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.