“The birth of my child was treated with the urgency of an oil change.”
That’s a line from the two page manifesto I wrote on the “how was your stay at our hospital” exit form I was given after my oldest daughter was born. It was a bad experience and words are really all I have. I’m not a physically intimidating person. Ask Donnie from the fifth grade. He used to show me the scars on his hands he had from punching kids with braces, like me. Then he would throw my school bag under the rear tires of the bus when we got dropped off. (It’s possible that he unwittingly invented the idea of “throwing someone under the bus.”)
At the time, the only words I had were, “Aww man! Come on Donnie!” But now that I am an adult, despite the regular grammatical errors people point out, I have an ocean of adjectives to throw. Which is what I did after my wife almost had our first child in the lobby of the hospital. Every other couple in the lobby with us was hours if not days away from delivering and were kind of cuddling with each other and saying things like, “It’s almost time, our little guy will be here soon.” I was doing breathing techniques while my wife threw up and yelled a whole bunch and tried to separate my right arm from my body and beat me about the head, neck and back area with it. Meanwhile the male nurse in the lobby surfed the Internet.
When we were finally seen, the doctors were horrified we had been forced to wait in the lobby so long and the whole thing turned into an emergency situation. Needless to say, I went a bit crazy on the satisfaction survey.
This week, we’ll probably be going back to the hospital. Not to have a baby, but to visit a couple in our small group that is about to have their first kid. And although I’d like to think I matured a little in the last 5 years, I still feel really ill prepared for the whole “visit people you know in the hospital” thing. And it’s not like that’s a uniquely Christian thing to do, but as a Christian, I think we’re called to do it often, especially if you’re involved in Sunday School and Awanas and a small group and a men’s group and a church softball league and … someone is always going to be in the hospital for you to visit.
But since I’m so bad at hospital visits I don’t really feel qualified to tell you what to do. Instead I thought I would tell you three things I’ve learned not to do:
1. Don’t make the whole visit about getting free magazines.
I love magazines. I confessed that a few Saturdays ago on this site. And Northside Hospital in Atlanta has a room where you can just take as many magazines as you want. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to keep them or not, but the sign says “Free magazines” so I treated them as such. When we had our daughter McRae, I came home with a 7 pound baby and 12 pounds of free magazines. If you go to visit someone in the hospital don’t ask them where the magazine room is. They’re sick or injured or tired. You’ll need to figure out where that magical room is on your own.
2. Resist the urge to unfold the chair that turns into a bed.
When you have a kid, your wife will be put into a bed that is roughly the size of an aircraft carrier with buttons and levers and 37 kinds of awesome massagers. As a dad you will get to sleep on a chair that unfolds into a cot. Completely unfair, I know. When you go to visit a friend in the hospital, resist the temptation to play with that foldout chair/bed. You will want to unfold it because it looks like some sort of furniture transformer. It will be tempting to say “more than meets the eye” and then try to have it battle other furniture in the room while making pssww pswww laser sounds with your mouth in a struggle for world dominance. But if a friend just had their kidney removed they probably don’t want to see your furniture transformer movie.
3. Don’t climb into the ceiling.
Make sure that you don’t find a way to crawl inside the ceiling and pop a panel out over the person’s bed to surprise them. I can’t say that one enough. A family friend named Randall did that once. He worked at the hospital and a member of his church was in for a few days. He thought it would be funny if he climbed inside the duct work, pushed a panel out of the ceiling and popped his head out directly over the top of the hospital bed and yelled, “surprise!” Turns out hospital ceilings are not weight tested at “Randall level” and he ended up falling through into the room. Fortunately for him, it was a short ride to the hospital.
Those are my “don’t tips” for hospital visits. If I ever come see you, I’ll try to be funny and remind you that laughter is the best medicine. You in turn should have some written directions to the magazine room for me. That’s win-win right there.
What’s your best or worst hospital visit tip?
