Pillowbook "are you bored yet? "

I had a visitor as I was lying in in my hospital bed hooked up to a breathing machine, two IV's in my arm and a nose tube for feeding, who suddenly asked me:
"Aren't you bored lying here and having nothing to do?"

I didn't have anything nice to say because all that comes out is: You wouldn't understand.

Boring is something healthy people do. If you are really, really sick you don't get bored. Because every cell, every fiber in your body is working so hard to keep you alive, focused only on one thing: survival.

Asking a mortally ill person if they are bored is like asking the guy who fought a grizzly, got his arm ripped off and then stumbled through the forest for days in search of help: "Wasn't it boring to walk that distant, there was nothing but forest to see?"

So next time you visit someone very sick, instead of stupid questions, hold their hand and tell them everything about the world outside. Tell them of things you have done and people you have met, or even better how much you like them and wait for them to get better so you can together go and do all these things.

but most of all...just hold their hand...