Friday in the Hospital with perhaps a chance to leave

Reflecting on my last journal, I decided to respond further with some more detail from my life, including being in charge of a psychiatric unit in my late 20s at South Beach Psychiatric Center. I was night coordinator and I was being trained by the psychiatrist as a covering therapist (my actual degree is in psychology), and the patients really liked me since I was very kind and often very naïve (Dr. Krisnamurti said that the patients often lied to me to get sympathy, or small favors, or cigarettes) but I didn’t care and they appreciated all the extra time I spent with them, often 10 hours or more a week. When I made my difficult decision to go for a master’s degree in English at Boston University, the unit offered to pay for my doctoral studies if I would agree to return to the unit. I was very proud of that offer and I still am. I wrote some of my best poems there and I think South Beach was one of my most valuable working experiences. Anyway, it is a little after 6 am and the phlebotomist was not able to draw blood from the spot the Nicky the nurse had chosen, so she will be back in 15 minutes to draw from a spot she has chosen. The first stick wasn’t too painful and the second stick at my elbow wasn’t too bad either. I hope my numbers are going down but If I have to stay a couple more days, it won’t be that bad. I am ready for breakfast and I told Nicky to tell the psych people that I need a specific time for them to visit or I will cancel it. Just waiting for them is not going to work for me since I like to walk so much and Claire Hall is coming for lunch and a walk. I would love to go on a bike ride soon and do all my exercises. Walking is a big help. I do think I have a deeper anxiety in my life and that has to be what to do with the hollow. I am pretty sure that if I make a pretty full recovery, then I will try to stay longer in the hollow. It has gotten harder to maintain with a recovering knee and just being 65, but I do think I still have a shot at staying there till 70, my original goal. I know all the benefits to living in an apartment closer to Blacksburg but it would be a real jolt right now, even though my present illness makes it more appealing. I think April or May will be the real moment of decision.