More Hospital Adventures

There was a nice little parking place where I could hide.

It was in the skywalk between two sections of the original Children’s Hospital in downtown Denver. The elevated passage was constructed almost entirely of glass. Ferns and even palm trees abounded there.

It was quiet. I could back the wheelchair into a vacant space at one side and hardly be seen. It was there that I learned to meditate.

Meditation is a skill I didn’t use after that until way later in my life. At Children’s, I’d take a coloring book with me or nothing at all and sleep in the Lord. I didn’t know I was sleeping in the Lord, but that was what it was. He was giving me rest and recuperation.

Once in a while, a bird would find its way into the walkway interior, chirping and flapping around in alarm – the only noise except for pedestrians and sometimes wheeled gurneys. It was a special spot just for me on the face of the earth. I miss it.

It wasn’t all bad

You’d think a hospital stay would be a horrid experience. Not so at all. It wasn’t my parents who spoiled me, it was Children’s Hospital.

It was there that I learned to appreciate the best of things. Surely the institution must have had budget limitations, but the food was so good it seemed as if no expense had been spared.
We were served gourmet quality meals, delivered piping hot under silver (yes, real, heavy silver) warming covers. We were served three meals a day, all with top quality flavor, texture, color and nutrition.

I took a liking to soft-boiled eggs. When the attendant showed up on the ward with our breakfasts on the cart, he or she would place my tray in front of me – and in classic fashion, gently remove the top of the shell, revealing a perfectly cooked egg.

Oh, and don’t forget, the egg was ensconced in a classic silver egg cup. I would even have had that little bitty spoon with which to scoop it out and eat it.

Sometimes the meal would be liver and onions. Lots of the kids turned up their noses. Not me. My dad was a butcher. We had liver and onions, at home and at the homes of either of our grandparents. I liked liver and onions. My skinny little body surely benefitted from the iron.

There was frequently grapefruit. When it was delivered, it had already been segmented and lightly sugared. Someone had taken the time to properly prepare the grapefruit. Someone cared.

Wheelchair revolution

In the early days of my several periods of residence at Children’s, I’d be sent out on daily hallway forays in a very old-fashioned wheelchair.

This would be a heavy, cumbersome, slow device. The chair itself would be of wicker weave. The large propulsion wheels would be in front, with swiveling casters at the rear. It would have an adjustable seat back in which a guy could recline low-rider-cool.

It’s hard for a kid to get in much trouble aboard one of these antique devices.

One day out of the blue, brand new chairs arrived. Still heavy by today’s standards, they were much lighter and more maneuverable than the stodgy old wicker models.

The driving wheels were more sensibly arranged at the rear, with the swivel casters at the front.

Construction was of stainless steel tubing, with the seat and back of heavy vinyl. The whole thing was just friendlier, prettier, sexier.

My friend and I soon determined that the new chairs were much quicker than the old. Naturally we also decided to test the “brakes.”

We lined up at a pre-determined point and headed off pell-mell toward a stairwell.

Obviously, when my friend grabbed the “brakes” he did a more efficient job than I. He stopped a safe distance from the stairwell.

I didn’t. I went over the edge, bumping down the steps to the landing. The chair was undamaged. I don’t remember if I was hurt.

There was no avoiding the authorities – I was stuck there on the landing until people came to rescue me.

Two things happened then: As punishment, I lost my “new chair” privilege for what seemed an eternity, a full day. I was relegated to one of the old wicker chairs; and, we were visited by the superintendent of maintenance for the hospital.

This formidable man took us down to the scene of the crime. There were long, black skid marks leading to the stairwell. The man explained to us that removing the black marks from the floor was difficult and time-consuming – and that if the marks weren’t removed, he’d have to answer to his boss.

Did we want to speak with the hospital superintendent himself? If more skid marks appeared, the man said, we would get the opportunity to do just that.

We didn’t want that. So, no skid marks after that.

The drive home

At the end of my first stay at Children’s, my parents came to take me home.

I was far from a healthy little boy. My Dad turned down the offer of a wheelchair to trundle me to the nearly new black two-door Pontiac Silver Streak waiting on the street.

Instead, he chose to carry me in his arms. I clearly remember feeling like a little rag doll. There was no strength left in me. My arms and legs dangled loosely. There was no sign of muscle tone at all.

On the way down the hall, I looked at my young friend “Billy,” who resided in an “iron lung.”

He suffered from the effects of “bulbar” polio, and lived inside a stainless steel device that looked a lot like a culvert from a ditch, with the ends welded shut. The automated device breathed on behalf of the boy.

The only part of Billy one could see was his head, on a pillow just outside the “lung.” A sort of rear-view mirror had been attached above his head so he could see who was near.

I’m leaving. I’m lolling in my Daddy’s arms. My Mom is carrying my few belongings. Billy couldn’t even wave goodbye.

To this day, I am haunted by Billy’s eyes, looking at me through that mirror as we left. I got to go home. I am certain he didn’t have that privilege. Ever.

Welcome home!

My brother Dick was two years old at the time.

Again I found myself in my Dad’s arms, carried carefully from the Pontiac into the living room of the house on 7th St. in Fort Lupton, the house with the river-rock fireplace and shiny hardwood floors.

Dad lay me on the couch in front of the fireplace. Here came Dick. Age two, remember.

Dick made many trips into our bedroom, bringing toys from our bedroom and piling them on top of me on the couch.

It was an early exhibition of character forming there, character which has become a big part of the man, Dick Hodge.

He wants to help. Always did. Always will. Thanks, Dick.

-0-

Word of the week: Felt. From Middle English and Anglo Saxon or the German, Filt, cloth made by pounding or beating. As it was then it is now: a fabric of wool, often mixed with fur or hair, worked together by pressure, heat, or chemical action without weaving or knitting.

In junior high we’d ask girls, “Hey, is that blouse felt?” Then we’d feel it and, laughing, say “It is now!” Ha ha.