Covetous

Covetous- Chapter Four

I hate hospitals. I think that everyone has a natural aversion to them. I could never imagine working in one, yet, there are so many people that aspire to. It’s one thing that I’ll never understand. A lot of people say that they hate hospitals because it seems like the right thing to say, like saying that you hate needles or spiders. People who don’t hate or fear those things are almost looked at as strange.

For me, it’s a genuine loathing. I’m sure that an extraordinarily large part of my dislike comes from the fact that all of my memories of hospitals are bad ones. There are no memories of simple things, like a broken bone that will mend in a few months. With a break or a sprain, the hospital visit is short. You get sympathy from everyone and a cast for people to sign and tell you how much they love you. Then it’s over. You return to the hospital, the cast is removed, you are proclaimed healthy and are sent on your way. I envy the people with the breaks and the sprains.

But then there are the other units, so filled with horror and pain that I feel selfish for feeling the way that I do, because I imagine how much those families must hate to be there. Then I feel conflicted, because I think to myself, things could be so much worse. My father’s body is aging long before its time. He’s wasting away, but at least he isn’t in the burns unit. Anything is better than the burns unit.

That’s another reason for my hatred. When I was eleven years old, dad was in the hospital for something; I didn’t really pay attention at the time. I wondered away from his room to get food from the cafeteria. When I tried to get back, I got lost in the maze of halls. I wandered into the burns ward.

There was a man who had just been admitted. He was crying in agony. His clothes were stuck to his flesh, and the doctors were trying to peel them off without peeling him off. There was an awful smell, worse than the usual hospital smell of disinfectant, disease and decay. It was the first time that I smelled burning flesh.

I ran into the closest bathroom and threw up. I didn’t quite understand what had happened to the man. For a while, I thought that the doctors were hurting him on purpose. It fuelled a deep-rooted fear and mistrust of anyone in a white coat or scrubs.

I never told anyone about what I saw; I was afraid that they would be mad at me for snooping around. So I held onto the memory. I had no way of letting it go. Now, whenever I enter the hospital, I hear his screams, and I smell his burning skin, and I hate it.

I try to be there for my dad. I try to be the good daughter who stays by his side, but I feel a terrible wrenching panic every time that I’m there. Maybe that’s one of those things that you’re supposed to tell the shrink when they ask you if there’s anything wrong.

Mom leads the way to the nurse’s station. They recognize her as well. Our family is well-known. They ask us how we are. I don’t answer. I wonder if I’ll be chided for being rude.

Dad is in a shared room with three other patients. All that he has for privacy is a curtain that he can’t even pull across. He must rely on other people for everything. I hate that as well.

Dr. Lewis is in there. We’re asked to stay outside for now, and told that when he’s ready for us, when can go in and see him. For now though, he just needs to rest.

“Girls, why don’t you go find a nice seat in the waiting room? I’ll come find you after I’ve spoken to David.”

I’ll always find it strange that she calls the doctor by his first name. Last year, in a fit of cynical rage, I told Simone that I suspected that she had a thing for him. Mom always compliments David. ‘He’s such a caring man, such a good doctor’. It certainly doesn’t hurt that he’s in his early forties, looks like mid-thirties, and doesn’t have a ring on his finger. My reasonable mind banished the thought. For all of her faults, I knew that mom loved dad.