It’s All In The Game

I got to tell you  this story about Momma because you know we are all a part of  and a result of, this massive puzzle of life.

So by now you know Daddy and Momma (who has no sense of direction) had been around the block, well, at least twice.  So let me tell you Momma’s odyssey of finding Daddy in the Cardiac Care Unit (aka CCU) at The Big Smoke Cardiac Hospital.

The ambulance from the local hospital delivered Daddy to CCU so Momma had no clue where to start, except a room number that any reasonably functioning brain could find…..you’d think!  But first, Information told her that she had to get the elevators that took her to the Cardiac Floor.  Security said, ‘No, not these elevators, take a left, pass two entrances, take the third elevators to your right. Follow the yellow foot prints on the floor till you find a CCU Waiting Room.’ Sounded simple enough. How could anyone go wrong?

Well, it seemed the Security Guard couldn’t count or maybe, he said three doors.  Finally, Momma found the elevators, went to the correct floor, followed the yellow foot prints…till they suddenly stopped, in the middle of what, from the stillness, might have been the morgue.  There was no one, anywhere, just rows of doors, no numbers and no names.  Five or ten minutes later (Scout’s honour) a door opened, out came two orderlies, chatting away, oblivious to the fact they were pushing a freshly toe tagged corpse.    When Momma asked for help, she was so unnerved, she barely concentrated on their response. Surely they did not mean to send her to another hallway that definitely looked like mankind had been swooped off to some unknown dimension.  Momma went north and south, east and west, zigzagged left, right, forward, backwards till she ended up in the same spot where she had seen the orderlies.

Finally, like a mirage in the desert, a Volunteer appeared. He delivered Momma to the CCU Waiting Room (hey, the yellow footprints on the floor had reappeared, like a path in the Wizard of Oz.)

Let me tell you about Momma’s interpretation of the CCU Waiting Room.  First line up, wait your turn. Spell your name, then the patients’ name. They look at you suspiciously, check with his nurse. They instruct you to take a seat. The nurses must always delay entrance by ‘preparing’ the patient, call back, give entry consent.  Therefore many Visitors are lulled by the monotony of the long, dastardly hard waits, by playing the Waiting Room Game, I-Got–the–Sickest–Loved–One.’

There were rules to follow: 1) Everyone must participate.  It was bad manners to do otherwise. 2) Everyone must fully commiserate with the strangers in their midst. 3) When your loved suffered a crisis, you must dish out the details so the listeners could recall about the battles fought and won by their loved ones.

Finally her name was called. Momma went in to visit Daddy.  She pushed open the door to find a nurses’ station in the centre, a massive beeping computer monitoring system manned by nurses, interns, doctors from cardiologists to surgeons just ready, set, go for the next emergency.  As Momma sat down she got a good view of the unit across from Daddy’s.  Everything was identical.  Hospital bed with a wan, semi-comatose patient, CHECK; monitors, tangled IV’s, CHECK; computer to left of patients bed so doctors had history, present condition, and test results at their finger tips, CHECK; television, mounted on wall to alleviate pondering their condition should patient actually wake up, CHECK and of course, the signature Crash Cart at the bottom of the bed, just in case the patient flat lined and need a little persuading to return to Planet Earth. CHECK.

Momma did not even have her book out to start reading when it happened.  All of a sudden there were beeps, bells and whistles going off, like one of those Lottery Terminals.   In came the doctors, in came the nurses, and in came the lady with the big fat purse.  Momma was hustled out the unit to contemplate what she could have done that caused such a commotion.  Would they think she was a toxic wife with a Munchausen Syndrome and ban her from in inner sanctum? She sat in a corner, eyes on book to avoid questions.

Five minutes later the door opened and just Momma’s luck, the visitor of the patient in the unit across from Hubby came in.  He asked, ‘How is your husband?’  Momma was like a deer caught in the headlights.  He went on in a pragmatic yet been-there-done-that’ way, ‘You understand he just flat lined, don’t you?’

Now this caught the ears of all the players of I-Got–the–Sickest–Loved–One.  Momma had broken the cardinal rule.  She had not shared all so the other visitors could trot out the glory days of their loved ones.  Momma felt like a traitor, Peter denying he knew Jesus.  She mumbled something, grabbed her purse and took the elevator to the Ground Level and went for a walk outside to sit on one of the benches in front of Legislative Assembly of Ontario, you know, where Premier Dad used to have a job.  Nothing much is ever accomplished by the politicians at Queen’s Park, or the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa or even in Washington, DC anyway, according to the daily newspapers.

Yeah, your right! My Momma and RIP Daddy lived through some ‘been there, done that‘ experiences.  It only seems or seemed to strengthen their ability to find the humor hidden along the way because, everyone has some stories they are hauling from Yesterday to Today to Eternity.’