I'm not big on Hallmark holidays, but I can't say this is how I pictured my first. I'm hardly alone, though, in a hospital filled with patients and families who would rather be elsewhere.
I look around the floor and wonder why all these other (mostly) kids are here. Children's hospitals specialize in conditions of a certain type, not people of a certain age, so there are patients here--patients with "kids' diseases"--who are in their late 20s. Most are younger, much younger than that. Sam is very young, but he is not the only infant I've seen in PICU.
One 11-year-old whose father my dad befriended a few days ago was in a horrible head-on ATV accident. He came here via Medevac* from a rural area near Camp David, MD (up near the PA border) and, at some point, had a stroke. Beyond that I know no details. When I see the dad we exchange vague pleasantries ("we're doing well today") but avoid more than the superficial. I don't have the energy to retell Sam's whole story, and it doesn't feel fair to ask him for anything more than I can give myself.
After 10+ days here, other faces, both parents and kids, are starting to look familiar, but we don't know one another's stories and we do little more than greet one another cordially, as if to acknowledge that, yes, we are both still here.
After 10+ days here, other faces, both parents and kids, are starting to look familiar, but we don't know one another's stories and we do little more than greet one another cordially, as if to acknowledge that, yes, we are both still here.
Occasionally I see a pre-school-age boy being pulled down the hall (by dad?) in a little red Radio Flyer wagon, his medical apparatus (monitor and such) in tow. It's briefly cute but mostly sad; he seems to know that the exercise is kind of forced and hollow, a pale imitation of life on the outside.
* Which his dad said cost just short of $50000.
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