I had a dream about Sam last night.  We were  in front of my parent's house and it was warm outside, summer.  I was sitting on the top step of the porch watching Sam running up and down the driveway.  It was so real. Sadie (his dog) was even chasing him and trying to keep up.  Back and forth, with no real purpose other than just the feeling of running.  And the accident had happened, most definately. I couldn't see my mom, but I knew she was behind me because I could hear her breathing.  "Should he really be doing this?" I asked her without turning around.  But she just laughed and told me that it was time.  I was very nervous during the dream and not at all happy with all the crazy, manic running that was happening right in front of me.  Then he ran over to the porch and he was sweaty, the front of his hair was curly and plastered to his forehead, breathing heavy and smiling.  He put his hands on his knees, crouched down slightly and asked if I wanted to race.  "I can't, Sam.  How could I do that? What if you fell?  What if you hit your head? It would be all my fault."  But he just stood back up, shook his head back and forth as if to say "silly sister", smiled his sweet smile and ran away.  And then, as I watched him race away, suddenly both his legs and arms  just snapped off and he fell to the ground.  Just a torso surrounded by limbs.  He kind of looked like a suitcase with curly hair.  I was panicked (obviously) and screamed to my mom WE NEED TO HELP HIM! She just smiled and said, "Don't worry.  He's fine.  This happens all the time."  Then (thank GOD) I woke up.

I title this dream "It is almost 2 years since the accident and I just visited the hospital yesterday where Sam was for 2 months and I was feeling really freaked out about everything" dream. 

I did go to the hospital yesterday.  I was there at first to visit my cousin, Jesse, who was just diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer.  And he is only 31 years old.  He is in so much pain right now, the kind that medication just doesn't touch.  In fact, my mom left this morning to race over there because he was in so much agony.  (Her cousin Kim, Jesse's mom, called her in a panic).  Please say a little prayer for him, he needs all the help that he can get (just like Sam did once). 

So, as we were leaving, I said to my mom, "We should go to the 7th floor ICU and see if any of Sam's nurses are working."  Dumb.  Dumbdumbdumb.  I don't know why I do this to myself.  Let me explain.  Any time I am anywhere near this hospital, my fight or flight system goes into full panic mode.  Racing heartbeat, sweaty hands, waves of adreline.  A little bit of post traumatic stress disorder, though rightly earned and deserved.  It is like my brain forgets that Sam is fine because the minute I see, enter, think about that hospital I am near hysterical.  Inside.  It's not like I walk into the lobby and start screaming and flailing my arms.  That would just be weird.  I feel all the nuttiness inside.  So...because I like reliving tragedy and am a morbid, depressive person by luck and nature, I thought that returning to the scene of my brother's almost demise would be a lovely way to spend the afternoon.  Yes, why not.  We could sit right by room 709, have a cup of tea and some Lorna Doones  and laugh about that time his SPO2 was in the toilet and his face was purple.  Har de har har.  So we walk through the front doors (racing heartbeat and sweaty hands). 

Walk straight to the information desk (where people look at you with a "canIhelpyou" look on their face, unless you haven't bathed in six days and you look slightly insane.  Then they do leave you alone).  To the left, a giant fishtank full of goldfish with very bubous, disturbing eyes.  To the right, the path to the elevators. 

Go right, past the giftshop (where I bought a lot of useless stuff, like angels and pocket prayer coins), another right. 

Down the hallway where we raced ahead of the man with the floor cleaning machine at 2 in the morning  and tried to polish off  any black scuff marks on the floor before he came to them.  Why?  Please...need you ask?  (Because if we were really nice to the floorcleaningmachine man, then God would smile on us and save my brother. Dur.)

Take a quick left at the end of the hall and there are the two elevators.  Push the button and wait.  Tap your foot.  Push the button three more times in quick suceession (because THAT makes the elevator move faster).  The door glide open and you step inside (the one to the left is better, I think it just moves faster).  The doors move back together and click closed.  You push the number 7. Now you stand in this box and think about all the times you rode in this elevator at all different times of the day with one thought in your head... savemybrotherplease.  About how (because we were wearing scrubs) visitors would ask us questions (and we would answer them) thinking we were doctors.  Then they would look down and notice we weren't wearing any shoes.  So they would look at our faces again and take note of the ragged bags under our eyes and the blank stare, then they would smile nervously and look away.  Which was probably a good idea at the time. 

The doors open and there is the lobby of the ICU.  It looks different to me, I think they may have knocked out a wall at some point.  Something happened.  Maybe the furniture is different.  Not sure. We step off the elevator and notice a knot of people playing cards to our left.  I look at their eyes to see if they are traumatized.  Maybe.  Then we turn to our right and enter the second lobby.  We walk through these double doors with little circle windows.  This is the room that we slept in once.  It was the second night and we covered the circle windows with paper plates to block the light  and laid our bodies over armrests and  across chairs.  And we (pretended) to sleep. Here more people just waiting, though they are laughing and a grandmother is pushing a little boy around in a wheelchair.  Maybe it isn't too bad. But this is where my mother screamed and banged her head against the wall when they said Sam was brain dead while my dad tried to hold her back. This is where someone brought spaghetti once and all the visitors ate it but we just couldn't.  We didn't eat or sleep for a long time.  Now stop, turn right and take two steps to the coffee machine (we know it well).  Even though it is only for visitors, we take some coffe anyway.  We are visiting.  We are the perpetual visitors.  We take the hot coffee (powdered cream, sugar) leave the second lobby and walk straight, right to the doors of the ICU.  There is an intercom now and it seems that, sometimes, they lock the door.  Hmmm.  That might have happened because of our family, though the staff was so tolerant of our constant presence (and a lock wouldn't have worked with us anyway, since we knew an alternate way into the unit).  Once, when Sam's door was shut because the nurses were assessing him, my dad snuck into the empty room next door to peer through the adjoining window.  Only problem was...the room wasn't empty anymore.  There was a patient.  In the bed.  Staring at the back of my dad's head.  Needless to say, this was definately not in line with hospital procedure.

