Say Thank You

Most of my working hours are spent helping care for someone else in need, but this past week, when I was having a hard time standing up straight and doing the simplest of chores, I found myself on the other side of the equation, in a pinstriped hospital gown on the third floor section A of Wake Med.

It had been a busy month, during which I had a heavy workload and was on the road a lot, and finally with an end in sight—ah, my own bed—and many deadlines behind me, my body went kaput. After an exam and some labs, my primary care doc called to tell me that somehow my body had misplaced about half a tank of blood.

“This is serious,” my husband said on the drive to Wake Med. (Full disclosure: my husband works at Wake Med, but because we go by different last names, few people connect the dots.)

Hollywood has made hundreds of movies which are framed around this scene: someone clad in a hospital gown being wheeled down a long cold, silent corridor to information on the opposite side of a test that can change their life. Suddenly, I was the main character in this kind of movie.

Suddenly, also, I understood how comforting an act of kindness at a moment like this, whether in the form of a warm blanket from Angela of medical transport, or a visit from Dr. Rodman, my hospitalist, right before a procedure, or the delivery of a Sprite at 4 am by my night nurse Krystal to cut the taste of GoLytely, can mean.

How is saying “thank you” sufficient?

On my way out, with my red discharge folder in hand, I saw a kind man up ahead offering help to each person who passed.

“You know where you’re going?” he asked me as I unsteadily walked by. My husband and I nodded and smiled. Once past, my husband whispered, “That’s the CEO [Donald Gintzig]. So humble and such a good guy.”