Lessons Learned

"Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Another interesting evening sky. I believe it was a stormy day, but I'm not quite sure. The color was stark though, a gift of sorts.

Things I Learned from My Illness:

-You'll never be able to guess who will really be there for you when things go wrong.
*Some are forgone conclusions, like my parents, who drove like madmen down to see me on their anniversary when I called from the hospital.
*Others I'd never expected to care so much, like some friends and acquantences who came to visit me in the hospital the day after I was admitted.
*A few I thought were my friends, but they never called, wrote, or visited the whole time I was in the hospital or recovering. That spoke volumes to me. I didn't expect much really, but a simple "get well soon" would have meant a lot.

-When you're really sick you just don't care. You want to admit me to the hospital, fine. You want me to walk around in a hospital gown dragging an IV pole, okay. You want me to not eat or drink anything, not cool but whatever. Any other time I would have been raising holy hell. Nope.

-6AM rounds are an evil invention. Wake me up from a sound sleep to talk to me about my medical condition?! Alone?! Umm, not a good idea. I'm sharp, but my mind is no match for sick and sleeping.

-My job really is stressful. Trying to go back to work after I got out of the hospital was an exhausting experience, so I followed the doctor's orders and went back both slowly and later than I had hoped.

-Many times recovering from the cure takes as long as recovering from the disease. I had two plus weeks of antibiotics and it's taken forever for my appetite to come back.

-No matter how bad you've got it, you can find someone who's got it worse. The hospital is full of them. It's sad.

-The big things aren't always the ones that mean the most. My workplace bought me a huge boquet of flowers, which was nice I suppose. Conversely, someone sending me a text message, commenting on my FB status, or just popping in for a few minutes to say hi really meant a lot to me. Spending a bit of your time on me, my friends, is worth much more than material and monetary gifts.