2:30AM
06.07.2017 2:30AM I am currently sitting in a hospital room by my father's side. He is wheezing through his mouth as he has been for nearly 50 hours, half asleep - half delirious. It's like a nightmare for him, gasping through his mouth while his nose and face is wrapped in a web of gauze and tape. I have spent the last few nights here, keeping vigil, while mom rests back home, until the morning. Holding his hand is all I can do, which means my presence is essentially of no help and only my own consolation. I have done this so many times before. My real grandmother was always frail. When I was in high school, my internship in the Emergency Room ended at 8pm every day. Once my things were packed and my ID was swiped, I took the back elevator to the 6th floor where the ICU sprawled across four halls. I would switch with my real mother, and stay the night. Eerily, my grandmother also wheezed like this, the only difference was that she never woke enough to see that...