Lying in Bed

This is Peggy writing. I’m not exactly sure how I managed to contract pneumonia—first a cold, then warning signals ignored, then relentless hiking in the icy cold, or maybe just general stress and in any case plenty of denial, but here it is. Pneumonia! It’s the not-so-bad kind, what used to be called “walking pneumonia,” but it does require a little attention.

Like staying in bed. This isn’t easy. Normally, when I finally make it to bed after all the stuff that has to be taken care of I’m more or less instantly asleep, so I don’t really know what it’s like to lie in bed awake. And not just for awhile, but for hours. It could be days. You lie there with your eyes open, and pretty soon you’re aware of a little discomfort, so you adjust a bit. You move your leg to the side, or twist your trunk around slightly. Then not much later, you do it again, maybe the other leg, or slide the trunk just a little in the other direction. Sometimes you turn on your side, just for a little relief; then back on your back. Then maybe the other side, or all the way over on your tummy. But it’s always about keeping just a little ahead of the discomfort that comes with lying too still in just one position, especially if the position isn’t quite perfect.

Brooke can’t make any of these moves by himself. He gets turned every two hours by the aides in order to prevent bedsores, day and night. He can ask to be repositioned, but of course has to be considerate of the staff and not ask too often. He’s up in the wheelchair for a couple of hours, but otherwise he’s in bed. And when he’s in bed, he can’t do all the little incremental readjustment every few minutes that goes with lying in bed. If there’s one lesson in a little touch of pneumonia (besides the obvious one about how important the lungs are), it’s about what it must be like for him to lie there, more and more aware of sensation all the time but still not able to move enough to do anything about it.