I spent much of yesterday sitting in a hospital room with an ailing patient. It reminded me that of all the places I’d rather not be as a healthy man, a hospital tops the list. However, should a medical emergency ever befall me, a hospital is the only place I’d want to go.

The first time I can recall being in the emergency room, I was in high school. Following a brilliant play of my design, I was all set to score a touchdown in an intramural football game when I stepped full stride into a gopher hole. My foot lodged and the momentum of my body did the rest. The result? My hip bone was no longer connected to… well, anything else.

After being ignobly carried by my teammates (through the girls’ gymnasium to my teenaged chagrin) to the school nurse’s office, I was then rushed onto an ambulance for a quick ride to the hospital. Guys in white coats rushed to the vehicle, rushed me onto a gurney, rushed me into the hospital, and there I began the interminable wait to be treated. With no rooms to be had, I was pushed up against the wall where, I was convinced, I was promptly forgotten.

At one point a young nun came to stand beside my gurney. Never having been in this situation before, I politely asked if she was “my nun.” I didn’t know. I thought maybe every patient was assigned one. She quickly moved on.

As it turns out, I eventually got the treatment I needed. Bones and ligaments healed – and healed so completely that to this day I cannot even remember which leg it was that got injured. It was restored to its original form. So I guess I have to be thankful to the doctors that tended to me.

Just as I am thankful to the dedicated individuals of Leesburg Regional Hospital Emergency Department. Professional, caring, compassionate, and friendly, they made a trying situation tolerable and a unpleasant event almost pleasurable. Well done.

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studio specialize in the preservation of family memories. For more information, call 352-735-8550 or visit www.homevideostudio.com/mtd