Requiem for a Pile of Concrete

 My hospital is being razed, turned into a pile of rubble, which in turn is being transported to parts unknown.

No, I do not own the hospital, but over the past forty-five years I have developed some strong connections here.

The building which is going away is laid out as a giant

                             X

These views are from the south, as though you are looking at the two bottom legs of the above diagram.

During recent years, additions have been built, growing a much larger building than the original. As time went on, portions of the old building fell into disuse, and finally the entire thing was considered no longer viable for the practice of modern health care.  Goodbye. 

I have sat beside my dying wife in a room in this building on two separate occasions, nineteen years apart.  My children have been transported here for emergency care when kidhood booboos occurred.  

My first grandchild was born in this hospital, but transported immediately to the city for specialty care.  Two days later, my son-in-law and I came to my daughter still lying in a room in this building to tell her that her firstborn son did not make it.

I was in the delivery room holding my younger daughter's hand while she was in labor, long hours of labor, with her first child.  She was not saying kind and loving things about her husband. The good news is that she and her hubby raised that child and two others to adulthood and are now the loving grandparents of four.  And I was in the maternity ward again when this daughter of theirs gave birth to her first child.

I have myself been the recipient of "inpatient care" at this facility on two occasions, the last time during the earthquake that disrupted the World Series.  I have taken BBBH here on numerous occasions for treatments, and probings, and proddings, one test or another.  Over time, those services have been moved into the new facilities, and I got these pictures on a trip to the phlebotomist to relieve the lady of several vials of blood.

I have had some interesting doctor-related experiences here.  I once got into a rather loud exchange of opposing ideas with a cardiologist who was caring for my mother-in-law.  On another occasion, I had taken an injured student from school to the ER.  The physician would not touch the child without parental consent, whereupon I assured him that I stood "in loco parentis" to the child, and he informed me that he could not care less.  And that exchange got loud.  Two young professionals over-zealously guarding their turf.  He is now a good friend of mine, and like me, retired.

I was having a stress test on the treadmill one time, and the cardiologist was an old guy who should have been, and soon was, superannuated.  The oscilloscope flatlined during my strenuous exercise.  Doc got quite excited, and I said, "Looks like you lost me, Doc."  He was not amused.

When my second wife died, my doctor, who was not the attending physician to the late patient, came to me to console me in my loss.  She hugged me and comforted me.

The beginning of life, the end of life, the best efforts to maintain life while it lasts, the very essence of  "hospital."  I did not say that the memories I had were all happy ones, but they are important ones, and that old building, which I will no longer be able to see except in my mind's eye, has been a vitally important part of my life.

 On the lighter side, click on over 

to Bob Warr's  blog.
I just realized that last Sunday's "Regrowth"
is post number 2000 on STSTT and I let it
pass without comment.