The drive was memorable for many reasons. Dad and I were, once again, traveling alone to the clinic; the three of us would have gone, but since Mom had employment obligations in the form of parent/teacher conferences, she decided, for the parents benefit, to remain at home. It was the year's first conference and no one could have substituted. With my car's heater useless, it was also the first time we drove the truck. Because the truck had a manual transmission, steering and brakes, and Mom's blood pressure rose at the mere thought of having to drive it, we presumed it would nullify her nightmares if she retained use of the family car. Finally, it was the first time we had ever driven to the clinic by way of the prolific back roads that skirted the northern farmland; though we stopped at various intervals to assure our progress, only once did we find ourselves on the right highway traveling the wrong direction.
All things considered, it made an interesting drive, and between eating lunch in a small town and buying M and M's at a gas station and watching Iowa's flat land slowly transform into the more hilly dairyland of Wisconsin, I did not burden myself with the essence of our trip; I found more importance in enjoying the seven hours than stewing in the ignorance of my health situation.
When we reached the outskirts of Rochester, Dad pulled into a gas station to fill up the tank and I jumped out of the truck for a stretch. It had been a beautiful autumn day. The buildings now etched long shadows upon the sunny landscape; soon shadow would meet shadow until all was covered by darkness. I turned slowly to face Rochester and my eyes locked on the two familiar buildings which towered above the city. The clinic buildings, old and new, represented an integrity in medicine which commanded respect; they could bear the happiest or the most solemn news, and remain untouched, for in those two buildings illness and death were more commonplace than health. Brothers of the same mind and purpose, the buildings formed an entity of themselves, daily inhaling and exhaling patients irregardless of whether the patients actually survived.
I took a deep breath to still the sudden, wrenching nervousness which clenched the pit of my stomach. The two buildings defined the reason I was there even if they, as yet, gave me no real answers. It was then that my joy ride ended and the unhappy reality of retiring for the evening in a hospital room created waves in my mental calm. Even my so-called "last supper" was clouded by anxiety.
One's natural reaction is to run from a threat, and to postpone less palatable situations as long as possible. For me, however, there was always a point at which flight and postponement no longer satisfied my emotional needs, but instead created agony in their own right. When I reached that summit, I grew intensely nervous and within minutes made a 180 degree turn which boosted me into an entirely different mode of thought. That which I had fled, I sought, and if I was denied the pursuit of my goal, I would experience an inner explosion of panic. To reverse the feeling that I was the quarry in an unfair hunt, I had to establish for myself that I had complete control over the situation. In effect I did not "give in" or surrender to a stronger authority; my flight came to an end through a deliberate, conscious decision on my behalf.
And so it was that I finally decided to check in to the hospital and surrender my body to a world of white. Once I was clad in the gown, my identity became synonymous with scribbles on a chart, and color, the brilliance of life on the outside, drained away. Hospitals robbed me of something; I could be happy and possess a positive outlook, but the energy and vitality of life was inaccessible. Perhaps this blandness in my soul was a way of coping with adversity, for if I had little passion from the outset, no ill tidings could evoke a particularly heated or irrational reaction.
Dad left relatively early for his motel, or maybe my feeling of isolation only made it seem that way. Had I been able, I would have left also; sterile atmospheres are rather nerve-wracking, and I knew Dad was nervous enough without the added pressure of whiling away the twilight hours in a cramped four-bed hospital ward.
The room had no T.V. so I turned my attention toward the window. Tiny dots marked streetlights and houses, but the vast darkness prevailed over most of the scene, creating a solitude which mirrored my own. During hours such as those in the hospital, I realized how terribly insignificant I was as compared to the entire world. A person could lose himself in this world.
The morning held no delights. I would not even receive a breakfast tray. I looked forward only to a day of anticipation in which I was fourth in line to leave for the operating room. I could do little but stare at the walls and wait for the morning to ripen into afternoon.
By mid-afternoon I began to wonder if the operation would be cancelled due to the lack of time, but finally several people retrieved me, whereupon I was taken through the hospital corridors on a gurney and given a different perspective of the building than I was accustomed to seeing. (Unlike some public buildings, I was pleased to note there were no spit-balls on the ceiling.)