Pushing The Call Button

Our mom has been in the hospital for nearly a week with a severe infection. The antibiotics they thought were treating it weren't touching it. The correct and apparently the only antibiotic that could treat it wasn't started until the fifth day after admission. 

She woke up long enough to answer questions and hopefully take two bites of something. I have never seen her so sick nor been so afraid for her life. I spent four nights with her in the hospital and have a new appreciation for that little red circle with a white cross in the middle. When you push it, someone comes.

The call button.

Some nurses and aides were great, some weren't.  None of them took the time to learn or use my name. But someone always came.

The antibiotic worked within a couple of hours and returned Mom to herself. She is being discharged today. I am filled with awe and gratitude and am thinking about call buttons--how they show up and when they show up in our lives. My premature conclusion is that we should all have one. 

One push. No need to dial 911. That's too many separate actions for someone who is really in trouble. Physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually.

However, based on recent experience with a patient that should be too young to die by today's standard, I know that having a call button doesn't mean that it is easy to push. In this case, I am not talking about muscle weakness but that can be true too. I am talking about pride and expectation.

When you spend 65 years walking to the bathroom and wiping yourself, pushing a button for someone to come and help you is one of the hardest things there is. Unless you count pooping or peeing in a diaper before you push the button. You can call it a brief if it makes you feel better. Hopefully, we can find comfort in language when we can't find it anywhere else.

Pushing a button for someone to come and help you for any reason—unless you are a boss with a secretary or personal assistant-- requires a conscious acknowledgment and willingness to admit that you are no longer independent every.time.you.push.it.

Unfortunately, this is how we define death in our culture. Just not openly. 

As a wise woman in a nursing home once told me, it is a good thing we don't have an on/off button, or we would push it way too soon.

As I was returning to my mom's hospital room after getting some dinner, I saw an elderly man in the lobby. He had a highly bandaged leg whose signs of seepage indicated that it might be time for a dressing change. But he wasn't there for himself. He was trying to get a wheelchair to get himself to his wife's room as she had just had brain surgery. 

The man working the front desk said he could get him one but it would be a minute. The elderly man insisted he could not wait, as he told his wife he would be there at 8:30 and he did not want to be late. He limped off in the direction of her room. 

By the time I signed in and caught up with him in the hall, he was leaning with his head against the wall to rest. I sidled up beside him and offered my arm. He eagerly accepted, thanked me, and leaned into every other step. 

At the long-awaited door on the third floor, I told him he made it. He looked at me and said “we made it.” I said okay, and smiled. He introduced his wife and we shared a little small talk. As I closed the door behind me I heard her say “Who was that?!” I laughed as I recognized myself in her.

I just had to put words to all of these things because that's what happens when my head and heart are full. Plus, I like how it all goes together.

 Sometimes, we have to push the call button and sometimes we get to answer it. That’s how call buttons work.