We are just over a week into the Phase One of re-opening in North Carolina. This means that parks are open again, and some limited retail is now open. Restaurants are seating people outside.
I get frequent messages about people wanting to hug each other and to commune, and I understand. I long for the touch of another and looking into peoples’ eyes and not into a camera or a screen.
I see pictures of people visiting and hugging. Again, I understand. These are deep human needs being fulfilled. To judge anyone for giving into their deepest desires for love seems cruel to me.Yet, there is more to be considered than love.
Once upon a time, I was in the hospital for 5 days with Diabetic Ketoacidosis. This was my introduction to life with Type 1 Diabetes. After about three days on four IVs fed through a PICC line, wearing a cardiac monitor, being woken all night to check my blood sugar, and having to ring a call bell for assistance every time I had to use the bathroom, I was just over it. (On a side note, one of the nurses and I had a running joke. I would call him over the speaker and let him know that I was unhooking my cardiac monitor and going to the bathroom. I would tell him “I’m not dead; I’m on the toilet.” He would respond, “You know Elvis died on the toilet.”) I longed for familiar surroundings, for comfort, for rest, for my normal “old” life back.
It didn’t occur to me that I would never have my “old” life back. I realized that I needed insulin, but beyond that I couldn’t really anticipate what I needed. Since I was desperate to get home, and the hospital probably wanted to turn over my bed, when I begged the doctors to release me, to my surprise, they agreed to do so.
One caring nurse intervened. She insisted that the doctors keep me, because she knew I wasn’t ready to go home; that I didn’t understand what I needed. In the end, I knew she was right when she explained why she overruled the doctors. I also knew that her caution signified her true care for me.
That is where we are at the moment. Wanting to rush into a life that no longer exists, and we don’t yet know what it will look like nor what we will need to survive it.
