This Halloween, typically a day that many people
celebrate by dressing as vampires and mummies, ghosts
and
goblins, and other creatures of the dead, I learned the preciousness
and fragility of life. My husband and I spent our October 31st haunting
the emergency room of Brackenridge Hospital while our daughter writhed
and screamed in pain with a cerebral aneurysm. A
person is not supposed to suffer intercranial hemorrhages at
twenty-three, yet the miraculous machine that God
created sometimes malfunctions and death creeps closer
to life. When this happens, our ultimate mortality slams
Into our consciousness and lifts the veil of complacency from our eyes.
In addition to the pain and anguish we suffered during our
sojourn in the medical community of a large city hospital,
we also stood witness to the tragedy experienced daily,
minute by minute, in the lives of diverse people thrown
together and bound by agony. Once the diagnosis is made, the interminable
wait for good news begins. Within the Intensive Care waiting room, families
come together and cling to each other for the small warmth that human contact
brings.
The phone rings in this room constantly bringing news
from the inner sanctum of the operating room where the
Doctors, with God at their elbow, attempt to hold back
death for a time. Each ring brings a gasp of anticipation,
awaiting the call of a name that will mean that some family is going to
get news. Heads raise, pulses quicken, stricken eyes dart to the mechanical
monster on the wall. As the person the bell has rung for this time
stands to take the message, the others relax into the postures
of defeat that characterize this room. News regarding
various family member’s conditions are passed from one
to another of the inmates of this bizarre prison.
Strangers in fortune become companions in adversity.
And good news is celebrated by all, bad news is mourned
by all as the clock ticks out the minutes of a life hanging in the
balance. In between the waiting, a macabre dance of anguish is
enacted. Every two hours or so
the friends, family, and loved ones
of the patient gather their
meager emotional resources and start the long walk
down the hall to the various areas occupied by their
package of pain. In a zombie-like shuffle, the people begin
to gather. Their faces racked with pain, they most
resemble shell-shocked, battle weary soldiers. With attitudes of resignation,
guarded anticipation, and futile hope, they await
the nod of the nurse allowing them access to the source of their
anguish. Occasionally a doctor will step to one side with a select
family, and in low,
confidential tones speak the words most awaited and
most dreaded. Sometimes it is a brief sentence, no
change.
Sometimes it is a nod of approval, a clasp of a hand,
improvement has been noted. Either way, exhaustion
hangs in the air like a palatable cloud. And the weary
soldiers move forward to spend their thirty minutes and then to
resume their agonized waiting.
For us, the wait was not long. Within a very few hours of
beginning surgery on our daughter, the doctor spoke the
words we needed to hear. The surgery went well. Our
daughter was alive and relatively unharmed from her
brush with death. Forty-eight hours after time stopped
for us, the clock resumed its infintesimal ticking. Our hearts begin
to beat again and life marched on. The difference is that we will
never again take the moments of life so for granted. Each day
has become a gift that we are all too aware could be
snatched away between breaths.
