...and Back

Crises always come when everything is calm.  I don't think they give advance warning.  I think they lurk around corners and look for the least-suspecting individual to walk by before they pounce.  One struck us today, and it certainly came in a time of clear sailing and peaceful waters.

Mom called me this morning, and I knew from the tone of her voice that whatever it was would be bad.  She has a tone that I have come to think of as "holding it together" or "carefully handling something that will go off."  At no time that I have heard her use it have things been good.

The news was about my uncle.  His health is poor anyway, and the doctors thought he was having a heart attack, that perhaps he'd been having it for hours.  They were sending him to Jackson for special care.  We loaded up and headed out for the hour-plus drive.

When we got there, it was time for the waiting game.  Hospital waiting rooms, whether they are large or small, are excruciating.  Everyone there is filled with dread, fear, grief, or pain.  No matter how cheerful or soothing the decor, there is always the sensation of the imminent disaster, the doctor who appears in the door with the expression that speaks louder than the nondescript wording.

A lot of people want to chat in the waiting room with everyone who is around, share the common burden with even the strangers near them.  I just don't.  I cannot.  I try not to be rude, but I just need to hold on, maintain.  It does not help me to share miseries.  I need to concentrate on keeping it all locked down, held in.  The conversations comparing statuses, illnesses, prognoses only serve to escalate what is usually near panic in me.

When we got to see my uncle briefly, it was horrible.  I am fairly sure he didn't even know we were there.  I hope not, anyway, because if he knew we were there, then he knew far too much of the world, far too much of his pain.

We sat and waited for a timeless time in the dim grey light of the ICU waiting room, and finally, the doctors came for us.  We were escorted to a private consultation room, and we waited to hear the news.  I hate those spaces, too, couches in which you sink too far, Kleenex everywhere because they will be needed, the doors with the blinds that protect your private moment of fear.

The news we got was mixed, but essentially he didn't have a heart attack.  He has a lung that isn't working and that put his heart under pressure.  They are going to be giving him massive medicines and treatments to try to restore his ability to breathe on his own.  While he is still in critical condition, there is hope, hope we didn't really have when we left the house this morning.

I don't know if he will recover from this, but for the moment, the panic is over.  He is being sedated as long as he is on the breathing tube, but the word "stable" has been used.  When you have been in hell, this is nothing to take lightly.