Paper Curtains
I’m not sure what it says about me that I’ve always been able to rebound from anesthesia as if being snapped awake by a hypnotist. This recovery was the same as all the others. It would be several minutes before a nurse would peel back the paper curtain, surprised to see me blinking up at her, very much awake and alert.
I spent those several minutes alone, staring down at the patterned rubber lines on my hospital-grade socks. Nobody warns you how difficult it is not to eavesdrop on the other patients in the recovery room. But I’d been here before. I really was doing my best.
I never saw her, but I’ve pictured her in my mind so many times. From the moment she first started to giggle, I knew she was someone I could love as a friend.
“Wait, how many, again?” Her voice was unsteady, her speech slightly slurred. This is the way normal folks come out of the drugs.
“Sixteen.”
She stifled a laugh. “Sixteen? Wait, is that good or bad?”
“It’s very good,” a Nurse assured her. “The doctor will review everything with you once you’re feeling better.”
“Oh, I’m feeling goooooood.” Another giggle. “I haven’t felt this good since… Wait, can I tell you a secret?”
Maybe the Nurse nodded. Maybe she busied herself with all the many wonderful things Nurses do. But whatever silent exchange transpired led my Neighbor-in-Recovery to drop her voice into a very loud, very comical stage whisper.
“I like to smoke. Not like… cigarettes, that was college. But like… sometimes I like to smoke weed. Not lately because I was trying to be healthy for this. But before this I sometimes smoked weed. And it feels like this. It feels goooooood.”
Her laughter would be the brightest spot of my month.
I was pulling my sweater out of the Patient Belongings bag when a woman from the front office came into my recovery bay and somberly handed me back the folded check. No reason to put a deposit on cryo-storage when there was nothing retrieved to store.
I am very grateful for paper curtains and happy strangers.
~Katie Swain McNally