At 10:00 I was ready to go to bed. The visitors had all left for the day, Mom and Ann had gone home to their own beds and I had tried to explain to Dad why he had to stay at the hospital. "But you'll take me home, won't you?" he pleaded. "When you're ready to go," I replied, "but for tonight I'll stay here with you."
The nurse came and helped settle him in his bed, I set up my cot, turned off the lights and shut the door. At last I can rest my weary head, I thought, as I climbed into bed.
It was not to be. I had hardly shut my eyes when a nurse came in to do whatever it is they do at all hours of the night. When they left they didn't shut the door. The light shining in made it hard to sleep but I didn't know whether or not they wanted the door open to keep an eye on Dad.
It was not a good plan. At 1:00 a.m. I awoke with a start to find Dad climbing out of bed. He wanted to go see why that light was on. He was trying to tear out all the crazy tubes that he thought he didn't need. My persuasive powers didn't seem to be working so at last I called the nurse. She told him in no uncertain terms that he had to go back to bed. When she left I made sure the door was shut.
At 3:20 I was awakened again, this time to hear the nurse exclaiming and to see Dad standing beside the bed. Somehow he had torn out the IV, taken off the heart monitor, removed the leg thingies that were supposed to help with blood circulation, and more than that disposed of the alarm that would alert the nurse of his movements. Blood was dripping everywhere and he was confused. When the nurse asked where he was going, his reply was, "I don't know." Even with a crew of 3 nurses it took some time for them to get him cleaned up, reinsert the tubes and get him back to bed.
At 6:30 there was a knock on the door and a cheery "Good Morning!" I wanted to burrow under the covers and tell them to go away and leave me alone and ask them HOW a person is supposed to get ANY sleep in this place! This one was doing an EKG and then another came and took his vitals and they wanted to bring him breakfast (which he wasn't interested in, in the least!). At that point I decided it was hopeless to think I'd get any more sleep so I rolled out of bed, combed my hair, smoothed out my wrinkled clothes and prayed for strength to face another day.
Why, you say? Why would you do it? Because of love.
