Another quiet wait

I sit in the hospital chair and watch Clara’s O2 numbers on the screen while she sleeps. It’s not my favorite place. Nothing against the hospital, it’s is fine, I’ve had surgery in it myself. It’s the general situation not the specifics I dislike.

We are comfortable in hospitals now. As I’ve written before it’s not something we meant to be, and in re-reading that post I realize how long ago it was, how many hospitals we’ve been in since. Our situation is of course a lucky one, able to get good medical care when in need. Sitting in this uncomfortable chair that folds in to a cot on which I’ll spend the night, I have few complaints. Every time she breathes deeply and without stress I too relax, even through the oxygen mask making it possible. Sometimes technology keeps us alive. I’ve been living with asthma a long time; coming to grips with my medical dependency was a teenage challenge, not an adult one. Learning how to procure inhalers has been one of the first goals upon moving every time I’ve done so. In Hong Kong it’s easy, they’re over the counter for $95 HKD. That’s especially valuable now that there are two of us to supply.

Parenting is so much about what we pass on and what we would rather not. Of course we have much less control of either than we hope: weak lungs are something I pray she’ll grow out of, while knowing I did not. Here, in the quiet afternoon of nap time, I wonder how to introduce a three year old to acupuncture and Chinese herbs that taste terrible. There’s a reason children’s medicine is fruit-flavored.

We are trying to pass on such different things: fearlessness, strength, curiosity, climbing comfort. As I type those words I realize they are not so different from the lessons this hospital is teaching us. We are trying to teach her to be unafraid, and to be comfortable anywhere. To be alright, whatever the circumstances. To be able to take care of herself. We teach this in new countries and on airplanes, when we can not speak the language and when we are uncertain of the path. In so many ways hospitals are no different, and our comfort with them, hard won, gives us resiliency. We have been in hospitals in Japan, in Thailand, in America, in Hong Kong, for injuries and for illness, for Clara, for myself, for Tara. Navigating medical care so often wasn’t something we meant to learn, nor is it recommended. Like learning to do physical therapy after injury though, sometimes there’s a payoff in the pain. Sometimes we are learning things that will make us less afraid.

At least I hope so, sitting here in St. Paul’s watching the oxygen numbers bounce around as she sleeps.