How I see it

I had to get up really early this morning to go to the hospital for some tests. Nothing big, just to rule out exercise-induced asthma. So I had to have a chest x-ray and an echo of my heart. I didn’t think anything about walking into the hospital, because even though I have sworn off the clinical aspect of my job and working with patients in order to move on from this whole ordeal, I wasn’t doing anything like that this morning. No big deal. I was so wrong.

In the changing room where I put on my gown, immediately I was flooded with memories of my mom. The same blue hospital gown she had to wear every month during her chemo treatments. The smell in the room. Even though I was in a completely different hospital, in a different city even, the smell was the exact same. It smelled like her room, her skin. That hospital smell. I felt my heart start to skip. I needed to leave. But, I stood there for a second, took a reallllyyyy long, deep breath, and re-focused myself. I walked out of the changing room. The chest x-ray took about five minutes, and I was sent on my way to the Heart Center to have my echo done.

Another blue hospital gown. No bra. This sounds silly, but my mom and I both have a deep affinity for our bras. Most women come home from work and the first item on their agenda is to take off their bra and put on a sweatshirt. Not us. She hated not being able to wear her bra in the hospital, and I know that made her really uncomfortable on a day-to-day basis. The idea of being that uncomfortable almost every day for nearly seven months gives me the creeps. Let me just say for the record, I love my bra and all that it has to offer! Like comfort, for one, which I did not have this morning. After I changed, I turned around to find the echo machine sitting there, and because it wasn’t reading any type of cardio-activity, it showed a flatline. I just stared at it. My brain took me back to the morning my mom passed away. She lay on the bed, gone from the world, but still attached to machines monitoring her activity. She had flatlined. Alarms were going off. One nurse in the room looked at the other and asked, in a frustrated tone, “You wanna turn those alarms off?” He flicked the switch, and the monitor went black. But two red lights still blinked madly, alternating back and forth to let them know that something wasn’t quite right. Nothing was right that morning. I no longer had a mother. I wanted to put her bra back on for her. Just to give her some peace of mind.

I was brought back to life by the radiology tech that entered the room. “OK, all set?” she asked. She had me lay down on my left side with my left arm out of my gown and then covered me up with the warmest blanket I’ve ever felt. I was so comfortable and snuggly, and the good moment was immediately ruined by the feeling of cold, wet gel across my chest, put there by a complete stranger. While this was only just a small violation of my privacy, and in hindsight, not a big deal at all, I couldn’t help but think about my mom and all of the separate, but overwhelming number, of incidences in which her privacy was violated, all by a new stranger each time. There is no dignity in the hospital setting. It’s all business. I hate that.

I watched my heart beat to provide me with life, right there on a tiny screen in front of me. Maybe I am a huge nerd, or I will always love the medical field, but I was in complete awe, able to see my valves and chambers working simultaneously to pump blood in and out, to provide my body with oxygen and nutrients, all on its own. If you are not marveled by this, perhaps you have not thought about it long enough. It is completely fascinating. And to watch it happening in live time right in front of you! I watched as she mapped out each chamber, measured the flow of my valves. It is amazing to think that that movement, that subconscious movement that keeps you alive, actually stops. I tried to picture it completely still. How odd to think that if they would have done that very same test to my mom that hers would have been still. No longer providing her life. No longer working subconsciously as it should. I am still in shock that hers is no longer beating like mine is.

The tech announced that the test was finished, and I asked her if everything looked “pretty solid” in there. She said she couldn’t tell me anything. I am not, in any way shape or form, concerned about my heart’s ability to beat. However, for someone diagnosed with cancer or for someone whose life literally hangs in the balance of knowing if their heart is strong enough to handle a bone marrow transplant, the idea of not being provided with some type of answer is baffling. “You’ll have to wait about 4 days before your doctor will know anything. I’ll leave the room, so you can get dressed.” Thanks a mill, lady.

I got dressed, bra and all, and walked out of the Heart Center, with my mission about to begin. Two cards in my hand. One addressed to my mom’s Oncologist. Another addressed to the 6th floor Oncology Wing. They were thank-yous for taking such great care of my mom. She really loved them, especially the girls on 6. I walked down the hallway to the Oncologist office, separated from the hospital by huge wooden doors. My heart began to pound noticeably in my chest as the polished doors came into view. I stood at the desk, and the receptionist, who recognized me instantly, pouted out her lips and used the “sad” voice to ask how I was doing as she scooped my hands in hers. I gave her the card, accepted her condolences, and left as soon as I could without being completely rude. I had to get out of there.

I made it back out to the main lobby and rode the elevators up to the 6th floor, took a sharp right and headed down the hallway that became a second home for me nearly seven months ago. A person with leukemia endures extremely long stays in the hospital, unlike most others with different types of cancer. Night and day, always on 6. We grew to know and love the staff on that floor, and by “staff” I am not only talking about the nurses. The aides, like the nurses, loved my mom and even brought her presents from time to time. One woman in particular, on housekeeping staff, got to know my mom so well that she often shared stories of her dates-from-hell and weekend adventures with her daughter while she mopped my mom’s floor. My mom adored her, especially. She even came to her funeral, seeing as she adored her equally as much.

I walked past the floor’s bulletin board that often featured a fundraising drive for cancer research, and incidentally, this month, there were bras stapled all over it! Some joke that had to do with support. Looking back on it now, it was clever, and under any other circumstances, I would probably have laughed. I found three nurses I recognized sitting at the station. I told them who I was and gave them the card. More pouty faces, more sad voices. I just forced a weak smile and walked away as fast as I could. I made it about halfway down the hallway when one of them caught up with me, crying, and she reached out to give me a hug. I obliged, but heard a rapid response being called over the PA and grew increasingly more upset, being bombarded with all of the memories from my mom’s stay on the floor, which unfortunately included a rapid response during her first chemo treatment. She told me how much she loved my mom, how much she was going to miss her, and that if my family needed anything…my focus went blank. I heard the rapid response team gallop behind me, and all I could think about was my mom panicking, struggling to breathe, convulsing on her bed from an allergic reaction to her first chemo. I tried my best to listen to this woman, to appear as though I was paying attention to her. I did the smile-and-nod. We hugged again. Another forced smile. Freedom.

I slept nearly all day, with my pumpkin spice candle burning next to me. I am so sad that the field I love so much is tainted with unsettling memories that lurk around every corner. If she knew, she would feel so guilty, like it was her fault. She was so selfless that sometimes, it was almost silly. I know she is up in Heaven worrying about this. I just know it. About my heart tests. About my mental stability. About how sorry she is to “put me through this,” as she so often said after her diagnosis. Just worrying herself sick over it. I worry about her just as much, knowing that she has probably not settled into Heaven as well as I would like her to be. I hope that eventually she will stop worrying and enjoy all that it has to offer.

I picture her without hair, because I actually like her better that way, with her white sparkly ballcap on, sitting at a wooden kitchen table with aunt Polly, who has hair, coincidentally. They are eating Pizza Oven pizza, drinking Diet Pepsi, and looking at old pictures and laughing. Aunt Polly does not have a bra on underneath her green Jiminy Cricket sweatshirt. Mom most definitely has her bra on and is 100% completely comfortable and free of worry. That is how I see it.