Going Home

She promised herself that this would be the last time, no matter what. She is tired and wants to go home. This is the visit that tipped the scale. Literally. That damn scale was the source of this latest Midtown Georgia Hospital.

Weigh yourself, they said. Every day. 

She obliged and look where it got her.

Every day, she wakes up seven times a night, like a school bell going off in her bladder and her lungs every 45 minutes. Restless sleep, short of breath, sweaty, and puddles on the sheet. 

This morning, she finally woke up for good, looked over to the cool side of the bed for John, knowing he is no longer there, wishing that his sonorous sleep was there to comfort her.

It’s been almost one year in this small apartment, at least it’s her own, and not some minimum-security old person home that her son wanted her in. But forced out of her house, moved 1,000 miles away, from the only place she knew. 

Chicago was home. She grew up there. Met John there.

He went peacefully. Just went to bed, woke up dead. Never stayed in a hospital.

Now Jane’s here, back at the hospital for the fifth time this year, from slipping off that damn scale. Was her weight up or down? Doesn’t even know.

Her son found her as naked as the day she was born. Crammed in the closet, lying on several wires and gadgets.

She eschewed technology, so no phone nearby. No alert bracelets.

Her son will demand she wear one now. She only uses the dang fancy phone to keep in touch with the grandkids. She watches them whittle away the hours sucked away in that world. Books are fine for her to get lost in; fancy gadgets get tossed in the bottom of the closet.

And now. Surrounded by screens, computers, and endless beeps. She’s seen nothing but gizmos for the past few hours; not a person has come by. Not that she could see them anyway. Her supposedly smart son forgot to grab her glasses.

The first hospital visit, there were too many people. She couldn’t keep up with the carousel of faces. They called her “hon’” and “darlin’”, but no one knew her. 

Another stay she calls “Around the hospital in 80 tests”. A series of misadventures as a cough begat an X-ray, begat a CT, begat an MRI, which started the journey to a biopsy, then another. All to say it was nothing. 

This last time, she started with that breathlessness. A leak of some heart tests they said. She pictured explorers searching to plug a leak in her heart of darkness. They found nothing, just a bad squeezer. Sent her home with that dang scale, some pills, and rest.

Heart failure. 

Sure, when John died, it certainly did. That’s all she’s become, but that’s not her story. No one knows about her 50 years of marriage, raising three kids, and when the kids flew the coop, she taught English to horny, misbehaving middle schoolers.

Each visit, she feels like a different, distorted amusement park ride.

John would have stopped this latest roller coaster, but he wasn’t here.

She lies in the hospital bed, a little confused, less short of breath, with a ticker that’s slowing down. 

They tell her she nearly hit someone last night. Her head swims with images of her Chicago home and slapping the remote from her daughter’s hand for watching TV. 

As she stirs again, she notes a different room, more sterile. She recalls a nurse welcoming her right away as she rolled up from the ER. She heard the voice across the room, a sweet voice. 

Andi, she recalls. And this morning, it sounded like the same nurse. Working all day, maybe? She knew Jane was from Chicago and asked how it was going since John passed. No one did that before. 

Now another voice rouses her. 

“Hi Jane, good morning. I’m Dr. Andy.”

“Is that my doctor? I’m sorry I can’t see without my glasses.”

“You sound better this morning. How are you feeling?”

“I feel better. My breathing is much better. I was swollen like a balloon about to burst.”

“That’s very funny, Ms. Jones. You probably made all your middle school students laugh in class.”

“I had to tell jokes to keep them in line. You know, why was 6 mad at 7? Because 7 8 9.”

“Ha, ha, ha, ha.”

“Wait. How did you know I was a middle school teacher?

“I’m your doctor. I know all about you.”

The next day, she feels better. Able to walk to the bathroom on her own. 

“Based on your prior records, you have no coronary disease. There is an 80% chance that you have Takotsubo, broken heart syndrome.”

“No one has told me that before.”

“The treatment would be to correct the source, which is likely related to the death of your husband one year ago this week. Your vitals are better. The way to treat a broken heart is to mend it. Maybe you need to go to Chicago?”

“Yeah. Like that could ever happen; my kids wouldn’t let me near the old house.”

An hour later, an alarm goes off in the room. A voice calls for Ms. Jones to get back in bed.

A few seconds later, a tech comes in, noticing the stairwell door closing shut as she passes.

“Where did she go?” 

The round gadget on the wall, the AINDI v2, the Artificial Intelligence Nurse and Doctor Insights, whirs to life. 

Jane enters a driverless car, with her name Jane flashing in front. The screen map shows the destination as Chicago, Illinois.

“Hey, AINDI, where did Jane go?

“She said she wanted to go home. So, I sent her there.”

2025 National Hospitalist Day HM Voices Contest Submission

Dr. Messler

Dr. Messler is the chief medical officer with Glytec, which has Glucommander insulin management software. He is the former medical director of the Morton Plant Hospitalist group in Clearwater, Fla., where he continues to work as a hospitalist. He is a former editor and physician author for the SHM blog, The Hospital Leader. He also chaired SHM’s Quality and Patient Safety Committee and has been active in several of its national mentoring programs, including Project BOOST and Glycemic Control. He has spoken at national conferences on a variety of topics such as teamwork in the hospital, quality and patient safety, the history of hospitals, and mentoring quality improvement projects.