You Know It’s Time to Go Home From the Hospital When…..

(It was this time last year that I left Kentucky to go to Oklahoma where my mother had just had a couple of surgeries with complications following.  I went to be with her and help out.  After awhile, I just had to write and she helped me with this one...just reliving some memories)
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My mother has been in the hospital for fourteen days. She and I have had a lot of sweet moments…holding hands, praying, singing old hymns, playing the alphabet game.  But after many days in the same room you tend to get a little crazy.  We have become hysterical with laughter amongst the pain and complications of a couple of surgeries.  My mother has relived the past two weeks with me and here is what we have decided.

You know it’s time to go home from the hospital when…

1.      you know how many tiles are on the ceiling.

2.      you know how many slats are on the blinds.

3.      everyone on staff starts calling you mom.

4.      you know the whole life story of all your nurses and aides.

5.      the clock battery dies.

6.      you start thinking about how to redecorate your hospital room.

7.      the flowers are all pooped out.

8.      the bed gadgets are not fun anymore.

9.      you decide modesty is not important anymore.

10.  you’ve blown the ball clear to the top of the oxygen blower.

11.  you start looking for pictures in your bruises.

12.  you have memorized the t.v. schedule.

13.  you start making your visitors play the alphabet game with you.

14.  you start making animals out of the rubber gloves.

15.  you start finding bruises you didn’t know you had or where they came from.

16.  you decide it’s more fun to blow into the rubber glove instead of they oxygen machine.

17.  you start pushing the nurse button when you don’t need a nurse…you just want to see how fast they will respond.

18.  you start trying to figure out the musical notes of the beeping on IV machine.

19.  all your neighbors have gone home and a new crop has arrived.

20.  you have exhausted all your routes for your ambulatory exercise.

21.  you start trying to figure how many things you can do with a rubber glove.

We concluded that when circumstances are not the most ideal, having a good attitude, a sense of humor, can bring smiles, joy, and laughter.  Next time you find yourself in the hospital feeling down and blue, grab one of those blue rubber gloves and blow.  The hysterical laughter may hurt but Proverbs says it’s the best medicine.

And if you’re in Tulsa, Oklahoma roaming about, and you see an older lady with blue fingers hanging out of her purse, there’s a pretty good chance that’s my mother...or if you're going down the streets of Tulsa and see a blue glove lingering on the ground, my mother was probably there.

as I reminisce, I count. . .

207.  hearing a new song, Blessings

208.  a new sister with a compassionate heart

209.  being able to stay in jammies when not feeling good

210.  cheerful, yellow daffodils

211.  redbuds blooming

212.  belief

213.  husband who always listens

214.   husband's arm around me in the church pew

215.  husband lacing his fingers through mine while praying at church

216.  new sisters on same journey

217.  memories

218.  encouragement

219.  laughter in unexpected places

220.  mother with a sence of humor...even in her pain

221.  blue rubber gloves