I have been visiting the hospital to see an ailing grandmother, she is 85 and in pain. Last night, went inside the ICU at PG Hospital to see if they have any bed available for her. I am frightened by any hospital experience and tried to keep my eyes tightly glued to the floor so that i don't, even accidentally, look at the patients. We were speaking to the Duty Doctor and i caught a glimpse of one patient - unconscious, with oxygen tubes, bandaged. I closed my eyes as fast as i could. Another patient had just come in. Could not help hearing the murmur - that it might be too late, which nurse was available to look at the patient at bed number 5, shuffling of prescriptions, frantic phone calls.
I did not know how to feel being in the room which marks the boundary of life and death.
Urgent,
important,
critical, deadline - all these words take a different meaning inside the ICU or become meaningless. I felt, sometimes we use the expression "life and death" too lightly in everyday life and my intention here is not to undermine the intensity of the feeling when we say "why didn't you rather kill me" or "i wish i were dead".
I just felt numb looking at the literal meaning of life and death inside the ICU. At that moment, life meant being able to walk, breathe, talk, smile, do, hold, touch, sit on the grass out in the open - all the simple verbs.
