Note: After one or two nights in the recliner, I decided that the damn recliner wasn’t any better for sleep than the damn bed, so I reverted back to using the bed.
After another poor night of sleep at the hospital, I finally discovered something important.
The best place to sleep in a hospital room may not be the hospital bed.
It may be the recliner sitting next to it.
Now, let’s be clear. This recliner is not a luxury suite. It does not have cup holders. It does not recline me into some perfect cloud of comfort. There is no mint on the pillow, mostly because there is no pillow worth bragging about. Nobody from room service showed up with a breakfast menu and a warm towel.
It is just a hospital recliner.
But I slept.
And after 18 days away from home since the accident on May 31, “I slept” is not a small sentence. It is practically a medical progress note.
I slept more last night than I had in that damn bed during the last two and a half weeks.
That hospital bed and I have had a complicated relationship. It has buttons. It has rails. It raises. It lowers. It bends in the middle. It hums, clicks, shifts, and makes promises it cannot keep. Somewhere, I am sure, there is a training manual explaining how a human being is supposed to find rest in it.
Unfortunately, my back, ribs, spine, hips, shoulders, and general attitude have not read that manual.
The bed seems like it was designed by a committee made up of engineers, nurses, insurance people, safety inspectors, and at least one medieval consultant. Every adjustment seems useful in theory. In practice, I end up feeling like a large, tired, old man being folded into hospital origami by a machine with buttons.
The recliner, on the other hand, had a much simpler operating procedure.
Sit down.
Lean back.
Try not to think about how long it has been since you were home.
And for a while, it worked.
Not perfectly. Let’s not get carried away. Even with 18 days of exhaustion stacked on top of three broken vertebrae, six cracked ribs, surgery, hospitals, rehab, therapy, and the general background soundtrack of institutional life, the sleep was not deep. It did not last long. It was not the kind of sleep that makes angels sing or restores your faith in mattresses.
It was hospital sleep.
Thin sleep.
Interrupted sleep.
The kind of sleep where part of your brain is still listening for hallway noises, rolling carts, door latches, beeping machines, footsteps, blood pressure cuffs, and the possibility that someone may appear at any moment to ask if you are sleeping.
But it was sleep.
And any sleep is better than no sleep.
That is one of the things a person learns in a hospital or rehab center. Standards change. Before the accident, I might have complained that a bed was too firm, too soft, too hot, too cold, or that the pillow wasn’t right. Now, I am apparently prepared to write a thank-you note to a recliner that allowed me to be unconscious for longer than the bed did.
Recovery is full of these odd little victories.
Walking a few more steps.
Sitting up a little longer.
Getting through therapy.
Trying to figure out how this damned brace is supposed to work.
Finding a position that does not make every injured part of your body call an emergency meeting.
And now, discovering that the plain old recliner beside the hospital bed may be the unsung hero of the room.
Not a miracle.
Not a luxury.
Not even particularly comfortable.
But for one exhausted patient, it did what the fancy bed could not do.
It let me sleep.
Not long.
Not deep.
But enough to count.
