Children's Hospital

I acknowledge that my family desperately needs Children's Hospital right now, but that does nothing to calm my seething hatred for all things sterile. I've hated hospitals since I was a teenager. I got to witness first hand my grandmother's pathetic, skinny body covered in tubes after her suicide attempt - the one that took her life. It has created such a distaste in my mouth that I have never recovered from it. As the days draw nearer to Preston's next appointment the butterflies -which always flutter in my stomach since his diagnosis- slowly cocoon themselves and become heavy boulders. This feeling - its a kin to stage fright. Every minute that draws closer to your appearance in front of the audience feels like eternal torture. Your heart races, your mouth is dry, and it's hard to eat because those boulders in your stomach leave no room for anything. You just want to step into those bright lights and get it over with. That's the best way I can describe this feeling to those who have never experienced it. And at the end of all this tension and anxiety - when the play draws to a close - my players don't just get a good or bad review...we get a good review or open heart surgery for our infant.

I can't prepare for this drama. There are two separate endings to this play and I have no clue which ending I will be enacting. I'm out on stage, going through the motions, projecting an eerie confidence that I don't feel and I just want to flip to the end and see the outcome. Scott tries to remind me that the cardiologist believed Preston would never need surgery and I want so badly to feel what he feels. He has this quiet optimism about him, a complete confidence that our news will be good, our review a heralded success. Such good odds...but what the hell is that suppose to mean to me anymore? The odds are Preston should never have been born with a congenital heart defect to begin with. The odds are that the Ventricular Septal Defect should have been one or two holes at best, not an infinite number - not so many that the doctors couldn't f*cking count them. I'm sorry. It's still raw. It still bleeds. This anger that it was my baby. Percentages, odds, in all likelihoods - I can't translate them into hope anymore. They lost that ability the day Preston was struggling to breath. The day I sat in that hospital room praying he was fixable - begging whoever was out there to have a little bit of mercy on me - on us.

Exhale.

I hate hospitals but I begrudgingly admit we need them - maybe after the 4th I can even learn to appreciate them - one way or the other...I guess I'll have to.