My need to dress and get to the hospital is one of urgency; an urgency out of a need to see that she is assured that someone still loves her and one that makes it clear she has support.
I’m not particularly enamored with the current place of convalescence since it lacks a lot of diligence for the patients. One hardly sees a doctor and if you do it is a doctor who needn’t be there to talk to. The ones that matter seems non-existent.
When I tell a nurse that my daughter is in pain and they say OK, but who the hell sees them with anything to ease the pain.
I take with me my laptop, I-pad and newspaper and of course my book AMP which all help me get through the long hours of quiet and non-verbal communication with my daughter. When I do have a conversation, it is with maybe the nurse’s aid or a nurse who asks me questions that she should already have answers to but doesn’t.
The chair I sit on is hard and uncomfortable, as I am crowded into a small section of the room that Ellen shares.
After I read the newspaper, do the Sudoku and crossword puzzles I turn t the laptop, write and peruse the Internet, I settle into some games on my I-pad while I watch the clock for a first-morning break down to the cafeteria. Around mid-morning TLW (The Little Woman) arrives and we commiserate over our misery, a kind of ‘miserate’ as we exchange notes and observations and I relate the morning from what I can gather.
I have been doing this in three hospitals and a couple of nursing homes for the past four years on and off. She has been in one of the facilities almost every day and more so than not. What I dream is to wake up one morning not worrying, knowing that I have no place to run to or fret about. As it is, all my plans for a move to Burbank, California are now on permanent hold. I am angry, tired and fearful for my daughter. I don’t have a normal life.
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