Appointment at St. E's

 

Looks grim, doesn't it? So why am I taking a picture of St. Elizabeth's hospital on a snowy January morning? Without going into personal details, I had an appointment there at 8 A.M. I was one in a continuous line of cars turning into the drive and heading for the parking lot. 

Maybe we don't pay enough attention to our hospitals--those of us who don't work in health care. Maybe we don't even see them, they have become such familiar landmarks. But when we need them, or when someone we love does--then we notice. 

It's definitely humming here. 

St. E's, as everyone calls it, is one of two Utica hospitals, the other being Faxton-St. Luke's. I have been a patient and a visitor in both many times over the past 36 years. Yet I still can get lost in the winding, convoluted hallways. Faxton, like St. E's, used to stand alone, an old hospital attempting to adapt to new technologies and patient needs. Everyone familiar with it was sad to see it merge with St. Lukes. And in spite of varying opinions of St. E's, we probably would be sorry to see it change into an urgent care facility.

And just in case you're wondering, who is St. Elizabeth? (Not all of us are Christian, or Catholic, or remember our Sunday school lessons). She was, as they say, the first to know, the middle-aged wife of a priest in Jeruselem, who visited Mary and was told of the miraculous birth.

But it does look grim! Do I want to go in? Maybe it's the bleak skies and the snow.