My Room

The ambulance took me directly to the University of Washington Medical Center. Sirens were not blaring. Traffic was light. The building itself a non-descript beige and grey and brown collection of buildings just across the street from Husky Stadium. Early spring flowers were planted in the boxes lining the circular drive.

Front door? Emergency entrance?

Probably we went in through the front. Too many sick people in the emergency room, besides the fact that this wasn't an emergency. I was expected. There was a room, somewhere, waiting for me.

Fast feet over concrete. Automatic doors opening automatically. Somebody in front of me, clearing the way, somebody else pushing from behind. Mom was in the ambulance. She is at my side, now, as we move swiftly through an open lobby. An echo. Feet reverberating across tile, now. A gift shop passing by on one side, an espresso stand on the other. People stand aside. Polite. Nobody stares. Nothing to see here. Move along.

The freight elevator is wide and deep. The walls are covered on three sides with a kind of dirty, padded quilt. It smells like a hospital. The whole place does. Whatever it is that hospitals smell like, closed windows, maybe, and cleaning supplies, and medicine, and whatever else that I never noticed when I was in Lancaster or London, this hospital has it. The doors close behind us.

And then we are up to the sixth floor and out and there is a desk with many people, working, writing, and I don't know how, but Dad and Jane and Laura and Paul are already here, too -- here with all of these fluorescent lights and worn beige or grey or brown carpets leading down a maze of hallways. There are smiles from strangers, polite, inquisitive, white coats and introductions and we've been expecting you's, a moment or two of hesitation, a collective we're not sure exactly who's in charge now, and then we're moving again, moving together down the nearest hallway, just two doors away.

It is crowded.

The room is spacious. It has a stretch of windows along the west side, a view of pine trees, of the stadium, of majestic mountains. There is a bed that extends from the middle of the south wall. There is a sink near the bed, and a private bathroom near the sink, and chairs and low benches and a small table on wheels and a wall-mounted TV. The room is wide and spacious and crowded.

We were outside but now we're inside. So many people standing at the edges of the walls, or at the foot of the bed, so many others coming inside with their faces and their hair and their smiles and quiet voices, asking questions, writing on clipboards, then out, then in again. The only place for me is the bed. It adjusts. There are motors, and a collection of arrows that point this way for up or down, this way for sitting up or laying flat. My bed adjusts.

It is a teaching hospital. I am to learn this later. There are people that will be constant -- Cindy, Anne, and Dr. Collins all immediately come to mind -- but there are many, many more that won't. There will be teams of doctors. These teams will rotate. They are learning. They will stand at the edges of the walls or at the foot of my bed, and their faces and names and white coats will blur.

It is a blurry foggy blur, so many people here, suddenly, so many people in my room.

Yes.

That's it.

Whatever else it used to be, this room is mine now.