Waitin’ on a Man: Sitting by the Sickbed

In 2005, Brad Paisley released a song and video about “Waitin’ on a Woman”* with Andy Griffith. It’s a touching song about the frustrations of having to wait, over and over, on a wife who is always late but continuing to do it out of love. I am a veteran at “Waitin’ on a Man” but in a different context.

The song describes the chance encounter of a young husband, getting upset at his wife’s failure to meet up with him on time, and a long-married man who doesn’t mind waiting for his wife. He explains that he has been waiting on her since their first date, but on every occasion, she was worth waiting for. In the end, he says that if he gets to heaven ahead of her, he’ll find a bench to sit on because he doesn’t mind “waitin’ on a woman.”

*Songwriters: Donald R. Sampson / Wynn Varble; Waitin’ on a Woman lyrics © Peermusic Publishing, Reservoir Media Management, Inc, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.

Waiting on My Husband

There’s another kind of waiting for a loved one. That’s when your husband is ill and you are waiting by his bedside in the hospital. I’ve had lots of practice at that.

It started nine months after we were married when we learned my husband had non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Major surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his colon was followed by eight months of chemotherapy.

There have been several minor surgeries since and several heart procedures, including a quadruple bypass. Fortunately, the lymphoma cure has lasted 32 years, but in the meantime, he has had prostate cancer three times. Add in some neurological and kidney problems, and you understand why our lives revolve around his medical appointments.

My husband was obviously not constructed from sturdy parts, and that has meant lots of hanging around waiting rooms for me or sitting by his bedside. I just completed a week in a chair at the VA hospital, and now I’m waiting at home for him to recover at a convalescence center.

Of course, none of this is a picnic for my husband. He is the one who has to endure the needles, treatments, and surgeries. He also does his share of waiting in waiting and exam rooms and for doctors to appear on their rounds.

Waiting Sparks Creativity and Learning Opportunities

It requires great creativity to fill one’s time when one has to do so much waiting. Thank God for cell phones! I can keep up with the news, my correspondence, and the latest game apps. Then there’s chair yoga to keep me from becoming stiff and sore.

There are a lot of learning opportunities while one is waiting. First of all, there is all the activity in a hospital. It’s a real medical education. You learn all kinds of stuff you never intended to learn.

For some people, being in a hospital is difficult. They don’t like the sights or smells. It is frightening or disgusting to them. Fortunately for me, I worked as a nurse’s aide all through college, so hospitals are familiar territory to me. Besides, as a former scientist, I appreciate that hospitals are full of interesting medical developments and technologies.

A waiting room is a great place for people-watching. In an emergency room, you might observe behaviors that damage your faith in humankind, but they also bring out great empathy and an intense desire to campaign for healthcare reform.

Waiting, Worrying, and Prayer

The song says that statistics show men tend to die before women, and that’s true. So, it may be that men wait on women to get dressed or finish shopping, but I would bet that more time is spent by wives waiting on their husbands to get through imaging procedures, blood tests, surgeries, medical appointments, and hospital stays.

Most women do not have to go through the long list of husbandly ailments that I have experienced, but many do, and I think all wives know something of which I speak. Beyond tiring and boring, waiting can be emotional — gut-wrenching even. The anxiety versus the hopefulness is dizzying.

One faces a series of worries while waiting. What will the diagnosis/prognosis be? How will we handle the outcome? How will this affect our finances, our lifestyle? How will we make accommodations and adjustments? What do we tell the kids?

Most importantly, you have to ask how God will guide you during this turn of events. When a family member is ill, many of us turn to prayer as never before, and we learn its value. My husband and I have been blessed with a team of seasoned prayer warriors who are directly responsible, I am convinced, for my husband’s numerous physical comebacks.

“Waitin’ on a man” has been for me the occasion to live out one’s marriage vows to the fullest, to witness the power of prayer, and to experience the absolute need to lean on God and be sustained by faith. I pray that others in these circumstances find similar growth and fulfillment.