One of my least favorite places on earth is the Foothills hospital in Calgary. I really hate it there. It is an ugly cement edifice representing crushed hopes and dreams, and they make you pay $15 a day parking to boot. There is just something really unethical about THAT.
There are only about 6 people in the world that I would enter that nauseating building for again. My dad is one of them.
Last Sunday, after Reggie's ordination to the office of teacher in the Aaronic priesthood, my immediate family sat down in my parent's living room having some dessert. Suddenly, my dad catapulted from his seat like a puppet, while his fork flew across the room. He had received a shock from his defibrillator. This, of course wasn't a new thing, considering he has myocardio myopathy (life threatening erratic heart rhythms). However, he began to be shocked about every 20 minutes. It is very painful. Other people pass out from the pain, but not my dad. Sometimes I wish he would pass out so he wouldn't feel it. 12 more shocks and an hour later he was in an ambulance on his way to the that place I hate. I followed the ambulance and tried not to think about the familiar roads I was taking and the doors I would be walking through shortly.
From start to finish there were 20 shocks. Pretty much unheard of in cardiac circles. They stabilized him with a slew of medications and he fell into an exhaustive sleep. Mom and I headed to the waiting room and began a fitful sleep in the same chairs I slept in 5 years previous.
It was surreal waking up that next day smelling that putrid antiseptic, listening to the oh so familiar beeps of the IVs, the squeak of the nurses shoes on the floor. I don't know what you imagine your own personal hell to be, but mine is hospitals.
Without thinking, my feet guided me down the corridor to the cafeteria. I saw the same man there cooking food that I used to visit with everyday. He didn't remember me. I floated to the cash register and dropped coins into the hand that I had touch dozens of times. No smile of recognition. The same porters, the same doctors, the same cleaning staff......all swirled around me in a nightmarish deja vu.
Food tasted like dust on my tongue. I kept chewing, kept breathing, kept going through the motions I was supposed to in the company of someone I had to be strong for. I wouldn't allow myself to lose it.
Back in the room, Dad snapped me out of my haze. He was smiling. He was ok, for the time being, and that was all that mattered. I can do it for him. Whatever that may be.
