Friday, March 10, 2006

talk-a-thon in room 636...

I miss my old roommate. She was nice with her contracting uterus and her short cervix. She was quiet and took naps in the afternoon. She stayed in bed, like she was supposed to. She told me funny stories of the previous eight roommates she had suffered through before me and she talked me down off my terbutaline "high". We got along really well. Ah, the good old days.

Not that the new roommate is a horrible person. She's a perfectly lovely lady who happens to be 9 weeks ahead of me in her pregnancy (I'm not bitter) and has a touch of the pre-eclampsia. If I sound like I am taking her condition lightly, it is only because she flits around here on "bedrest" like a little protein in the urine and some elevated blood pressure readings are an annoying inconvenience. I've heard her say to people on the phone, "I guess I could have a seizure or something." Um. yeah, and that "or something" is "die". DUH.

She does not let this little matter of a potential seizure, coma and death trifecta slow her down much though. No, she has taken her showers and dried her hair each day. She has wandered the halls looking for 2% milk, she has been scolded by the nurses daily to get back into bed and she has bitched and moaned about how she wants to be able to go outside in a wheelchair and how is that going to hurt her? She has been on the phone with her doctors office three times this morning trying to get permission from her doctor for the wheelchair ride. As if the doctor is out there, trying to save the world and deliver babies. She is seriously getting indignant that he hasn't been to see her yet (it is 10am).

And the phone....where do I begin to explain how much this woman talks on the phone? She has a cell phone and her hospital phone and both must be hot to the touch. Sometimes she has them both going at the same time. Yesterday I timed it; she started on the phone at 9:30 and talked on one of the two available options until at least 4pm without letting up. Actually, she did let up, but only when her mother came to visit. Other than that 30 minute visit and the time it took her to eat and complain about lunch, the phone was either ringing, she was dialing or she was yacking...

At this point, I have heard the story of how she had to come to the hospital and how put out she is by the whole experience at least 30 times (generally I exaggerate, but this time I am not). It would be one thing if she'd shake it up and vary her word choice a bit (that's the English teacher in me talking), but she tells it the same, exact way every single time....how about some consideration for the poor captive audience in the next bed over?!!! Throw some circus people into the mix somewhere.

I'm assuming that in the past few days she has spoken to everyone in this time zone and a few people in others. So perhaps the calls will slow down now and there will be snippets of peace and quiet. I have learned over the past several weeks to have tiny, little expectations so as to avoid disappointment.

Truly, she's not a bad person; she's quite nice and we do talk a little bit when she's not on the phone. I also realize that my judgmental snippiness is due to the fact that she is 35 weeks into her pregnancy, while that is a milestone I can only cross my fingers (and legs) and hope for at this point. While she is fretting aloud all day to anyone who will listen that she wants to make it to 36-37 weeks so that her baby doesnt' have to go to the NICU at all, I am praying simply that mine can get the care he's going to need in the NICU. It seems just one more slap in the face, although I realize it is unfair of me to hold her maternal concern against her. I'll chalk it up to the universe throwing one more curve ball at me....ahhhh, such fun.

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