Part /\\/\\/ (Ask & Receive) == (Give & Take)

My pondering became academic when the door opened of its own volition. A smiling nurse, hand still on the handle, greeted me by name and announced that breakfast was slowly heading up the hallway toward the multi-purpose room. I rose hesitantly and checked my visage in the bathroom mirror. I noticed that the room had a toilet and a thin sink, but no shower.

I am naturally afraid of crowds, especially in ones which i know not another soul. When I arrived, the nurse’s assistant was already passing out the big hard plastic trays. The texture and feel of them reminded me of a big wheel I had as a young boy. I sat in the far corner, a usual location for me when I am upset and unfamiliar with the environment. V, a woman who checked herself in at the same time as I had (we stood at the emergency room window together) sat down next to me. She was not hard to notice… he mousy brown hair had voilent streaks of purple rampaging through the mess.

Others filtered in. Most seemed to have formed a herd, but a few very sickly members sat in secluded locations, like V and I. When they handed out the meals, I discovered that V and I had the same last name. While my last name is very common, it stil became a bonding point between V and I. V, for her stay, was usually hopped up on regular shots of Haldane. I met her husband once and was struck by the familiarity to my nephews, making me wonder if there was a connection there somewhere deep in the branches of our family trees.

The first day passed like a dream… the pills they gave me at medicine time made me sleep most of the day. Somehow I managed to befriend most of the other patients, or more honestly they befriended me. There was P, who at six foot six, was an incredibly sexy length of man. R was much smaller and reminded me of a nervous dog always looking for approval. After our first group together he insisted on calling me ‘the genius’ since I knew the answer’s to the nurse’s question before she even asked me. D was a sweet older woman who loved to mother the other patients. My long walks with her around the tiny, bricked in courtyard reminded me of strolling with my mother countless years ago.

There were others too that became my institute friends… J, a large Polynesian man whose feet were bacteria ridden and had to use a walker to navigate the hallway, D a black man who kept to himself most times, but listened to every conversation from his bed. I found myself in an entirely new situation and because of this I created an entirely new me.
I knew that to keep my wits about me in this place I would need to have support and in my own unconscious ways began that process the day I arrived… interspersed in between my generous naps. By the third meal (dinner) I had firmly ensconced myself as the unofficial leader of our band of lost boys and girls. I sat at the head of the tables, only deferring to J who could not fit himself in between the narrow aisles.

Along with this manufactured confidence, I also learned to ask. Asking has never been my strong suit. I would rather do without than have to go through the pain of asking someone. But I knew here, that if I did not speak up, I would just become another shadow on the virginal bed sheets.

My first big task involved showering. Since I had to shower in a separate room… named Cleaning Facility in plastic embossed letters on the plain brown paper bag doors (all doors looked exactly the same… it was their name tags that set each apart from the others) I assumed everyone else had to as well. My first shower turned out to be very depressing. The room, heedless of it’s name, was not so clean… damp towels huddled against the corners of the room and everything smelled of mold.

On the second day I learned from D & R that most rooms included a private bathroom WITH a shower. I had been placed in the old lounge, recently converted to a patient room. This also explained the blacked out picture windows. That had freaked me out from the beginning with it’s feel of an examination facility. At first I grew angry, that with all the rooms open (the hall could have held twenty people, but only eleven beds were occupied) they stuck me in the worst one, but then I remembered my new outlook and instead marched up to the nurse’s station and calmly stated my case, adding at the end that I would like to move to another room with a private shower.

The nurse smiled, looked at the giant status board that hung opposite her desk, on the hallway between the examination and counselor’s doors, and told me I could have room 223, the one opposite the former lounge. I thanked her and wasted no time in moving my meager supply of materials to my new room. The first thing I noticed was that instead of a brick wall, I could see the forested campus of Seton Hill out my new window, with the main hall framed in green, it’s turrets and strange angles reminding me of a fairy tale castle. I close my door, laid down on my bed and took stock of my life.

Two days had passed… now it was Saturday. I had formed an instant tight friendship with J, D, and P (we played board games like monopoly in the evenings). I could effortlessly sleep again. Even though I knew deep in my being that I was no better than a caged animal.. the fact that I had caged myself made it easier to swallow. I likened it to being a teenager again at summer camp. I was there to learn and grow, to help foster relationship building skills, and to finally kick the Paxil habit and be given medicines more apropos to my disability. Also I knew my departure date: the coming Tuesday.

Also add to this that on the weekend I could see Jim twice a day, all my anxiety dropped from me and in the first time in years I felt safe and mentally clean… not one worry infiltrated my ticking brain. But as Prince famously sung: life is just a party, and parties are not meant to last. I soon realized that when dealing with friendships in the ward was much like life accelerated seven fold. People came and went with alarming speed. This became the hardest part for me to accept, because it was out of my scope of asking.

to be continued…