Loneliness and the Ladybug

 

 Early November evening and the winds thrash the window with pellets of ice and sheets of rain. The old ash tree outside my room is scratching to get in. Each billowy gust presses branches naked of leaves, against my window. Wave after wave, everything says the storm has a long ways to go before letting up. With that, I sit alone in my hospital bed, wondering if I will ever be able to leave this room.

Being trapped on the rehabilitation floor is incrementally better than being trapped in the Intensive Care Unit, but only marginally. My food is delivered on a cart instead of via a tube through my nose. The pain is greater now that they have started weaning me off the cocktail of narcotics. 

At the end of each day, when my room empties out and the nurses collect at the end of the hall, there is a time before sleep comes. In that vacant time, hopelessness darts around my room looking for a place to take up residence. Television usually plays police dramas or soap operas. The commercials are all about foods I cant eat. Juicy burgers dripping with cheese are not on the hospital menu. Pizza oozing with stretchy mozzarella is not what the doctors ordered. Reality shows stir my bile with their banality. After five minutes of flipping through dozens of stations, I know that there's nothing that will hold my attention. Despair and hopelessness sit down on either side of my bed to keep me company. 

The nurses wont allow me to get up by myself to go to the bathroom. I either have to wait for someone to come and assist me (which is a huge undertaking) or I have to try to use the portable urinal. That usually results in a mess somewhere; the floor, my bed and sometimes all over me. This lack of muscular control is a drag. Despair puts a warm reassuring hand on my shoulder to let me know that they understand exactly how much this sucks.

Slowly the evening medication kicks in. There's a separation between my body and the mattress that is slowly leaking air. Supposedly, this mattress keeps the bedsores at bay. I have enough drugs in my system that I probably wouldn't notice if I had bedsores. Plus, there's a hole in my belly that you can put a hand into, almost up to the wrist. That probably wins the fight for what hurts the most. But with the evening meds coursing through my body, I don't feel it. I just feel afraid of being trapped in here forever.

Each time I look at the time, I expect to find hours gone by but my brain is playing checkers on a trampoline inside my head. Minutes have passed, not hours. The digital clock is lying to me. Every minute is mocking me. The wind outside howls and the branches press against the window hard enough that I am sure the next gust might just break on through. 

As I examine the window from my bed, wishing I could get up, walk over and step through the window... I notice a tiny insect. At first, all I can see is the movement. The room is dark with only the lights left on that the nurses require so they can find my arms in the dark for blood draws and blood pressure checks. A quick glance back to the clock and an hour has sped by. All of a sudden, I can't find the bug. I knew where it was, but it's not there anymore. This is terrible! Where did it go? It was right by the window. It must have come in through the tiny cracks around the window seal. I am guessing that the crazy cold wind and rain is no place for a little bug. Inside is far warmer. 

Ah. There. On the ceiling. The insect has found its way up the wall and across the ceiling and is slowly work its way toward the light over my bed. I look back towards the window, noting how quiet the storm has become. The wind has died down to almost nothing. The branches against the window are infrequent now... more of a suggestion than an imperative. Looking up is hard. It takes effort to hold my head like this. And there it is again. In the light over my bed, I can finally make out the red coloration and the black spots across its back. 

A ladybug has somehow made it from outside, into my room, across the empty space, to join me in the twilight shadows near my bed. By the time it has walked down the wall, getting closer to my pillow, I realize that Despair and Hopelessness have gone. Visiting hours are long gone. Now it's just me and this ladybug. Sitting in our respective silence, whole worlds pass between us. Both of us looking for something. As much as I need to pee, I am afraid that if I leave my bed, upon my return the ladybug will have vanished. 

When the nurse finally comes, she turns on one of the room lights. Suddenly the room is a hospital room again. With the door open to the hallway, I can hear the monitors and sounds from the other rooms. Where did the ladybug go? With tremendous fear mixed with anticipation of my bladder giving up, and no small amount of help from the nurse, we manage to get me into the bathroom. More lights, more of everything except sleep. 

It takes two nurses to help get me back into bed. One of the nurses mentions something about the time and I look back at the clock, knowing that the medication is turning the hours into taffy. As the last nurse leaves my room and mentions something about tomorrow, I see from the crack of light that I am not alone in my room. The ladybug has taken up the position above my pillow. Knowing that I've got someone looking out for me tonight, I can close my eyes and let the wind outside lift me through the closed window and into the arms of the tree waiting for me.