Hospital

Hospital sweet hospital. It's a bad sign when you are offered the employee discount in the hospital snack bar. It had been about a month when Errol's mother was offered her first employee discount. It was disconcerting when people began to ask me for directions in the labyrinthine hospital. It was even more scary when I could give them. One day on an elevator an anesthesiologist asked me if I was a resident. I asked him if I really looked that tired. Neither meaning of the word resident was very comforting. There was even one family we heard of that had their mail delivered to the hospital on a daily basis.

The hospital never felt like home to us, but it was the first place Errol lived. He had an extended family of nurses, doctors, technicians, therapists and assistants. He was surrounded by people whose whole job was to keep him alive.

Before Errol's birth I was always saddened when the hospital helicopter flew overhead. I thought of it as another damaged person; another tragedy. And while that's sometimes the case, now when the helicopter sweeps past, I think of it as a phoenix, offering someone a chance at life.

Although the hospital saved Errol's life, after our weeks there, I've never been so glad to get out of a place alive.