It was my mother’s turn for the hospital.* And she hated it. Man, she hated it. She hated the noise, the constant interruptions to get shots while eating (they don’t say “excuse me” they just stab). She hated others being in control. Also, the hospital gown wasn’t attractive.

She had had a tumble and was admitted to check things out. She was convinced that there was a conspiracy to keep her after they discovered that she had an elevated white blood count. “I came in for my head, not some infection.” So she decided to leave. First, though, she had to call the local sibling. At 3 a.m. The local sib went in for a consult.

Her: I’m leaving.
Local Sib: That isn’t a good idea.
Dad: How far do you think you would get without a change of clothes, or your wallet?

Thank God for Dad. His rationality, however, was lost on the person who needed it most. The Local Sib was sleep deprived due to the patient calling all night. If this was a movie script, I thought, nobody would have been on the side of the person in the hospital bed. This was the time to somehow flip the script. So I forced myself to think that the heroine in this film was righteous to be paranoid and demanding. I even developed a good backstory and reasons for it. So, when I walked into the hospital I was feeling less irrational and angry myself. This was good.

I hope somebody benefited from drugs, though.

* This has been a hospital heavy year for us. The spouse was in for blowing up with an allergic reaction (first one in 50 years), me for excruciating back pain in which I was ambulanced 1.5 blocks since I was immolated, the 14 year old had his left paw crushed by an overly large frosh lineman, and the 11 year old had to be x-rayed and wrapped after a tragic monkey bar accident. Oddly, we had largely avoided the ER pretty cleverly up till this point.