Sneaking Out of Sick Bay

The hospital in the small beach town was horrible (coming from beautiful experiences at Evergreen). I watched an old man hawk loogies on the floor of the emergency room. And waited and waited and waited. Finally I was put on reclining hospital bed with an ill fitting sheet, stained by something brown and excrement-like. They hooked my up to an IV and the heebie-jeebies and I sat there…trapped for four hours. So I called Rey: “Come and pick me, I feel MUCH better.”

“No!” He responded. “The doctor said you have to have that IV for four hours!”

I sat back down, despondent. The lady next to me moaned. She began fighting the nurses and yelling. Her daughter, a beautiful Garifuna woman, began jumping up and down and yelling: “Jesus! Jesus!” I deduced that her mother must be dying. More and more family came and cried over the suffering woman. I tried to be invisible to not interrupt their private moment, although I cried with them. Then things became quiet and the family left, except for the daughter who had called out for God.

I tried to catch what was going on around the bed next to me, in another language, while still working at invisibility. I think her daughter was saying good-bye to her mother. Her mother did not move. She must have passed away. I breathed a sigh of relief that the ordeal was over, but felt such empathy for them. I asked the daughter in my broken Spanish if I could pray for her. I thanked God that Mama was up in heaven with Jesus. Though the woman I prayed with said, “Amen,” several times she seemed kind of confused.

When I opened my eyes the woman I had just blessed into heaven was staring back at me. I guess she had not died after all! I sank into my dirty cot and worked even harder at invisibility.

Soon my first IV was up so I called Rey again: “Come pick me! The doctors said I can go!” (My doctor had actually peaced-out of that place and no one knew what to do with me). He came to rescue me, begrudgingly, knowing that I was skipping out prematurely

We paid 5 Limpiras (about 25 cents) for that emergency-room visit because the hospital had lost my record and no one knew what to charge me. Rey and I got out of there fast and did not look back.... until the next day when I was still sick from sneaking out early.