Brady woke up with a blink and a stare,
with hospital tape in his beard and his hair.
His brain had been worked on, he felt sorta baked,
But he remembered that he had a phone call to make!
“Hello there, my wife, I am living,” he said,
“though I think there’s a cloud taking naps in my head.
I’m okay. I am here. But I’m not myself yet.
I will tell you the nurses names before I forget!”
“I love you,” he mumbled, “I’m brave and I’m tough.
The doctor said surgery was really good stuff.
My words are a soup, and my face feels delayed,
but please be impressed by the call that I made.”
Then off Brady drifted, all cozy and drugged,
with his blanket tucked in and his IV thingy plugged.
He hoped for deep sleep for morning was near.
But the hospital heard him and said, “Hold my beer.”
His roommate was snoring like bears in a band.
Another kept yelling, “Who took my left hand?”
A third coughed so loud that the curtains all shook.
One man fought his pillow and called it a crook.
Then in came the nurses with gentle attack:
“Hi Brady, I know you’re tired but we need to keep track.
Are you sleeping? Are you comfy? Do you feel okay?
Can you rate all your feelings from zero to yay?”
They asked, “Do your feet hurt?” He paused for effect.
“My feet have been silent. They’re hard to connect.
If they file a complaint, I will pass it along,
but so far they’ve said nothing. Not even a song.”
Then someone brought socks with the grippy-dot feet.
“Wear these,” they said, “so you don’t slip when you’re beat.”
Brady stared at the socks, then his wheelchair nearby:
“Well thank goodness. My ankles were planning to fly.”
“Those sneaky old toes almost ran down the hall.
Those reckless old heels nearly ruined it all.
So thank you for gripping the feet I don’t use.
A truly heroic and sensible move.”
By morning, the breakfast came sad on a tray,
like the food had been punished and sent there to stay.
The eggs had the bounce of a small rubber mat.
The toast tasted mostly like warm cardboard flat.
The oatmeal looked tired. The sausage looked scared.
The muffin looked like it had not been prepared.
And the coffee was weak in a terrible way,
like one lonely bean had walked by it that day.
Brady took one little sip and looked deeply betrayed.
“This coffee,” he whispered, “needs medical aid.
This is not coffee. This is bean-flavoured rain.
If this is the norm, I may go insane.”
Then suddenly, softly, the door opened wide.
There stood sweet Hailey, with Tim’s at her side.
A bag full of breakfast. A coffee that’s right.
A hash brown that glowed like a heavenly light.
Brady sat up like his soul had returned.
The weak hospital coffee was judged and adjourned.
The bagel was warm. The real coffee was strong.
The whole room got brighter. The birds wrote a song.
Brady took one sip and came back from the brink:
“Now THAT is a coffee a person can drink.
That stuff on my tray was suspicious and thin.
I think they just rinsed an old coffee cup in.”
“The eggs were so rubbery, I made a small bet
they’d bounce off the wall and come back to the bed.
The toast was so dry it could sand down a door.
The muffin was so bad, I can’t believe they made more.”
So cheers to the nurses who popped in at three
to ask if poor Brady was sleeping peacefully.
And cheers to the roommate who snored like a bear,
then yelled at his blanket with a violent snare.
And cheers to the socks with the grippity dots,
protecting his feet from their getaway plots.
They said, “Wear these, Brady, so you don’t slip and fall,”
while he sat in his chair and went nowhere at all.
But cheers most to Hailey, the queen of the plan,
who knew he required breakfast contraband.
For after brain surgery, pain meds, and scans,
nothing says healing like Tim’s in her hands.
So bring on the beeping, the trays, and the gowns,
the hallway parades and the hospital sounds.
Brady could handle the chaos and whims,
as long as sweet Hailey kept sneaking in Tim’s.
