quietness

Hospitals can be a quiet place.....a little activity here and there and then moments of sheer boredom. In my case, activity while the nurse had to change the item that was in my IV, take my blood sugar count, my blood pressure and temperature, but then there would be a two to three hour break (you have to remember that for the majority of the time I was in the hospital, I couldn't have anything to eat so there were no breakfast, lunch or dinner breaks).

And it would have bothered me except I learned how to use that time of quietness to an advantage:

• do some reading (the Bible or a book that was either brought for me, or one that I requested)
• work of crossword or search puzzles
• listen to an I-Pod a friend brought for me (thanks, Neka!)
• pray for others (yes, even while lying on my back I still could pray for others
• do Bible study and reading
  

These things would keep my mind working and occupied and off of the fact that I was spending time with tubes in my body, or with an open wound in my abdomen, or any of the other things that would have dragged me down to depression. Because if you are not careful and do not have your mind focused; depression, anger and all other sort of emotions will drag you down and destroy you as a patient and as a person. It is better to get your mind focused-it may be keeping it occupied, get a plan together in relation to your treatment, focusing on what you will be doing once you get out of the hospital-anything to keep it from drifting away....

So the key with quiet is to either let it envelop you and take you as its prisioner or use it to keep yourself sharp and take it as a prisioner.