HE SAID/ SHE SAID: The Spirit in the hospital waiting room

___ Hospitals make strange bedfellows. I recently had opportunity to observe this when my mother-in-law received her second new hip within three months. ___It is amazing how quickly you connect with other people in hospital settings: The mother in the surgery waiting room who noted that we had the same taste in m ALISON WINGFIELD ystery writers. The young tech who was five months pregnant and not happy about it. The older housekeeping woman who asked if she could change the channel (and got me hooked on a new program on TLC) while she made the bed next to us. ___Before Charlotte (Mark's mother) moved to a private room, I got caught up in the drama of a new patient coming into her semi-private room. This 97-year-old Acoma Pueblo resident dislocated her hip, which had just been replaced a few weeks before. Unfortunately, she couldn't tolerate much in the way of pain medicine and was not in her right mind. One thing was for sure, she didn't want to be in the hospital. ___ On top of all that, about a dozen relatives were coming and going through all this hullabaloo. I tried not to be nosey, but you couldn't help get involved in what was going on 2 feet from you, curtain or no curtain. The old woman's relatives were very nice and apologized several times over the commotion. ___ About the time things settled down, we had our own commotion on the other side of the room. Charlotte, who I thought was just sleeping soundly after her surgery, was sleeping a little too soundly. The nurses couldn't wake her up. So Jack (Mark's dad) and I were ushered out of the room while they went into action, including giving her a shot to counteract the effects of an overdose of morphine. ___ Needless to say, our room was hopping. ___ Soon after, Charlotte was moved to a private room. But the next day, I saw some of the older woman's relatives in the hallway and inquired how she was doing and was glad to get a good report. They in turn asked about Charlotte, and I was able to assure them that she was OK also. Later, one of the relatives I'd seen the day before even came in to see how Charlotte was doing and introduced herself. ___ God's grace often shows up in little gestures of human kindness and concern. When we can connect with others, we don't feel so alone. ___We've learned quite a lot about medicine and hospitals and doctors over the past year as Mother sought to have the source of her constant pain diagnosed. Seems like it took about a dozen doctors before anyone thought to X-ray her hips, and lo and behold, that lucky doctor discov MARK WINGFIELD ered that arthritis had eroded all the cartilage in both hips. ___ I traveled to Albuquerque for the first surgery in April. Looking back now, it's amazing how much less apprehensive everyone was the second time around. All surgery is scary, but having experienced the procedure once before makes a big difference in reducing the level of apprehension. ___Four months ago, we weren't sure we'd ever get Mother back to the hospital for the second hip surgery. But the results of the first surgery were so dramatic, she was the one pushing to get the second surgery done as soon as the doctor would permit it. ___After that first surgery, we learned a few lessons from the people we met as well. Mother's first roommate was a tough-as-nails woman of Austrian descent who gave us all hope that Mother could recover from the surgery. ___The first day or two after her surgery, Mother alternated between vomiting and groaning. And all the while, Inga just chattered away on the other side of the curtain, never realizing that Mother, in her drugged state, couldn't understand the heavy German accent. ___ Inga set the example for recovery, though. Although complaining all the way, in just a matter of days, she was scooting up and down the hallway with her walker like a pro. Of course, she also had escaped from the Nazis as a child and had a keen survival instinct. ___ When Inga left the hospital, I wrote down Mother's name and phone number for her. And she still calls Mother to check up on her--even volunteered to come visit her at the hospital after the second surgery. ___ It's funny that in doctors' offices and other waiting rooms, people avoid speaking to each other. But at hospitals, where everyone's floating in a similar boat of crisis, people who normally might never connect form bonds out of their common experience. ___ This is a gift of the human spirit, made possible no doubt by the Spirit of God within us. Mark Wingfield is managing editor of the Standard. Alison Wingfield is a freelance writer. The Wingfields moved to Texas from Louisville, Ky., where Mark had been editor of the Western Recorder, in which this column appeared weekly. ___

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