I'm not sure where to begin with this post. Back in July, I was on the Covid Hall of our local hospital, and I came back out. I wasn't being treated. I was there for my Mom. I had taken her to the doctor for a wound center referral only to be sent straight to the ER. They let me go back with her into the ER. Unheard of in the Covid age. And there I sat behind the blue curtain for hours until she was finally admitted.
I haven't talked about it much, not the details except to my immediate family, a family friend who is a Nurse Practitioner, my closest friends and my Assistant at work. I haven't wanted to talk about it - it was all such a shock.
We were on the Covid Hall for 5 days! I never let myself realize that pretending it was normal for the hospital windows to be covered up in thick plastic, for there to be a giant vent tube attached to another part of the window now boarded up all hooked up to a ventilator. You couldn't see out. At night it was never dark with streetlights from the streets below shining eerily into the plastic.
A few months before I had gotten hooked on the TV series "Once Upon a Time." We watched season 4 probably in late June and when the villain the Snow Queen came on the screen we looked at each other and said "Mrs. Claus!" When you have kids, you see "The Santa Clause" movies a lot! (Luckily, they are very good movies. We just watched the first one again last week!)
I then decided I would do a Google search on actress Elizabeth Mitchell to see what else she'd done. (I had heard of "Lost" and "V" but I've never watched them) From that search, though, I discovered her sweet online fan club and that she loves to read books so I started following her on Insta. She had a post about Neil Gaiman's "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" which looked interesting so I checked it out. That was one of the books I happen to have with me in the hospital room as I carry several books in my briefcase every day and a book wherever I go in case I get time to read.
I read "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" late at night under the muted street lit glow gleaming from the thick plastic. It was cold in the room. I slept on the couch that turned into a single bed with a slight adjustment of the large plastic cushion.
The book kept me mesmerized until I finished it laying there on that hospital couch. And eerily, I had no toothbrush with me so I used the new one a Nurse left for my Mom (she was unable to brush her teeth at that point as I was feeding her and so she didn't need it). After I rinsed it off, I wrapped it up a brown paper towel since I had nothing else to use to keep it from getting messed up. And then I read the toothbrush scene in "The Ocean at the End of the Lane." (It's an awesome book - I reviewed it in my other blog on books, https://booksfrommydad.blogspot.com/2020/07/feed-by-mt-anderson-and-ocean-at-end-of.html)
I felt like I was living that book. I had never read any other books by Gaiman, but had seen a couple of movies based on his books. I've since read his "What is Art?" which is a great book to read if you are in the arts.
With this massive life change amidst a pandemic, it is books that keep me going, plus friends including one who sat with me (from a distance) in the hospital chapel while my Mom went through a procedure, and oh yes at the time also what I called "the magic bracelet," the hospital bracelet. It was the only way I could get in and out of the hospital.
I have another friend who is a nurse who told me later on, how brave I was for staying all that time in the hospital with my Mom. I don't ever feel brave, but I know I am tough. I've been presented with a life change of now being a caregiver to my Mom. It was unexpected, but I know how lucky we both are to have made it back out of the Covid Hall.
I believe in books, love books, have stacks of them in my home office to read, check out way too many from the library, and created a Book List (some I found from friend's posts, Elizabeth Mitchell's posts and others from book reviews because yes I read those too looking for yet more books to read). I've also written many myself - my favorites are "The Mailbox of the Kindred Spirit," "Intent," "The Poet Next Door," "Poetry in LA" and "A Sunless Sea." My first audiobook of "The Mailbox of the Kindred Spirit" just came out so I was listening to the audio tracks to approve them in the hospital and grateful to be playing them for my Mom who by that time had been moved off the Covid Hall into a regular room.
I could probably write a book about all of this, but I don't think so because it's way too personal and not my story entirely to tell. Instead, I wish for you to stay safe and healthy and leave you with this poem I wrote in the hospital room,
The Blue Curtain by LB Sedlacek
The ER is different
than I remember
the waiting room divided
by sheets of plastic
and the myriad of
questions
do you have a fever
have you been tested
have you been around
anyone who tested positive
do you have chills
loss of taste
these questions asked at
the door, at the check in
counter by the nurse
who wheels my Mom back
behind the blue curtain
and asked again by the
phlebotomist and finally
by the admissions clerk
these questions ringing in my
ears like bullets to the head
we sit and wait behind the
blue curtain
and I am not Oz
we are not in Kansas
there’s no red heeled clicks
to save us here
the shoes, their shoes are
all different colors
(red, purple, white)
but the uniforms all
blue, dark or sky
I sit in the room
behind the blue curtain
on a blue chair
while my Mom lays
on blue sheets
enduring needle pricks
and blood draws
over and over
I count the number of
blue gloves on the wall
the screens flicker numbers
I don’t understand
and it is quiet except for
the hum of machines
and the ambulance calls
to the center of the room
I have a patient
has a fever
has tested positive
can I bring her in
they tell him NO
NO the Covid hall is full
I sit double masked
sunglasses on to protect
my eyes from “it”
and read poetry
every book I have
(I didn’t bring enough books)
and I write a few
lines
enduring the myriad of
people appearing and disappearing
from behind the blue curtain.