MONDAY MUSINGS

January 28, 2008

Hospitals

I have seen quite a bit of Community East Hospital these past five days.  Pat went in on Thursday afternoon to endure knee replacement surgery, and her healing and rehabilitation are coming along.  The staff has been wonderful, sensitive, caring and responsive.  Believe it or not, even the food is quite good.  We hope Pat will be released shortly to resume her recovery in the comfort and familiarity of our home.

Pat and I first met in Memorial Hospital in Sheboygan, WI.  I was a freshman in college having a bone chip removed from my left knee and she was a senior in high school working as a nurse’s aide, a candy striper.  She was assigned to my floor the day I was scheduled to be released, and our paths might not have crossed as much that day had not my roommate been dying.  She came in to check on the fellow, and we started testing out a potential relationship.  My pride kept me from acting on this interest until two months later when I gave up my crutches.  As the story goes, one thing led to another and we were married four years later, when she graduated from college to support us as I completed my last two years in seminary.  We will celebrate our 47^th wedding anniversary in June.

That is a happy hospital story, and I have many other remembrances of happy outcomes, like children born, successful operations, miraculous cures and health restored.  There are many memories of less happy times as well, like devastating news, inoperable situations, life-threatening complications and unexpected deaths.  I have walked those halls often, worried with family members, puzzled over conflicting options, questioned diagnoses and begun to accept an unwanted outcome.  Life in hospitals is often raw and unvarnished, with people acting both at their best and their worst.

I have high regard for those who have devoted their lives to this ministry of healing, this calling to enhance our lives in a dangerous and chaotic world.  We see Jesus Christ as the great healer and marvel at some of the healing stories in the Gospels.  In our day such healing is often administered through technicians, aides, nurses, doctors, pharmacists and a host of comrades.  I thank God for their gifts expressed in Pat’s life and all others as well.  Peace, John Krueger