Hospitals

I spent all day yesterday at Washington Hospital Center. My dad needed to get a defibrillator installed. (Sounds like a car needing a new radiator or something.) Dad has had 2 heart attacks, has diabetes and is insulin dependant, and has a small host of smoking related illnesses and is not in the best of shape. The doctors feel his chances of surviving another heart attack would be better if he didn't have one. So the defibrillator will "shock" his heart into the right beat if it gets off tune.....like on ER....CLEAR!!!....CHARGING TO 300.....only internally. We are all wishing it will "shock" him into submission the next time he sneaks a cigarette....

I hate hospitals. What a dreadful place. It's like some kind of alternate universe where things are happening very quickly but nothing ever changes. Everyone is sick, everyone is suffering, you can see outside but you are fully aware that most will never touch it again. I don't know how the doctors and nurses stand it. They really must be Saints or Angels of Mercy. I just can't imagine spending my days/nights walking up those long corridors dealing with the horrible, agonizing pain and suffering of the patients and the panic of the love ones waiting and hoping. They must see so much and they remain so calm. They are overworked, everything is a crisis, how they don't end up in the beds themselves is a miracle although I'm sure many of them do.

I have spent far too much time in hospitals, especially in the cardiac centers. It's terrifying. All the constant alarms and emergencies. You sit looking at the monitors and all of a sudden they stop or worse start buzzing and the first couple of times you rush into the hall screaming for a nurse and then you get lulled into submission because the nurse has once again assured you it's just he machine resetting....no worries. Right. Yesterday the machines quit and my mom and I just watched my dad's chest rise and fall....knowing that at least if he's breathing, that's a good sign. The nurse eventually came and fixed them, took his blood sugar which was 307, rushed out of the room mumbling about getting him something to eat/drink/meds and then disappeared. For an hour. He was just out of the recovery room, hadn't ate/drank for 16 hours....was in and out of consciousness....you begin to really understand the meaning of the word helpless.

Of course, you can't get angry with the nurse or the hospital, they have hundreds of other rooms with exactly the same drama being played out over and over. They bring my diabetic dad sugar instead of Equal and then they get agitated when they want to do an xray on him even though the doctor said he couldn't have an MRI because of the defibrillator and we panic, frantically making sure they know WHO he is and WHY he is there and will it be okay to xray him.....We learn to trust without trusting. Helplessness.....

I was stuck yesterday by the audacity of myself thinking that I am a healer. Ha. Right. I got nothing up my sleeve compared to them.

My prayers and energy and light go out to those doctors/nurses/workers that face illness and death every day. I just can't imagine. I am exhausted just after one day. And don't even start me on the traffic......

My dad is stable and okay for the time being. Thank you for your prayers and concern. He comes home today. Thank God.