for sympathy or a pity party, as it happened over 14 years ago, but after my last knee surgery, my 4th, only one friend came to visit me out of the preponderance of family. So I'm very glad you were there, for her and you. :-)
Bless you Jenny
This made me so sad! Bless her heart! AND Yours!!!
You're So right... You just never know what tomorrow will bring...
Merry Christmas sweetheart... And bless us, everyone.
Hughughugs
Bless her heart, I am wincing at the thought of the pain your friend is going through right now and the next 2-3 months. That surgery is just pure hell. And you were an angel to brighten her day! I did NOT want anyone to visit me at the hospital except for poor Jim. I wouldn't let him leave my side for 4 days. If he hadn't been there, I would have rotted in a corner or be thrown out with the medical waste.
I hope that she does well and is soon kicking the butts of her other friends, LOL!
I'm glad you were a shining star and visited her. It's a good reminder to all of us.
PS - I want to see a picture of you in that sweat shirt!
I'm so glad you were "the only one". I think i need a new hip, pack a bag. Good talking to you.
@Howard ... you've had FOUR knee surgeries? Wow. I hope you don't need any more, ever! And how interesting that you have an "only one friend" story too! BTW Merry Christmas to you and yours!
@Donna ... we might as well do what we can for folks while we have the opportunity, eh? Blessed Christmas to you!
@Donna M. ... I knew you'd be simpatico! My friend had her "other" knee done a few years ago, so she's been down the road once, which I think makes it harder to face the second time! Her little old mother never left the hospital even for a minute, the whole time! They're a devoted family. She says she'll be back at work next week, but I hope she changes her mind on that! I'd milk it till after the new year.
@Mari ... I'll see if I can arrange that!
@Irene ... girl you need me, just say so and I'll be there. Give me a few days to get up there; I don't fly. I'm excellent company! LOLOL
I suppose everyone "assumes" that the patient will be bombarded with friends and relatives and they don't want to crowd the place, but you know what assuming gets you.....
Glad you were not the patient. Turns out I DID hurt myself again. We live on this steep hill by the river, the "road" is more like a skinny driveway. I was blowing leaves (never ending Fall into Winter project with all the huge trees we have), when I stepped back and was closer to the edge of the road than I thought, and plop, my left leg ends up in a 3 foot dropoff into the ditch. That was last week, and being the kind of person who does NOT want to "rush" to the doctor, ER, or anything, I kept telling myself it was just a pulled muscle or something.
The pain seemed to be getting worse rather than better, so my hubby tells me "GO TO THE DOCTOR TOMORROW AND MAKE SURE YOU HAVE NOT CRACKED THE HEAD OF YOUR TIBIA" (or whatever that bone is beside my knee) So I went to the doctor, got the x-ray. Turns out no fracture but I probably pulled the ligaments, tendons, muscles etch attached to the bones. I make it through the day OK but by evening after being up on it off and on all day (I can't sit still, too much to do, places to go, shopping to be done). By night it hurts like heck. That's when I break down and take a pain pill. I'm not much for taking medication, seen too many folks out there get hooked.
Your pictures are beautiful.
Excellent thoughts, my Dear. I'm so glad you popped in to see your friend. It did both of you good and that's a win-win situation. :-)
Mmmmmm, the pic of you, at top of your Sidebar.... It's changed from very wide smile, to kind of "down-ish looking." Maybe it's pensive but... Could you try for a midway point... Between very wide smile and pensive-down-ish, perhaps?
I know! It's your blog and you can put any pic of you, on it, which you wish to.
But...
But...
But...
You are such a perky new blogging Friend, that........
Well.............
That down-ish-looking pic, kind of startled me. -pout-
I'm such a "busy-body" aren't I? Just like you'd think of an "Ol Auntie" being! -gigggles-
@Debbie ... girl I am so sorry to hear of your accident. I certainly know what it's like to step off into nothingness and go tumbling willy-nilly, almost afraid to look afterwards at the damage you might have done! Please take care of yourself and to take a pain pill to help you rest comfortably. I can't believe you didn't go straight to the doctor, you silly goose. Don't overdo it during the Christmas season! Long winter ahead!
@Aunt Amelia ... LOL I know that pic is out of character; my kids have told me so. It really is more pensive than "down" but somehow in the smaller version it looks more sad! I'll change it! LOLOL maybe to a pic of me in the Merry Christmas sweatshirt as Mari suggested! Sending love to you, my dear blogging buddy!
Ooooooooooooooooooooooooo! That's more like it!!! Your top-of-sidebar pic!!! That's the fun, smart-as-a-whip, cute-as-a-button, peppy, sparkly, Dear blogging Friend, I know! She's back! "Auntie Amelia" can relax now. ,-)
Lots and lots of Winter hugs...
Way to go! BTW, your new profile picture is awesome.
Yup. Nice necklace, tiny hint of cleavage. I like it. Sorry I missed the pensive one though. It's been a busy weekend.
I've been on both sides of the sickie visit thing. Not fun being the sick one, especially when you feel abandoned and isolated. Sometimes I'm really good at taking care of people, sometimes not. Sometimes the needs of my family are so demanding that it's hard to look beyond them. I try. I'll try harder.