Beep. Beep. Beep. Beeeep.
A blare of an alarm.
A child screaming and a mother crying.
The sped up footsteps of doctors and nurses.
The screaming silence of the room at three in the morning.
Hospitals are one of the most scariest places to ever be as a child, even more so as an adult. I grew up in a hospital setting not just because of my family's unpredictable health, but also my own. I landed in the hospital many times for pneumonia that almost put me on my deathbed, and then a few other times for other reasons. My brother had surgery when he was younger and that was the scariest thing for me. My baby brother going in for surgery in a hospital of scary sounds and unpredictable outcomes. My mother was in and out of hospitals for most of my childhood. DKA, thyroid, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, undisclosed circumstances, DKA, thyroid, coma, cardiac ablation, insulin allergy, heart surgery, the list goes on and on and repeats.
Waiting rooms are the scariest place in the hospital. You wait around with a bunch of strangers all waiting for an outcome as much as you are. You are all waiting around in the dark about what is happening to your loved one. No doctor comes for hours, the same shows play over and over on the television, the stupid swish of the sliding door is really getting on your nerves, and that night desk nurse that won't stop chewing her gum will be the first person to go if you don't get answers within the hour.
When you can finally see your loved one all you see are wires, machines, blood, bruises, contraptions that you've never seen nor ever wanted to see, and you hear that dreadful heart monitor beeping. That beeping noise is the only thing keeping you in that room at that moment. It's your only proof that they are still alive and breathing as they lay there unmoving.
Those white walls when you see them for the first time feel clean, welcoming, and as a sign of renewal, but after years of seeing them in times of despair they start to tear at your heart and cause pain. They make you want to scream and not care who sees. You want the whole building to know your despair. You want them all to know that you've been down this road one too many times and a place of hope for someone, is nothing more than what feels like a living Hell to you.
We each have that one thing that we know will be our breaking point one day, and hospitals just so happen to be that for me. Hospitals and I just don't mix. I've had people tell me think of the hope within the building, but after numerous weeks and months and years of visiting, waiting, crying, and watching, you gain a fear you never knew you could have.
I can't do hospitals anymore. After much of 19 years growing up in or around them, it's hard to even step foot in them anymore.
