Sleeping on hospital floors

I don't like hospitals. I mean, who does? But I don't like hospitals, and I certainly don't like Centro Médico. It's run-down, it's depressing, it's shabby... Esteban says it looks like it came right out of a Silent Hill game. We had a good laugh while walking down one of the hallways... it was dark, desolated, forgotten gurney included, some of the lightbulbs didn't work, and at the end were some old public telephones mounted on a wall with ugly mustard, red and brown-colored tiles. We said that all that was missing were sparks falling from the malfunctioning lights and for one of the telephones to be hanging from the hook, the busy signal beeping ominously.

My mom underwent surgery to have her matrix removed. No more painful periods for her! ^^ Lucky. She's doing great, but they keep postponing her release because she keeps getting sick- fevers, drops in hemoglobin, lung congestion. But she's in great spirits, and she might be coming home tomorrow.

She's been treated like a queen. For four days she was never alone. We got a special pass so that one person would be allowed to stay with her out of visiting hours. So we took turns spending the night at the hospital with her. We stayed with her, talked with her, watched TV with her, helped her shower, pushed her heavy IV pole along (damn wheels didn't work, and the nurses said that almost all of the units were in similar or worse condition... state-of-the-art-technology, isn't it?) while she took walks around the floor to get her strength back...

I felt really sorry for the woman in the bed next to my mom's. In four days, nobody stayed with her. Nobody visited her. Nobody helped her with her meals, or to go to the bathroom. Even when I wanted to go over and help her to do something dumb, like throw away the foam box the hospital meals come in, but I thought that would be too presumptuous, and I thought that maybe the laborious task of getting out of the hospital bed and shuffling to the wastebasket with her IV in tow was basically all she had to do.

I spent one night at the hospital. About an hour after visiting hours were over, I unrolled a sleeping bag one of my aunts donated to the Do Not Leave Irma Alone program (which I dubbed "The Parachute") because it was so long... the nurses accidentally kept pushing their medical contraption carts over it. I soon fell into a deep sleep, and I would've made it through the night comfortably... but two hours later the nurses came to make checks, and I was wide awake, tending to my mother's every need. And every other hour I was jolted awake by the nurses, or my mom needing to go to the bathroom, and so on. It didn't help that I was freezing my butt off. I had to sleep wearing a scratchy jacket that's as old as I am, under a comforter pulled up over my head.

But I'm not complaining. It was uncomfortable, but I liked being able to spend the night and morning with my mom. She looked so cute peeking over the huge Lion King-themed comforter we threw over her... I don't know why Centro Médico, being as cold as it is, only gives the patients a thin sheet as a blanket. Cruelty.

Let's hope she comes home tomorrow.