Reunions are funny things, aren’t they? This one certainly was.
If you’ve never been hospitalized, you may not know that walking is one of the best things you can do to speed along your recovery. Walking helps wake the body back up, regain strength, and get things moving again. Especially after gastrointestinal surgery, your doctors and nurses will ask you to take several laps around your floor every day. I wanted to get rid of the catheter and ng tube, so even though I was feeling pretty rough, I walked as often as I could.
I was usually pretty up in my head when I’d walk, so it took me a few minutes to realize that I’d gone to high school with the nurse I kept passing at the station. It was surreal – one moment I was fixated on trying to get better and wondering what the rest of my life would look like, and the next, I was catching up with a friend I had a Spanish class with 20 years ago.
Here was the funny thing though, my first instinct was to feel self-conscious about the the tubes and general unpleasantness of my current state, but after a moment, it was just nice to catch up with an old friend. It helped me feel like a normal person. We talked about what people talk about during reunions – how have you been, who did you keep in touch with, what ever happened to so-and so, etc. It was so nice.
She gave me advice on how I could help along my recovery and afterwards, she dropped by my room a few times to chat even though she wasn’t assigned to me. I was definitely caught off guard bumping into her like that, but I’m so grateful that I did. She was still the caring, lovely person I’d remembered. Bumping into her helped me put everything back in context and reset my emotional state.
So, if you’re out there reading this, thanks for everything!