Eric McDaniel
I mostly read, write, tweet, and listen to radio. Find me at www.ericmcdaniel.co
Thursday, March 24th, 2016
Here’s a list I made of all the sounds in the hospital:
- heart-rate elevation beeping
- sleep-apnea beeping
- blood pressure beeping
- unidentified alarm beeping
- low-battery beeping
- out-of-fluid beeping
- beeping from a stranded machine in the hall
- beeping for the next room
- beeping from down the hall
- muffled nurse gossip
- a family’s cheers when their daughter says her name (again, post-accident?) for the first time; she is 28.
- sharp inhale
- sharp inhale
- sharp inhale
- hiccups
- groans
- doctors yelling to wake Tom, instructing him to squeeze fingers.
- an explanation of Glasgow Coma Score
- silence
- HGTV
- Kate typing quickly
- I forgot to turn the volume down before I launched the coma score video on my phone
- sharp inhale
- sharp inhale
- sharp inhale
- groan
- hiccups
- groan
- snoring
- oxygen bubbler
- unidenfied beeping
- silence
- elevator
- inexplicably, a live jazz band in the lobby
- elevator
- sharp inhale, then groan
- snoring
Then I fell asleep.
This is a part of a series of essays which I began while my step-father Tom — a good man — was undergoing treatment for particularly aggressive brain cancer. He began experiencing acute symptoms on March 6th, 2016, and passed away nineteen days later.
His family and friends started a college scholarship fund in his memory. If you would like to donate, you can do so at tombroadheadscholarship.org.
Eric.
