zero time, revisited
As I wrote last week, M's surgery went well, and the recovery has been remarkable. Home from the hospital last Wednesday, getting stronger every day. Hospitals exist in a kind of zero time, just like air travel. The furniture is designed with a very similar aesthetic. The lighting is about the same. Many of the sounds--beeps, clicks, hissing--are the same. The food, the blankets, the fitful sleeping, the employees awake all night and checking in on you periodically...it's uncanny. You don't really sleep well at all, and the resulting exhaustion numbs you to what's going on. It's not jet lag, but it's close.
The best thing about getting out of the hospital is being able to sleep straight through the night.
Comments
Oh, I remember all of that very well. The sun comes up and the sun goes down, but the time never really changes at all. And I think you're right — part of the comfort of coming home is a re-entry into real time.
Best wishes to you and M!
Posted by: Krista | October 3, 2005 8:04 AM
Glad to hear the surgery went well. Here's wishing M a speedy recovery.
And I know what you mean about the "zero time" of hospitals (and planes). I once spent two weeks stranded in a Danish hospital (long story) so I didn't even have the familiar patterns of the American TV schedule to let me know what day it was. Life just seemed sort of on hold.
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October 3, 2005 2:56 PM
I'm not entirely sure what "the situation" in the hospital was, but I think you're a good egg...but even if I weren't, I'd still wish you well. Because you are, however, I wish it doubly so. As does the wife, who's just completed a reproduction of a medieval manuscript in the original script, with the original illuminations, and has bound the whole thing in goat hide (which I had to accept from the UPS man, who walked up to the door and said, with an admirably straight face, "Are you expecting goat hide?")...she loves your focus on the materiality of books, and is overjoyed that nothing horrible has happened.
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | October 5, 2005 9:29 PM