Do you remember going to the hospital when you were young?
Were you the one sick or hurt or were you there visiting someone else?
How old were you?
How did you feel there?
What do you remember about this trip to the hospital?
A hospital is a great place to go beyond your sense of sight to describe the scene. What did you smell? What did you hear? How did the frigid temperature feel on your skin? What did your taste buds have to say about the food there?
Take us to the hospital with you by uploading or posting your response in the comments section below.
My first memory of being in a hospital is of being about 4 years old. I was having to stay overnight there alone in a huge dark room the night before my hernia surgery. I was laying on my back in a bed of clean-smelling white linen sheets tucked so tightly over my body that I could not move. I saw a faint line of light at the bottom of the door at the far side of the room, but everything else was black. There were no windows. I knew there was no use calling out for my mother. She… Read more »
Oh, Kit! I can feel for the child you were, the loneliness you must have felt.
A hospital experience
retry on an account of my father's first and last hosptal encounterThis is an account of my father’s first and last hospital encounter and my losing a chunk of my heart.
So sorry for your loss. I too lost my dad in 1958. Heart attack. I was less than nine years old. It leaves a hole in your heart you can’t quite fill.
Here is an excerpt from my book about my trip to the hospital. On Tuesday morning, November 27, my friend Puddin picked us up. We drove in silence. At four in the morning, none of the three women inside the car were up for a conversation. My friend behind the wheel concentrated on driving, and my daughter kept to herself. My husband did not come. He was not very supportive during this period of my life. He simply closed down. I guess it was his way of dealing with the fear of losing me. Being self-employed, he chose to stay… Read more »
Well, that’s a trip to the hospital you never want to do again. Story well told and understandable,
What a story, Etya! And look at what you’re doing now!
Thank you, Linda.
My first visit to the ER.
Thanks, Julie
The photo on this page is cracking me up! It’s like I felt the first time I shared a story I wrote with a group of writers…. They’re all staring at me and scrutinizing me! Yikes! Those masks remind me of the pandemic too. So hard to tell what people are thinking when you can’t see the full facial expressions. I’m glad that as it turned out, writers aren’t such a scary bunch after all. You are gentle and caring and really want me to get better. I may need a lot of writing practice therapy, but I’m feeling energized.… Read more »
Here’s my hospital story.
What a story! I can see you swishing through the snow, with powder flying all around you. I can feel your terror, knowing you’re going to hit the tree, feel the pain of your broken limb.
Susan, what a well-written story. I enjoyed your enthusiasm for sledding and your kindness in allowing the friend to ride with you. I remember those sledding rides, although I don’t think mine was as exciting! Glad you healed.
The 5-day Challenge begins.
What a tender story, Dar. For you to remember how you felt as a three-year old is remarkable. Life is full of sadness and regret, The way you wrote about your waiting and the circumstances of your dad’s death brought that sadness to the page. I’m glad you wrote about finding a way to soften it with your meditation.
Dar, how tragic and how beautifully written. Thank you for sharing this very personal story. In institutional settngs, children’s feelings were rarely acknowledged, let alone valued, when we were small and for many years thereafter. I remember when my father-in-law was dying from cancer in the early 1970s. The same children-cannot-visit rule applied in the hospital he was in. I’ll never forget watching my daughter, age five, and her young cousins waving goodbye to him on the sidewalk beneath his fifth-floor window as he sat with his face pressed to the glass. Hopefully, this cruel practice no longer exists.
thanks for commenting Susan. I also remember when my baby brother was born when I was eight and children weren’t allowed to visit, however I was left sitting in the car with one of my grandmothers so I wasn’t alone that time. I know hospitals were kept cleaner then, than now, where everyone is allowed in to visit I think. Wonder which is worse.
Beautiful, Dar. simply poignantly beautiful.
thanks Linda, for your comments. Glad you liked it.
Here’s a belated story.
Great imagery! I can imagine being a kid in that situation
I can so relate, except that I was in a ward of eight kids, the last one to be taken, but not before I saw the first ones come back. From then on, whenever a doctor said, “It won’t hurt,” I never believed them.
Wow, Susan! What a trip. Your story was filled with feelings of all kinds. I liked the swiftness of the telling, like the ride down that hill. Well done.
I love your comment about doctors, Susan. I remember standing anxiously in a long line of kids to get a smallpox vaccination. I could hear wails coming from behind the big door ahead and tried to focus on the sucker in the hands of the finished ones as they sniffled their way past us on the way out.
Thanks, Catherine. Not something I would like to repeat, Unfortunately, I broke my elbow the following year in gym class. Fortunately, it didn’t hurt nearly as much!
Thought this was posted last night, but can’t seem to find it.
What a recollection, Linda! I feel sorry you did not get to enjoy the fun of the housewarming, but on the brighter side, you got to the hospital just in time to avoid a disaster.
What an awful ordeal but how fortunate you had people around you who knew a thing or two. You told it well and put a lot of feelings in it.
I’m glad you survived. My husband’s brother didn’t. His appendix burst before they got to the village hospital. It was in the 30’s I believe and they lived 12 miles from the hospital and waited too long. Probably had to get there by horse drawn wagon. It was their second child that died.
So sorry for that. In my case, people involved did know time was of the essence.
Great story; thanks for sharing.