A good roommate is worth his salt-free diet

The Princess has returned from The Great North, where her father remains in the hospital due to a stroke. Despite his inability to talk or process much of what is going on around him, he frequently expresses his opinion of his hospital experiences by wreaking havoc upon various pieces of equipment, the bedsheets, his extremely flimsy gown, etc.


His opinion on these issues was largely shared by his most recent roommate, whose name was continually being mispronounced by hospital personnel. This was mainly because it rhymed roughly with McGuire but no more looked like it rhymed with McGuire than it looked like it rhymed with Smith. I called him Mr. M, as this seemed a fairly foolproof pronunciation.


Despite this mistreatment of his name, Mr. M was quite cheerful during his stay. He owed much of this, he said, to powerful medications that allowed him to sleep even through all the chaos and noise around him. One downside, however, was that it also allowed him to fall asleep at inconvenient times during the day, such as at mealtime. We would hear him begin his meal with gusto, and soon it would be quiet on the other side of the curtain, and his forehead would be dangerously close to his plate. 


Once he even nodded off while being questioned by a doctor, although I couldn't blame him for this. He was constantly being asked the same questions by different staff, as if the answer would ever change to "So you came in because you were having chest pains?" He never gave in to the temptation--and it must have been strong--to just one time say, "No, I just missed seeing you all since my last visit."


Mr. M had a fair number of visitors, some of whom endeavored to cheer him up in such a way as to make me refer to them, privately, as Job's Three Friends, although there were only two. Mr. M had clearly enjoyed food all his life, and these particular friends seemed determined to send him into High Cholesterol Orbit. They talked wistfully of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and french fries, and lamented with Mr. M that such foods were noticeably absent from his approved hospital menu. During this conversation there would be periodic pauses, as if they were observing a moment of silence for what could never be, and for the fact that Mr. M was confined to such foods as salad--at least as long as he remained in the hospital.


Mr. M told his Two Friends that we were always at our father's side, "holding his little hand." It was not quite true that we were always with him, although Mr. M's frequent lapses into sleep must have made it seem so. This prompted a discussion among them about the general selfishness of today's youth, who show their parents no respect and think nothing of plopping--that was their word--their parents in a hospital when they want to, for example, go on vacation for a few days or weeks. These failings caused much head-shaking among the three.


Mr. M took great interest in the comings and goings of our family, and in my father's well-being. "Hello, James's family," he would say from his side of the curtain when we arrived. His name, too, was James, and he took delight in directing any staff who called him James to my father, particularly if the individual looked as if he or she was bearing any unpleasant items, such as salad. "Nope, that's James over there," he would say.


With his good hand my father frequently fought with his hospital gown. We fought with him fighting with his gown, and rarely won, resulting in what my brother referred to as "wardrobe malfunctions." This highly amused Mr. M, who also suffered from such occasional malfunctions.


"Excuse my skirt," he would say when his gown retreated to places he did not intend it to retreat. "I don't know how you ladies do it, keeping your skirts in order."


One day we saw that Mr. M's name was no longer on the door, and his bed was empty. We assume he got to go home, and we can only hope he does not lapse into a diet of fried chicken and french fries--if for no other reason than to stay out of the hospital and keep those wardrobe malfunctions at bay.