Hospital 2 and the hospital bag

needs: a hospital bag in my Millennium Falcon

It’s not for everyone. I know it’s a little bunker boy disaster planning but I got to the tipping point where that level of planning was going to deliver more calm than chaos. We were at hospital so often that the “bringing in” of the same same was a waste of time, where the request squandered the precious minutes whispered to my beloved. Every emergency admission resulted in the same spending of $20, $40, $60 for bits and bobs and in an entirely helpless situation, where everything that was so hard was compounded by not having clean undies.

He would say “what do you need?” because he was the guy who delivered what I needed but, a little like Han Solo, outside of the Millennium Falcon, he’s not the guy who could work out what I needed. “These are not the droids I’m looking for”, I would sigh at the t-shirt that didn’t fit me. And for me, because I am irritated with the world, a little like Leia in Empire, would always set an impossible list of things predestined to fail, because in hospital I am not appeased with the little things, like a toothbrush, because the big things, like walking, are out of reach.

It was a year we had called friends and family more times to cancel than we had to say hello, and we had pulled the pin on extra-curricular, playdates and indulgences like exercise had abandoned us. We were tethered to our home and a routine of illness-rest-repeat and with determined practice I tried not to envy other families. We were fighting the Empire on all fronts and it was happening to us, at us, around us, so I made the decision to pack a hospital bag. It was not the only crazy ass decision I made that year (Meal plan) but there was a “help me Obiwan, you’re our only hope” need and finding myself both Leia and Obiwan, I packed all the fucking light sabers a desperate mother could possibly need.

I packed the essentials I would normally ask my beloved for when my brain was clipping through the shopping list of cat scan, mri, bloods, heart rates, and oxygen saturation…. I packed the things my best friend brought in that I couldn’t ask my beloved for, and then I packed a few things that I thought might just save the rebel alliance. Away from the heart clenching nightmare that unfolded in hospital, I packed equal parts diligent Leia, hopeful Luke and swashbuskling Han and then I sprinkled a little force all over it.

And we drove it around in the back of our Millennium Falcon for more than 12 parsecs, a little over a year, until we didn’t.