He is home again.

My friend got out of the hospital two days ago (this being his third day home) and he very nearly had to go right back into the hospital, because he cannot lie in his bed nor sit on his couch or on the kitchen chairs. He needs, and did not have, a hospital bed, the kind that easily changes positions and lets him raise and lower himself without effort. He did fracture that L4 vertebrate, and those nine ribs, and cannot get comfortable for very long at all.

His son, 29, did move up here from Eugene, to help take care of his dad, but it was his sister who was able to help with the bed situation, even though she lives a thousand miles away in California; she got him a hospital bed delivered and set up, in his living room, in front of the big flat-screen TV. He is a lot more comfortable, but was afraid he’s have to go back to the hospital, because not only does he need the proper bed to lie in, he needs 24/7 attention, even if he doesn’t "need" anything. My friend was very badly injured and is still in an immense amount of pain.

As the saying goes, you find out who your friends REALLY are in this sort of situation: none of his biker friends have measured up. He is on powerful pain medications, and I gather more than a few have asked for some of those, and not in an elegant way. He has a huge bottle of the pain meds, but NEEDS them himself, and not for a drug addiction, no, the pain is large and doesn’t go away, even with the powerful meds; it just recedes for a few hours.

His son is here, and his son’s girlfriend, also 29, is up here too, but any Care-Giver cannot be "on" 24/7, all the time, exclusively. My role is as a relief for the "kid", and as a friend to a man who feels his circle of friends has collapsed to just a few, who really care about him. This is where I come in.

15 years ago, I crashed my car and was very badly injured. I was in the hospitals 6 times as long as my friend, but unlike him, I had "nowhere" to go and no one to stay with when it came time for me to leave the hospital. I wasn’t "well"; I too needed,at that point, attention 24/7. I went to an Adult Foster Care Home, and stayed there nine months. My friend A came to see me, and after I had recovered enough to do it, took me with him to the job he had then, as a parking attendant at the Scottish Rite, where I had been working before the wreck, and where I got him a job too. I got out of the Foster House for a few hours and into the wider world, but was able to go back to the safe place and not be alone.

It’s payback time. I was a little miffed that no one called me that first night he was home, I’m such a little girl, but they all had other things to deal with, such as how to make A comfortable at home. The hospital bed makes a huge difference, the difference between being home and in the hospital.

Yesterday I drove down there and stayed more than a few hours, to give his son and the girlfriend time to get away and do something else, a very important function and role, because no Care-Giver can be "on" 24/7. The nature of our injuries is very different: I was in a coma for ten days and comatose for weeks longer, and by the time I "woke up", the pain was mostly gone, and I have few memories of great pain (which I am grateful for, you bet), but A is more broken than I was and is coming to realize that "life is different now". He knows I know what a long recovery is like, even if our injuries are different, and he knows that I could care less about pain medications – I never did much like those kind of drugs – and that I do care about my friend, as a FRIEND and not as a drug supply.

I have a role to play. I will be "the driver"; my car is better suited to that than my friend’s Mustang, and as a Care-Giver relief to his son. I can be there, and will, as much as I can, for the long haul.

Onwards.

*****