I hate hospital nights. Not only because of the constant noise of the machines, the nurses who turn on the lights every two hours to check if you’re still alive, or the room neighbor that wakes you up ten times a night to go to the toilet (either because she calls the nurses to accompany her, or because she tries to go by her own and ends up falling on your bed). I hate hospital nights because they’re lonely nights. It’s not the loneliness of a night in a single-bed hotel room, nor is it the loneliness procured by an empty pillow in a double bed. The loneliness of hospital nights is the one I used to feel as a child when I slept over at a friend’s place. The deep feeling of having been abandoned when the mother of my friend kissed me goodnight, making me remember my mum was far away.
As nights at the hospital trigger childhood fears, my boyfriend decided to fight my loneliness with methods for children. During my last hospital stay, he put dozens of glow-in-the-dark stars over my hospital bed, while I was in the scanner. I had to sleep with my glasses on so I could see them, but it helped. And it was romantic. Actually I think he’s the only one that can make hospital nights romantic. Yes, my man hung the moon and the stars…