(No) Scrubs

I hardly know what to say.

Dad's been in the hospital for the past three days, and will probably be here for a few days more.  It wasn't planned, exactly, but it's not beyond the scope of possibilities with this cancer/chemo combo.

It's pretty much sucked.  I'm able to help in the most minute ways, and I desperately wish I could do more.  Yesterday I semi-jokingly told Dad that I was considering a career change.  Picture a young girl (fine, let's own up - a young woman) jobless, aimless, prospectless and helpless.  Then as a shining beacon, this phalanx of blue scrub-clad heroes comes in and alleviates pain, provides explanation, gives reassurance and comfort.  Goddamn but these nurses do good work.  I can understand the explanations they provide for what medicine and when and why, and my semi-technical questions prompt more technical answers on their part, until we come to a mutual understanding of comprehension and a degree of sophistication. 

That's how it should work.  Then there is the doctor (one of so many) who feel the need to explain, "Your heart is here.  There are two veins that go up into your brain.  Then they come back down."  Thanks, sir, but Mom was asking about intravenous coagulation, so you might be able to assume she knows where the heart is.

At any rate, with these good nurses and medical professionals, I get that feeling I've gotten so many times before.  That chirpy little voice inside that says, "You could do that!"  And maybe I could, but for the most part, my heart (with the two big veins that go up and down) has placed its chips elsewhere, in education.  Maybe that's what draws me to what these folks are doing.  The translation, the interpretation of obtuse, impenetrable mysteries of science and medicine into a folk-ready explanation of, 'Okay, this is what's happening to your body and this is what we're going to do to help.'

Fascinating ruminations, though I'd rather not be here all the same.  As long as we have to be, though, may the fates see fit to surround us with competent persons.  And we will praise their efforts to the ends of the Earth.