Road Trip For A Stroke

It's not as sexy as it sounds. A friend of mine had a stroke. Or an aneurysm. Though I thought they were the same thing. Me and a friend drove to Tucson to see our friend we've known since college. He's, well, basically a cave man. A free spirit. And for someone as brusque and loud and blunt as he is, a lot of people care about him. He has engendered a kind of loyalty and fierce protectiveness that is kind of amazing. Gives me hope for my blunt self.

Maybe he has protectors like this because he doesn't seem to be aware of his own situation. Or if he is he doesn't stop them from happening.  Example: For 7 days before he was found unconscious he had a bad headache that wouldn't go away. Now, most peole would go to a doctor after a day or 2 to find out why their head hurt. He did not. He went to New Mexico for some reason. This event could have happened on the road. It pisses me off a bit that his situation could have been different had he acted to self preserve.

We got to the hospital in the morning after spending the night with a friend. I freely admit, I hate hospitals. They are rarely good places to be. There generally is a mixtured smell of antiseptic and urine that makes my hackles rise. In this hospital though that unpleasant smell was not there. We got buzzed into the ICU section and followed the corridor around. I was lagging behind because I hate hospitals and I didn't remember the room number. My friend got to the room first. I came around the nurse's station and slowed way down. In the window of a room I saw someone old, lying on a hospital bed, kind of contorted, mouth open eyes shut. Was that?.... At first I thought I was mistaken. It looked like him, but he looked like shit. The tableau was like a hammer to me.

Mortality. Sickness. Weakness.

I entered the room past the curtain. My friend was already sitting next to him and was talking softly to him. Now the friend I came with has spent way too much time in hospitals in the past 2 years. A good friend was in a horrific car accident that should have killed her, and his father in law passed away. Both were many visits to the hospital. I hung back away from the bed. There is something about hospital beds that I find odd. I don't know if it's in the manufacture of them, but they make the occupant look weak and feeble. It was something I noticed when my dad was in the hospital and I noticed it again this time.

My friend was asleep. And I was assured he always sounds like that when he sleeps. God help any girlfriend he might have. I stayed in the room and heard what the nurse had to say about his condition. We had brought pastries for the nurses. To say thanks and maybe they would look out for his well being a bit more. After a bit I left the room. Others were waiting to see him. In the waiting room I talked to the others that were there to see him. Everyone was on edge. The uncertainty was palpable.

Will he recover something of the spark which made him a force of nature? I don't know. Only time will tell.