By now, if you’ve read my last post, you know that a wedding program—and a snarky Facebook comment—dragged me back to blogging after fifteen years of silence. So here we are again. Writing. Processing. Living the dream in yet another hospital room while Keith undergoes yet another procedure. I’m sitting in a too-cold chair, sipping cafeteria iced coffee, and wondering, for the millionth time, how hospitals have become the accidental backdrop to every major milestone in my life.
Hospitals and I—we go way back. We’re in a long-term, codependent relationship built on trauma, low lighting, and the relentless ho-hum of machines. I’ve cried in their parking lots. I’ve tried to sleep in vinyl recliners that recline in theory only. I’ve yelled in waiting rooms. I’ve made peace in quiet hallways at 3 a.m. when the only thing louder than the beeping IVs was my own heartbeat trying to make sense of all the grief, fear, and exhaustion I felt.
One of the most memorable hospital stays of my life was when I had my daughter. I was 22 and thought I was dying. I had pregnancy hydronephrosis—a condition so rare and obscure that even the doctors didn’t seem to know what was going on at first. They told me it was just a kidney infection. I told them kidney infections don’t switch sides every time the baby moves. The pain was unbearable. I kept begging them to help me. They finally did—ten days in, with an emergency c-section at 36 weeks. She came out fierce and perfect, already ready to fight the world with me, little Leo that she is.
There was one night, in that same hospital stay, that will live in infamy: they gave me Ambien. I got up out of bed, and I hallucinated that the IV pole was something I was supposed to grab onto. And then I just… started peeing. Everywhere. My mom, also slightly dazed and exhausted from being at the hospital nonstop, genuinely thought we were at home under the skylights and it was raining. When she realized what was really happening, she stood up to stop me, but I looked her dead in the eye and said, completely seriously: “What? At least I’m not peeing the bed.” To this day, I stand by that logic.
I was also in a hospital when my mom died. It was Trump’s inauguration day—rainy, gray, and surreal in every possible way. People were fighting in the waiting room. Loudly. It was too much. I completely snapped. I screamed at everyone to shut the fuck up. Loudly. They moved our family to a private room after that. That’s the thing about grief. Sometimes, you cry. Sometimes, you scream. Sometimes, you become that daughter, and honestly, sometimes, that’s the only way people take you seriously.
There have been countless other visits. Some for me. Most for Keith. ERs. ICUs. Recovery rooms. Check-ins. Check-outs. Procedures. Follow-ups. We’ve become regulars, the kind where nurses remember your name, and the front desk doesn’t even ask how to spell it anymore. And every time, I bring my armor—laptop, coffee, chargers, chapstick, and a strange sense of humor that refuses to die, even in the worst of moments.
This post isn’t just about hospitals, though. It’s about the way life keeps bringing me back to the places that broke me—so I can see how much stronger I am now. It’s about remembering that the wedding I’m planning isn’t just about love and flowers and playlists. It’s about survival. It’s about two people who have been through the unthinkable and still show up for each other. It’s about telling the truth, even when it’s messy. Especially when it’s messy.
This isn’t our first rodeo with love. But it’s the one that’s going to stick. We’ve built this love in waiting rooms and hospital beds, between diagnoses and discharge paperwork, while holding each other’s hands through fear and frustration and fucking T1D hallucinations. This love wasn’t born under twinkle lights and Pinterest boards—it was forged in chaos, tested by life, and chosen over and over again when everything felt impossible. And somehow, we still laugh. We still believe. We still show up.
So yeah. Maybe I’m just a woman in another hospital room, writing her guts out again. Maybe you’re someone who needed to read this today. Either way—we’re here. Still standing. Still finding the story in the chaos. And if this post meant something to you… well, here’s the part where I do the thing that makes me slightly cringe but is also real life:
Times are tough.
This blog is free. My life—surprise!—is very much not.
If you felt something reading this, if you saw yourself in any of it, or if you just want to help keep the writing (and the iced hospital coffee) going, here’s where you can throw a few bucks my way:
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