Pacing Hospital Floors

There were no big hikes this week.  No exploring neighbourhoods. Hardly any dog walks.  No lurking in coffee haunts to write. There was a lot of pacing of hospital floors.

  

Both my husband and I came down with colds late last week, severe enough to wipe us out.   When our daughter became ill over the weekend, we chalked it up to something she ate and tiredly tucked her between us.  I made a feeble attempt to clock in a few hours at work on Sunday before I got sent home.  My daughter was still ill, so my husband tucked her and I in together while he went out, sick, to grab some supplies and food basics to tide us over.  While he was gone, my daughter became dramatically ill, so I called him home and he ran her to the emergency room.  I waited up, struggling against medicated drowsiness, for them to come home.  At some point in time, I must have fallen asleep because my son woke me up, frantic for me to help him get off to school on time.  My husband wasn’t beside me.  My daughter wasn’t in her bed.  They had never made it back home.  

My husband called just as I was reaching for the phone to check for messages.  She was being admitted.  Her fever was really bad.  She was severely dehydrated.  I got my son on the school bus, grabbed a taxi and made my way over there.  

It didn’t really hit me how bad it was until I got there.  She was ashen.  Hot.  Cerulean eyes turned dark and leaden.  She was incapable of focusing on a point, on my face or my eyes.  She rambled and complained of being dizzy.  At the height of her fever she wouldn’t speak at all.  She was hooked up to an IV.  She looked so small and fragile.

No one should ever see their child that way. 

Most weeks I’ll log in more than my fair share of kilometres roaming around the city, this week they were logged in a hospital room, overlooking the very trail that she and I have spent hours strolling together, deep in mother/daughter confidences.  

It wasn’t that long ago when flus and stomach illnesses and other things that we now just casually shrug away would regularly kill people.  And it’s easy to see how someone, in just a few short days, can go from being healthy and vibrant and vital to seriously ill.  I’ve often taken these things for granted.  I’ve stuffed myself with over-the-counter meds and carried on with life.  But I have respect now for the need to just stop and let the body deal and heal.  And I have learned to appreciate every little moment because it can be taken from you in a heart beat.  

It’s not over yet.  She’s out of the hospital now and with us.  But this illness seems to have aggravated some ongoing health problems that we have been puzzling over for the last year.  In the weeks to come there will be more poking and prodding and doctors and specialists.  But I’m going to make sure that I take some time with her, just the two of us, and walk with her hand in hand.  And I will be thankful.