It is a strange feeling this...

…this being completely in the care of other people.

I have been in the hospital for the past week, and what a week it has been. I’m not really sure where to start. I have so many people to say thank you to—both strangers and friends—and this seems like the most ridiculous mechanism through which to do it.

I started by taking myself in a cab to the emergency room on Saturday, and I would end up spending two days in the emergency room before being transferred to UCSF Mt. Zion and staying until today. I was sicker than I realized, and I am happy to say that I am now home and recovering.

To begin with, I have a whole new respect for the nursing profession, as so many of them took such good care of me. There was the nurse from Guyana who stroked my hair as I curled into a fetal position on the gurney and sobbed in pain and fear and frustration. There was Vino and Harlan and Chan and Mayra who answered my calls in the middle of the night begging for more pain medication, who brought me jello and crackers, and who joked with me even when I was completely doped out of my mind and made the IVs and medications and hospital gowns more bearable. There was the nurse who held my hand and wiped tears from my face as the anesthesiologist placed the mask over my face and said, “We’re going to put you to sleep now, Amie,” as I went into surgery. There was Neehani who came to visit me when she was not on her shift and laid her hands across my abdomen and said soothing words and wished me good health and told me of going to visit her family in Thailand. I want to write to them all and thank them personally.

And then there are my friends. I will never forget Yan and Jenny bursting into the emergency room to find me when I didn’t know anyone knew where to look. Nannette stocked me with reading materials, Jenny made washing and brushing my hair her personal project, Matt took care of my birds, Scott kept me supplied with coffee infinitely better than that available at the hospital.

Scott and Matt visited me and sat with me every day. Every single day.

I was never alone in the evenings, and they never minded how stoned I was on morphine and oxycodone and vicodin or if I drifted off in the middle of a conversation. They all made me laugh in various ways—Scott raised my hospital bed as high in the air as it would go (5 feet!) and Matt let me kick his ass at the song lyric game (you can’t really be that bad, can you? C’mon! I was at such a disadvantage!). Patrick brought me a little box and the latest issue of Jet for all my hip-hop needs. Everyone called and texted constantly (especially my sweet Kelli), and took walks with me and my IV machine around the 5th floor.

Jenny brought me home today, and helped me get groceries and bird food and prescriptions. Nannette was waiting when we got here, and the two of them did my dishes and laundry and changed my sheets and helped me take care of my birds and made me tea.

Now I am in bed, and I feel loved. And very, very lucky. Thank you all so very much.