So we ignore the sign asking to buzz the desk and just place our hand flat against the door and push.  It gives, swings open and we walk through.  To our left, pictures of the neurosurgeons (glamour shots) houses in a glass covered case.  But keep walking straight ahead.  The first room you come to is 706.  This is where Mrs. Dye was until something bad happened and they moved her to the fourth floor Soon after, she just couldn't live anymore. 

Take a right at Mrs. Dye's room and walk down the hall.  You will pass room 707 (old man on a vent who died there), past 708 (this is where they told us he wouldn't live and we needed to make some hard decisions)  until you get to 709.  Turn left and face the door.  Brown door with a window covered with a blind. And this is where Sam spent February through April.  Where he lay, eyes closed at first.  Where his chest moved up and down, mechanically.  Where he was tethered by so many tubes and wires and surrounded by IV poles.  Where he lay, sleeping-like  until his eyes finally opened a little, the left one a little more than the right,  just like he was sleepy or drunk and just trying to rouse up.  And then, finally, wide open and staring at nothing.  And I decided I liked it better when his eyes were closed.

I look at the white board to the left of Sam's room to see how many patients are on a vent.  Sam was on a ventilator for so long and I remember feeling so proud when the letters V E N T were no longer next to his name.  Like he was a bigger kid now.   I scan down the nurses list to see who is working.  Not English Joy, she mostly teaches now.  Singing Daisy worked the night before.  Night time Kathy now handles emergencies in the ER.  My mom mentions that Nightime Cindy does still work on the unit, she talked to her a little while back.  I look around and really don't recognize anyway.  It is very simular to how you feel when you go back to visit your high school a few years after you graduate.  It just makes you feel detached and confused.  And a little silly. 

Now turn right and walk away from Sam's room, past room 710 (where my dad surprised the patient) and walk straight.  Right ahead, placed at the top of the wall, near the ceiling, is a scrolling marquee sign.  It announces whenever drama or tragedy is taking place on the floor in bright, electric red letters.   And it seems that any time we walked onto the floor (every 15 minutes) it was screaming the annoucement 709 LOW SPO2  709 LOW SPO2 709 LOW SPO2.  Which really means Sam's oxygen level is 90% or less, sometimes 85% once it was 50%.  And we would speed walk into his room to find a nurse watching his O2 level, seeing what would happen next.  And, during those times that we weren't allowed in the room, we would sidle up to the nurses' station, acting incredibly non-challant, and just lean on the counter.  Very casual.  And look in the direction of the windows (patient stats computer screen) and stare outside at the beautiful day (watch my brother's oxygen drop lower and lower).  Once a very mean nurse caught onto my true purpose and said, "You can't look at that, it's confidental patient information."  Please.  Like who elses heart rate, oxygen level, blood pressure would I be looking at?  Joe Schmo from room 702?  Dur.  So I smiled, walked away and went to the second nurses station and set up my "looking out the window/staring at his numbers" there.  I was sneaky, diabolical and very determined in a passive-agressive sort of way.  And, after that point, that nurse was known as "you-know-that-mean-nurse-that-wouldn't-let-me-look-at-Sam's-oxygen-level" lady.  The one we don't want Sam to have.  Heartless.  Horrid.  And we would all nod our heads in a knowing sort of way.

And now just walk  to the right of the alarm sign, and you will see  a little alcove at the end of the unit with a full length window.  This is where we would sit, stand, slump against or just press our noses onto.  This is where I would look and see little people walking to their tiny cars and think "My brother is dying, my brother is dying and they are just walking to their cars."  This is where we saw the season change from snow to rain to sunny, semi-warm days.  Where we watched the trees move from snow covered to blossoming with little early spring leaf buds. Where I stood and waited for my brother to wake.  This is where my mom and I slept face to face in a lazy boy chair while Sam turned blue and tried to die in the next room.  This is where we stood, pressed our exhausted faces  against the window and begged God to let him live. We made all sorts of deals and bargins in trade for his little life.  

And then we turn back around, 190 degrees, away from the window  and head out of the unit.  Past Sam's room, Mrs. Dye's room, take a left, past the pictures, hand flat against the door and push.  And when the door swings open the visitors half stand with an anxious, expentant look. And I remember sitting where they are now.  Hearing the click of the handle, watching the door swing open and waiting for someone to tell me that, in the end, everything will be okay. 

Bec

P.S. Sorry about the depressing nature of this post.  Hospitals do that to me.