Hospitals... such a hub of activity, sometimes joyful, but more often than not a place you visit when someone is ill, or when your are yourself ill. The incessant background noise, the code blues, the whirring and wheezing of machinery, beeping of monitors, the heaving of sick patients, the tears and sobs of loved ones. It's not a place for the faint of heart. It's a place I dreaded stepping into for so long after mums final visit , a place of sickness and death, of pain and suffering... But also a place of love, and hope. if there were no love, no hope, what else is there to life?
It's coming up to two weeks since my friend has been admitted to hospital. Much of last week she was heavily sedated and there were talks she would not last long. It's been heavy, for the husband especially, and for the friends and colleagues who love and care about. She's still in, intubated and unable to speak, reddish fluid, probably toxic and putrid with cancerous cells and growth, keep draining her lungs. There's talk of removing the tubes now that she's more conscious, and seemingly stronger, but there's the fear she won't be able to breathe on her own now that one lung has completely collapsed, and the other is punctured. All the while, tumour growth keep multiplying and producing fluids that build up and must be drained, otherwise it's like the person is drowning on the inside.
What cruel, unimaginable twist in the story did some mighty being add to torture such a beautiful soul? Why all this pain, this suffering, and the constant struggle for life at an age that in today's day and age is still so youthful and the prime of someone's life?
It's hard to watch her in such a state, for she's always been a vocal, lively lady, so full of life, full of love and always caring about others-- about me, for since we met, she's always had a soft spot for me and seen me as an "orphan". There's really little I, or anyone else, can do but be there. Wait, watch, keep her company, remind her in her waking moments we are waiting and there with her every step of the way. Hold her hand, stroke her arms and legs and let her know again and again we are there. Though we cannot take away the pain, the anxiety or agony, we are there with her.
I was supposed to go somewhere far for work, but I cancelled (though after days of struggle, trying to convince myself that work is far less important than life and friendship, even though I knew deep down inside what I wanted all along). My boss told me how he admires me for my humanity, for my strength... but would not everyone do the same for a friend or loved one in need? My only regret js not being able to see roos and koalas again. But they're around and not threatened. My friend may not be for ever.
It's a beautiful day out today, and I find myself sitting on a park bench writing this, sitting under a column of vines, in a setting that, before sitting down, gave me a flashback to the park and vines next to the hospital mum (and dad) was at . Different times, different people in my life... but all the same, facing death, confronted by illness, fighting f-ucking cancer and all the nausea, pain, suffering and hopelessness and all the rest of it. Am I stronger? Better prepared and collected? Is that my "gift" to be able to sit there and calmly hold her hand and not (or at least barely...) flinch with every dire diagnosis?
all the while, the world keeps spinning and turning and life moves on.
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