How Vanity Slows Healing
Lessons learned in the hospital gown
Trauma taught me many things. I learned about pain. I learned about resilience. I learned about healing. In retrospect, one of the most cherished places of personal enlightenment was the hospital hallway.
It was a big deal to make it to the hallway. Really big. My journey had taken me through weeks in the ICU. My recovery then allowed the hard earned step up to step down. The Step Down ward meant you could get food through something other than a tube. You had a roomie and a bedpan and a TV and visitors came with flowers and balloons and contraband snacks.
Carrying ourselves from our room into the hallway was a distinct right of passage. My hallway was a broad, open expanse with four nurse stations serving as many passages. Filled with the usual medical paraphernalia of computers, wires, rolling terminals, gurneys and IV bottles.
Nurses spattered a dozen shades of hospital white with scrubs of green, blue, or pink. Replete with childlike patterns of puppies or daisies or even your favorite animated characters.
The patients were easy to see; we all wore the gown.
An amazing array of Fellini like characters roamed in the gown. From the old to the very old, from the young, to the not getting younger. Stooped…
