I spent the night in the ER last week. I wasn’t a big deal, just a recurring issue that’s a side-effect of a side-effect of my cancer treatment. It’s starting to feel a little routine.

This time it was a little different, though.

For one thing, the hospital was over-full. This hospital that I usually rave about, got less than high marks from me this time. When I was finally admitted, they put me in the over-flow of the patient over-flow area: pre-op. That was all fine and dandy from 2am when I finally got the room, till 5am when the surgical patients started showing up. Then the constant noise, the fact that the kitchen could never seem to find me to deliver my meals, the lack of a phone (and my cell phone died), the lack of a tv, and the persistent sound of various people vomiting started to get to me. A little. Maybe a lot. But, I was checked out by that evening, so I didn’t have to deal with it for more than a day. And I’m just fine now.

But, I diverted my attention by focusing on something else. It was four years to the day from the night my daughter was born. I went in to the ER just about the same time I arrived at this same hospital four years earlier. With no tv, and plenty of chaos to try to block out of my awareness, I passed the time remembering my daughter’s birth. What an amazing experience. And, I was released from the hospital in time to give my newly-minted 4-year-old a big hug on her birthday.

I’ve spent the rest of the week reminiscing about the past four years with my little girl, and I came across this picture of her baby shark costume from her first Halloween.

Hmmm… maybe this sheds a little light on her current shark obsession. 🙂
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