Seriously. I have for many many years. People go crazy. They drive like maniacs, shove by you in stores, break in line, try to run you down in parking lots. They scowl and growl and spend their days feverishly shopping, for gifts, for food, for deals.
After the last two days, of course, Thanksgiving has taken on a distinctly morbid feel for me.
I also used to find hospitals comforting. Up until Thursday I associated hospitals with the birth of my children. On the fourth floor at
Palmetto Baptist hospital in Columbia, the environment is warm and soothing, alive with hushed, excited voices, and accented by that big plate glass window separating an ever present crowd of thrilled family from a room full of plump newborns. The whole hospital is comfortingly painted, littered with soft chairs, and easy to navigate.
Not so the
North Carolina Baptist hospital. True, I arrived at 1 am and through the emergency entrance but still. I was immediately struck by the dark ER waiting room lined with dull-coloured, threadbare chairs. When I was directed to the floor where my father was in the ICU, I was forced to trail down long, drafty hallways painted a sickly green trimmed in black. The 5th floor itself was yellowish tan with dark dark brown doorjambs and baseboards. Who approved these colours? It gave the place a nightmarish quality reminiscent of Stephen King.
And cold. The entire, huge labyrinthine hospital was freezing cold. I spent the whole time with my full length coat on plus my scarf and - when negotiating the echoing, maze-like halls from place to place - my gloves.
The ICU was interesting. I'd never been in an ICU before. It was just a room full of beds with broken people in. There was a nurses station, and just the beds with their heads set along the wall, each with a cluster of beeping, hissing, chirping machines.
My dad was right by the door and it was really weird seeing him. It was like looking at a mannequin or a wax figure in one of those historical museums. You're fascinated at how realistic they can be and creeped out at the same time.
He's under heavy sedation and has been since the accident. He's intubated and on a respirator since his ribs were shattered and the bits punctured his lungs and collapsed them. He's also in a neck brace that cranes his head back, making him look stiff and even more mannequin-like.
So he looked very unreal and unlike himself. His already pale skin was waxy and cold to the touch and he was bruised everywhere and covered in small cuts - presumably from the glass out of the windscreen. He also looked very fragile and thin which was disturbing. He's non-responsive so I have no idea if he could hear me. Just as well, since all I could manage was: "Daddy, I'm here ..." before I choked up.
He definitely could have been a wax figure in a Halloween horror.
The staff of North Carolina Baptist, by the way, was terrific. In direct contrast to their chilly, shabby hospital they shone. From the security guard who parked my car at the ER entrance to Dr. Really Young and Cheerful, to the efficient nurses in the ICU, the staff was fabulous.
I'm going back up Monday the second Evil Genius Husband hits the door. I've spent the last few days explaining to everyone that: 1) I must care for my children and EGH works at a job where he cannot just casually take time off, and: 2) we are 4 1/2 hours away from this hospital. That's 9 hours
minimum on the road and I
must get some sleep myself or *I* will be lying in an ICU somewhere as well.
I also have been struggling to attend to the details of my dad's life - contact his job, his insurance people, take care of his animals, stop his paper, collect his post, etc. Everyone else seems to be taking a slightly cavalier attitude about this. "Don't worry about that stuff," and "Someone else will take care of that," and "We'll worry about that later," have all been said.
NO. I have
no control over what happened to my father. I have
no control over his recovery. But I
do have control over this. I am a very organized person. I deal with emergencies well.
LET ME DO THIS!
This is not only therapy for me, gives me something to do with my brain, but it will help my dad if only in a minimal way.
What I want most to do is to tell my dad that everything will be OK just like he used to do for me when I was little. Aside from the fact that I can't get out more than 3 words while standing at his bedside, I just can't tell him that. Because it
won't be OK.
It will never be OK again. his wife is dead. Nothing can change that or make it better.
So now I numbly wait. I'm trying to act as normal as possible in front of the kids. I'm trying to not act like a zombie around EGH. I'm trying to sleep.
I thought I might go out into the barnyard and build something - my own therapy - but I don't know how much I can do with my finger messed up. We'll see.
I swear, any time I think that nothing more can possibly go wrong, one of my cars gives up the ghost. I think they're out to get me.
Happy baby! Now mommy ... no more Ranch!
YIKES! This one's candida (yeastie beasties) and it's driving me nuts! He's teething and gnaws on his fist all day and everywhere the drool is smeared is a light dusting of candida rash. Bah!
