When Mother Mary

escorted me back to reality as I've always known it, I was greeted by happy, sobbing loved ones!  There was a room with extravagant decorations--a wall banner engineered by Younger Sis and labored over with care by my little actors!  There were several vases of beautiful flowers!  There were "Thinking of You" and "Get Well Soon" cards arriving by the score! 

The family lavished attention on me!  They watched over my care with hawk-like scrutiny! They brought me the notebook and studied my scribbled notes repeatedly!

But then, too, there was round-the-clock care afforded me by the medical staff:  medications at 11:00 p.m., vital signs obtained at 12:00 a.m.,  adjustment of tubes and wires at 1:00 a.m.,  blood work at 3:00 a.m., administration of medication at 6:00 a.m., procedures (anyone for breathing tube removal?) at 8:00 a.m., vital signs at 9:00 a.m.  Ad infinitum! Night and Day!  If you are reading between the lines, Reader Dear, you will see that SLEEP was not on the schedule!

Three days after I switched from blinking my eyes to communicate and began making scratchy notes on paper, I was moved out of the Intensive Care Unit to a room on the fifth floor of the hospital, east side (5E to the initiated).  The paper wall-banner moved along with me.  The vases of flowers.  The cards and notes.  And,  (aargh) the constant interruption of sleep!

Elder Daughter brought me my own bed pillow, and a fleecy blanket, hoping to facilitate my brief trips into dreamland.  But, alas, I grew ever more sleep-deprived.  Ever more aware of my debilitated condition!

Oh, how I yearned to be out of that place!
I dreamed of sleeping long enough to dream!