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NORTH COAST JOURNAL • Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022 • northcoastjournal.com
My hospital view. Photo illustration by Annie Kassof
A Week in the Hospital By Annie Kassof
itspersonal@northcoastjournal.com
T
he specter of COVID-19 is everywhere. It’s the elephant in the room, the new “C word.” But it’s not the reason I’m here. It’s my sixth evening in the hospital. I had a major surgery to prevent paralysis by having a large calcium deposit removed from my thoracic spine. By day six I’ve gotten permission to walk unassisted around the halls of my unit, a portable monitor connected to wires folded into the pocket of my hospital gown. When I’d first exited my room, I neglected to put on a mask. After I’d gone about 20 paces, my cane tapping the ground, a staff member looked up, alarmed, to remind me. But as I turned to go back she hurriedly handed me one from beneath her computer station. It was pink and I put it on quickly, apologetically. Amid quiet purposeful footsteps up and down uncarpeted hallways, masked staff members occasionally nodding at me, and hushed, seemingly urgent conversations at nursing stations, I think I hear someone say: “We have a patient who has a broken heart.”
I feel as if I’ve entered another realm after so much time spent in a shared room separated by curtains. I’ll walk as long as I can stand it, I tell myself. And as I walk I ponder things like how many COVID patients are in this hospital. Or how many have occupied my bed. My surgery had been scheduled for the end of December and my hope for the coming year was that the pandemic would fade away and the world would begin to recover; and of course that my own healing would progress nicely, as well. A friend had dropped me off early on a cool Tuesday morning. My temperature taken, double masked, I was directed to a cluster of chairs where I’d been told to take one with a sign that said CLEAN. I sat in the only one without a DIRTY sign. How often were they disinfected? I’d had my two Moderna shots months earlier. My excuse for not getting a booster was all the pre-surgery depression and ennui I’d been experiencing for months, not to mention the changing data on efficacy, and my propensity for procrastination. As I became gradually more aware of
