Visit Someone In The Hospital Today

Amazing what a difference one person stopping to visit into one hospital room can accomplish. The nutritionist came in today and said "I wish more of my patients were like you. So many of them are on the IV feeding system. You are drinking two Ensure a day and I'm a happy camper." Then, the nutritionist opened up my world. "When you are ready, why don't you try some soft foods like cottage cheese........" If she hadn't come into my room today, I would not have picked up the phone and ordered cottage cheese and peaches and I would not have labored to cut those peaches into minuscule bits and then slow but sure eaten solid food for the first time in about a week. She said it, I heard her and I tried it. Hurray. The physical therapist came in today and he got me up and walking and exercising again. Yesterday, I had benedrill as a prep. for transfusion. I spent the entire day receiving three units -- one platelets and two red blood cells. I didn't and couldn't eat until Kathy LeClaire came to visit. She sat by the bed and I held onto her hand. My bottle of Ensure was delivered and I drank it, slow by sure until I turned the bottle upside down, smiled and plopped back on the pillows.

I used to be a hospital chaplain at St. Lawrence and Sparrow Hospitals in Lansing, Michigan. I trained through Clinical Pastoral Education, CPE, at Bronson Hospital in Kalamazoo, Michigan assigned to pediatrics. As a pastor, I have visited at bedside hundreds upon hundreds but never did I ever understand what it means to have a visitor until I'm laying here.