I can cross sleeping in a hospital bed off my list of things I've never done, same for napping on the cold linoleum floor of an ER. My mother was scheduled for surgery on Monday for a strangulated inguinal hernia. Yesterday she continued to vomit between her pre-op tests. My father was unresponsive most of the day, unable to focus or keep his eyes open when I spoke to him. His body was very active in the hospital bed, legs kicking and left arm rising high above his head. At one point his fingers formed scissors, aggressively snipping the air. He awoke briefly and said the ends were uneven. Once a hairdresser always a hairdresser. Later in the day he was mumbling about mountain gear for an icy climb in Germany. On the start of this fourth of July weekend, both of my parents were in rapid decline. My cousin Northie came after work to keep me company at the hospital as we waited for my sister who was en route from Massachusetts. A dear family friend drove from Pennsylvania to be with my mother at home, who continued to wretch in a brown plastic bucket. I left my father, whose breath had the distinctive rattle of death, at 1230am to tell my mother I wanted to bring her to the hospital. She didn't refuse. Through out the night we bounced from the ER to my father's room. He greeted us with a drowsy good morning every time we entered. Surprisingly, as morning broke and he found us sleeping in the bed next to him he was much more alert. My father was unaware that down the corridor my mother was being prepped for emergency surgery. Once under the knife, the surgeon found gangrenous tissue in her lower intestine. Her body was slowly becoming toxic, a situation that could have been fatal. My father's expression was priceless when I told him he was finally getting a roommate, my mother.
