I know what "IT" is I think.

Yes I'm awake. I'm more tired than awake. 

This feeling is quite a queer feeling actually.  Father seems more delirious this morning. He asks over and over if it is raining? He likes to hear the rain on our metal roof when it rains. He is babbling about this and that. He rested a little last night albeit not much. He does not like the hospital because he can't get comfortable in the bed. ICU beds are tough, as they have to be sterilized a lot. People die every day in here I think. He is back to wanting to rip everything off his body. Considering the fact he has 25 leads from here to there is the main thing he wants gone. He is buck naked except for a light weight sheet. When I say "Light weight" I mean so used up it is almost transparent. I think a transparent sheet tells you our state of economy...Poor. The room has to be kept so cold for him to be comfortable I sit looking out at the beautiful day that i'm not part of and am snuggled in the same blanket that Valentina liked and used. I made it, it is fleece, bright reds, purples and oranges.  

I figured ”it” out. I will tell you how. In this unit you have to walk like 1/4 mile to use the restroom. Then you have to call on a phone every time to announce who you are, who you are here to see and wait to  be allowed to come back in. (Why was it designed this way? No bathrooms in the patient rooms? I would sue the architect it is asinine not to have restrooms in the unit. It takes a whole employee to monitor ins and outs.) Anyhow, when I go out I'm usually going to try and stay out ten minutes because I feel embarrassed calling. Usually within this time frame another person will come out or another family will show up and use the phone and either way I can sneak in behind them without having to use the 'Please let me in phone'. This morning while I was in the “circling the door” mode I realized something.

When I was a very young girl (6) my dad had 67% of his body burned in a fire. He was a mechanic at the time and thought he had poured a cup of water in the cup he was carrying to the car that he was currently working on.  A new guy had mistakenly put gasoline in the "water" jug and a spark from a car hit the cup and well the rest is history. I was the one who answered the phone when the hospital (my dad was admitted to) called and told us to come to the hospital as it was urgent. I got my Mom out of the shower and I don't remember much except the staff pushing across the desk all my dad's personal effects in a big manilla envelope. Giving my mom my father’s “Valuables” I instinctively knew was a bad thing. A very bad thing indeed. He was hospitalized for months. He was burned so bad.  Back in the olden days they didn't have the burn patient knowledge they have now. Wherever he would sit or lay down on would stick to his exposed skin and each time he had to get up it peeled skin off. Agonizing screaming were what we would hear. They would amp him up on Morphine but were too afraid to give him enough. It was horrendous as a child to see and hear your father in constant and undeniable pain. I remember on Christmas morning that year, they allowed my Mom to bring him home for a whole hour. It was such a joyous day. I also remember being allowed to sneak into his room late at night. Kids were not to be seen nor heard. (This is not the “ah-ha” part- Just some background)  

Now this is the epiphany, I realized it this morning. (Yes, I was in fact once again in the “circling the door” mode.) I was standing outside with a hot cup of coffee, complimentary dontcha know. It never tastes like much, but it is hot and the sign says does in fact say it is "coffee." I was watching the ER from the floor above and seeing the people in that unit who are really hurt, bleeding, barfing whatever and I feel sorry for them. This hospital is slow. What is slow you ask me now? I don't know. There is no time limit in my mind unless it is one of "my people" needing to be seen. Does that make sense? If it is one of  "My people" it takes forever. If I'm observing from above the Emergency room  all the workings below seem to be going at an even clip.  As if it is as if  all very fine tuned below. Triage than treat in order of patient need. Okay, still not to the point. 

 Yesterday when the ambulance came to my house to pick up my Dad (I have never called 911 before) and I heard the big engines roaring down my long driveway I freaked out. Not screaming, panicking, more like the direness of the situation. I think in my mind if  the fire trucks and ambulance are called to come to your home it is somehow more serious. This time was no more serious than any of the other times I have had to bring him to TRCH  except this time I'm tired. I couldn't even phathom the idea of trying to get him into my car to bring him here without help. I am spent. We (Colton and I) had to come through the front entrance to ER and not through the ambulance side. Once Colton parked the car and I pulled out my wallet, a book and both my phones each step that I took closer to the doors of the hospital was more agonizing than the one before. I felt like I was having an anxiety attack. It wasn't like I was panting, singing, crying, screaming, feeling faint anything like that. 

 I realized that my mind and body did NOT want to be here. I hate this hospital. I know this hospital like an old friend. Last year I think I spent 15-17 days with my Father. My sister (to whom I do not speak) was in here for at least a week (bringing total hospital nights up to nearly 3 weeks) and I was here every second.  Add my surgery and doctor/hospital visits and you see where I’m going. Hate the smell of antiseptic they use, hate the way my boots sound walking on the marble/concrete floors. 

