Checking Out? Leaving? A Tale of Hospital Discharge and the Hotel California
“You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave”—at least, that’s how it feels on discharge day at the hospital.
Getting Anne released proved to require a labyrinthine dance worthy of the Eagles’ greatest hit.
Various staff members would tell us that she was free to go, liberated from their vice-like grip—then they would vanish, never to be seen again.
Or another official would appear with a stack of papers, each one more cryptic than the last, to be signed, initialed, and dated by a person at least temporarily incapable of performing those feats.
Of course then there are follow-up appointments to schedule and prescriptions to decipher, while waiting for an “escort” because walking out on one’s own or as a twosome is as frowned upon as sneaking out the back door of the Hotel California.
The discharge summary seemed like a passport to freedom, but the exit was always just out of reach.
Until stealthily we tiptoed past the front desk, into a waiting cab, and returned home, once again destined to fend for ourselves.
“Last thing I remember, I was running for the doorI had to find the passage back to the place I was before“Relax, ” said the night man, “We are programmed to receiveYou can check out any time you like, but you can never leave”
“Hotel California” refers to both a famous song and an album by the Eagles, released in 1976.
