The Waiting Room

         

This week I spent a lot of time sitting on some uncomfortable vinyl chairs on the surgical waiting room at St. Joseph’s Hospital. I have been there before, waiting on friends or family and often working on medical articles for the local paper.

         

I thought I knew my way around, but hospitals change constantly. The winding hallways lead to the same places, but exits are gone, entrances appear, and the hospital grows around itself a building or two every 10 years.

I’d been waiting, as uncomfortably as the lady next to me, for about three hours, my little orange sticky tag on my shirt, my cell phone silenced by the hospital’s blocking system.

         

A worker walked by toting a cart full of papers and stopped by to see the lady next to me. You cannot help but eavesdrop in these places, there isn’t enough room not to. They started talking, and I learned the lady with the cart was a long-time social worker now semi-retired. My waiting room neighbor was a nurse who had worked at the facility for more than 20 years.

         

I learned that she was waiting for her husband, who was having outpatient surgery. She had been hoping to retire, but had to put that off because her husband is so sick and disabled. He was suffering from liver failure.

         

“We didn’t expect to be doing this at this age,” she said. “I was looking forward to retirement and taking it easy. Now I am working harder than ever.”

         

For just a moment the social worker touched her shoulder to let her know she understood. She did not have to say anything.

         

“I have so many regrets,” the waiting lady continued. “If I had insisted that he do something about his drinking earlier. If I had been more firm maybe things would be different.”

         

Just then an aide wheeled her husband out from the surgery. His head was hanging, his skin drawn and a mottled tan-yellow.

For just a moment the social worker touched her shoulder to let her know she understood. She did not have to say anything.

I had a glimpse of these lives, up close and uncomfortable, and I had seen, in the briefest moment, the incredible healing power of touch.