When They're Gone

Four

Hospitals are weird. They smell funny, the air is dry, the noise is constant, and sleep is impossible to come by, much like answers to what is going on. The blankets are rough. You never can get quite warm enough. The chairs aren't meant to be slept in, though often people do. The people, you are never sure about. The doctors seem useless and the nurses a God-send.
The ER room we were in was separated from the others with three actual walls and a curtain for a door. It was small, cramped, and well, awkward. My former step mother didn't depart from the family on a good note. It's a long story that lasted too long, and ended in a child crushing, slightly confused way. A story for another time.
My brother had called her when he found our dad on the floor. She stepped in as any parent would and took over for him, told him to go home and hat she would keep him posted, trying to protect him. I remembered being annoyed by that. By forcing my brother to stay home.
   My grandparents didn't even care she was there. At that point, grudges aside, she was the mother to this man's child, their grandson, and knew enough about their son to help the doctor's treat him quickly. She was trying not to cry the whole time, talking about not wanting to step on toes and get in the way. Quite frankly, I'm glad someone could be there quickly enough. I was two hours away, my grandparents an hour and a half.
   My sister showed up shortly after I did, more for emotional support and to translate any medical jargon that the staff threw our way. She was a registered nurse's assistant at one point in her life, working with disabled people in nursing homes and those with 'at home' care. Thank God for her. She's only my half sister, having a different father, but my two older sisters always treated me like full blood, and from that I always tried to treat my brother in the same fashion. We were family, it didn't matter to what extent.
   After what seemed like a longer wait than was really necessary (in reality, probably a half hour wait), they announced that they were going to move Dad to a room in the ICU, for better monitoring and to continue tests. Since the stroke was caught late (how late, we didn't know yet), it wasn't about preventative care, it was about recovery at this point and where they needed to start from.
   This would end up being the identifying marker for the next month of living in a hospital, constantly eating McDonald's (located in the basement of the hospital), fighting with doctors, coworkers, myself, working on paperwork, trying to function, becoming sick myself, and figuring out what's next, only to have plans change, regardless of what we tried to do.