You see, a long time ago when I moved back to Grants Pass from Fort Bragg California my sister (Hope) and I pledged to never have to be alone at the hospital. When I lived in FB I didn't have any family so all emergencies were mine and David's alone. So when we moved back we made a pledge that whenever anything happened with one of my kids I'd call her and if anything happened to her kids I came no questions asked. To have a sister by your side meant you would get through it. I think that with us sisters we have had to cling to each other and try to be the Mom to one another. That calming face, the "you aren't alone" feeling. It means that to be a “Boulanger” you  always have to come no matter the time of day… you go.  It's just what being a Boulanger represents to each other.  It is weird to speak of my maiden name always like it has it's own entity but it really does. Being a "Boulanger" is a special thing. Not many of us left. So, if you are "lucky" enough to be a Boulanger it means that you love with all you have, try to be friends with everyone, help others when they need it no matter what and come to the aid of your friends forever. We are fixers, doers. I hate to hear about anything I can't fix. Like the starving children, the women getting raped in other countries. I don't like to hear about it. Not because I am in denial that it happens but it makes me crazy that people in our country don't think we should get into other nations "civil rights." I am far from a woman libber. I'm not a "libber" at all. I just get so frustrated with things that are out of my control. OmG I’m a control freak. 

Oh my gosh, I promised my epiphany and I regressed again. (The nurse just came in to give me my Dad report. We know no more than we did last night. Do we have to pay without a diagnosis?) Anyway, when I was a kid my Mom's Mom, Alyce was in and out of the hospital my entire childhood. We went with our Mother, trapsing behind her day after week after year. They would release my grandmother just to have to re-admit her the next week. Grandma Macy had cancer. They took out her bladder now she had to get a pee bad, they took out her colon now she has a poop bag. (I do know the medical terms for each but would rather keep it as what I thought as a child) My Mom and her sisters always showed up in force. 

We kids were so acutely aware of the hospital it was like being home. We knew all the nurses, the doctors and they would even bring us homemade snacks from home. They brought board games and would bring us cold drinks. We would ride up and down and up and down in the elevators for hours to try and sheer off even an hour or so of daily hospital boredom. We began to visit the other patients there and began to feel like the hospital was ours. I can remember one year my Mom had planned a huge Luau with about 30 friends and right in the middle of her elaborate party we got "the call" and away we went to the hospital again, leaving all of her friends behind to enjoy the party. 

 I know, I know I'm still not to the epiphany. I realized that I have been built for this care giving from a young age. I have probably (actually know for sure) that I have spent more time in hospitals during my lifetime than in any church, any college classes, any trips to or from delivering dogs. I will never ask God again "Why Me?" As I realized with all assuredly that he built me for this. He made me who I am so I could do this. This gross terrible thing of being at the hospital all of the time means and represents to me. 

I will accept, and I mean truly accept that this is where I belong. Why not me? I'm hating the realization but I realize this is ME. I hope I've put into words what I wanted to write. I wanted to see it in print that I am handing over my will to the great one. I am surrendering my doubts and feelings of "woe is me" and instead saying.... Let's roll. I always tease and say "I'm a doctor in real life" and most of the time I'm just kidding.  Sometimes, I feel like I am a Doctor. (No not Doctor Kevorkian either)  

My oldest sister, Kim called me last night. She had breast cancer in 2005 and has being fighting infection after infection since. We are talking deep and utter sickness and infection. The kind of infection that sends you to your knees. 

Last month when I was up in Portland for Bonne (The little sister who just had a double radical mastectomy) we found out that Kim has developed "Cellulites" in one of her calves. I told her in all my "Doctor" reading that what she had was serious. Deadly serious. She still went to work and took "Care of her business" like she likes to say a thousand times a day. "You have to take care of your business". Back to last night. She has been on an IV that she keeps going day and night for two weeks. Last Monday they put in a picc line. That is right in the neck area. Well her Doctor phoned her last night and told her a nurse was on her way to Kim's house because the cellulitis has spread and she is worried sick about Kim. They are giving her IV Pushes now (I must have missed that class in med school) and if her cellulitis is not significantly better that she will have to be hospitalized again…AGAIN. She told me that she is tired of fighting all the infections related to the killer chemotherapy and radiation that burned up her complete immune system to which she has never covered fully. She is only 50 and has been wrought with infection after infection since her cancer. She did the chemo and the radiation and has had deep infections ever since then. I'm going to be 46 this September and Can't imagine being "too tired" to fight any more.