The View from the Other Side of the Bed

This is a post that first appeared on Laura Klein’s blog Edgy June Cleaver

I’m in San Antonio this week. I wish I were touring the Alamo and the missions, walking along the River, sampling BBQ at a Dive, Diner Drive-in type of place, dancing at a fiesta, or savoring a puffy taco at Los Barrios Mexican restaurant almost around the corner from the house my family lived in when I was born. It’s so pretty and green here now that the drought is over; it would be nice to take the drive me and Dad took last October when we went to the place I almost grew up. I would give just about anything to take another ride with him. Instead, I sit at his bedside, and direct him to leave his lines, oxygen and monitor leads alone; gently reminding him he is in the hospital and very ill.

I’m spending time with Dad but it’s at his bedside in a hospital. It’s weird being on the other side of the bed. This is the seventh time I’ve done this and it’s probably the second hardest (Beav in the Neonatal ICU was the hardest). It’s not just watching Dad as he succumbs to (my worst nightmare for a patient) a hospital induced delirium but it’s watching my fellow nurses struggle with a crumbling system and too many patients with overwhelming medical problems. I want to put on a pair of scrubs and help them tend to these souls because what this hospital is asking of these dedicated professionals–the patient nurse ratio–is criminal.

When I catch myself becoming angry about the situation on this unit I stop and breathe a minute in an effort to assess if this ire is an expression of my sadness over my father’s decline as he moves closer to the inevitable end of his life; or am I truly disgusted over this particular hospital’s blindness as they fail their extremely competent and compassionate nurses. They are burning out every single one of these strong, vital, smart and caring professionals. It’s shameful.  It’s easy to lose myself to anger at something completely outside of my sphere rather than succumb to a well of grief which is like an early spring brook when you watch the fast current flowing and swirling just under a thin shield of ice.

I’m sure my steps must think I am cold and uncaring because I haven’t cried.  I rarely cry about big things. I cry about the little things, always fully aware it’s the big things I’m really crying about when the Kleenex commercial tunes me up.  But it’s not time to cry; I must do now.  I must do all I can to help my father with his illness and help my loving step family understand what all this jargon that is my second language means and help translate it for them. I’ve known this language for over half my life. I can’t imagine how lost they must feel. It must be akin to people trying to talk math or mechanics or physics to me;  but math, mechanics and physics don’t represent or explain the suffering of a loved one.  I’m blessed to have this second language.

I’m equally blessed to have this step family.  Sister and myself couldn’t do this alone. I’m morbidly thankful my own mother isn’t alive to shoulder these responsibilities. I don’t think she was strong enough.  My stepmother is strong enough and unfortunately she has been through this with her own parents, a husband, and even a daughter.  I wish this weren’t happening to her again. Not just because she is once again tending a sick bed as my father lays helpless but because they deserve a longer time together.

Yesterday as I was preparing to return for my night shift at Dad’s bedside, I noticed a picture of my dad I hadn’t seen before.  He is wearing a flashy Hawaiian shirt and it was taken either just before or after they married a few years ago. I don’t think I had ever seen him with such a fully happy smile.  He was too busy and serious raising us, giving us everything he didn’t have…blah blah…upper middle class dream…to be so resplendently happy.  He has reason to be this happy now.  I just hope his body lets him have a few more years of this joy and contentment.