In the Midst of Life

because she was found on the floor, unconscious, and no one knew how long she had been there. Add to that the time taken for ambulance transfer to the hospital, and several hours must have elapsed. When my sister and I arrived, she was breathing without the aid of a ventilator, but did not appear to be conscious. We stayed with her all night, dozing intermittently in the chairs that the staff had provided for us.
    On the second morning she regained consciousness, glanced around her quite brightly, then looked at us in surprise. ‘What are you two doing here? What’s going on?’
    We stayed with her all day. She was very weak, and obviously ill, but she talked rationally and could remember everything upuntil the moment she had collapsed. She seemed very interested in what must have happened, and in all the medical paraphernalia around her. She remembered her mother, who had suffered a heart attack about thirty-five years previously and died.
    ‘If all this medical treatment had been available for my dear mother, she wouldn’t have died. I was there with my Dad. The doctor came, and said there was nothing he could do. I am very grateful to the doctors and nurses here,’ she said.
    The doctor told us that she was out of danger and that we could go home if we wanted to. As my sister had three children to look after, we agreed that she should go and that I would stay on at the hospital with our mother. I stayed with her all evening and dozed in the chair beside her during the night. The machines hummed and whirred, and nurses came at intervals to check a monitor and offer words of comfort and reassurance. It reminded me of my own years of night duty – the night-time holds a beauty and mystery that we do not know during the daylight hours – but I had to recognise that although I was an experienced nurse, the new machines were quite beyond me.
    It was Midsummer Day. Dawn was breaking, and soon brilliant sunshine was streaming in through the hospital window. My mother stirred and looked around her. ‘It’s going to be a lovely day,’ she said.
    A nurse came in and removed the drip from her arm. ‘You’ve had a good sleep,’ she said.
    ‘Yes, and I feel a lot better. A cup of tea would be nice,’ my mother replied. Then she turned to me and said, ‘Go and get yourself some breakfast, dear. I’m sure there must be a canteen open somewhere in the hospital. I’m all right. I feel much better.’
    The nurse agreed. ‘We want to change your mother’s bed and give her some breakfast, and we will probably get her up as well. I daresay she will be transferred to the ward when the doctors have seen her.’
    I made my way to the hospital canteen with a great sense of relief in my heart. She’s going to be all right, I thought. Modernmedicine is wonderful. I remembered similar cases of acute heart failure that I had seen thirty years previously. when there was very little that we could do, and when many people died, or survived to be cardiac cripples.
    Breakfast was excellent – cornflakes, bacon and eggs, toast and marmalade, coffee – and it increased my sense of well-being. I had intended to go straight back to my mother, but … but … All those fatal ‘buts’ in life; they are as bad as the ‘if onlys’. If only I had followed my first intention. If only I had resisted the call of a midsummer morning, the lure of the rising sun casting long shadows over the hospital garden, the sight of small clouds floating in a clear blue sky, the sound of birds singing. If only I had shut my eyes and ears to the beauties of nature. But I didn’t. I went for a walk in the morning light.
    When I got back to the hospital, the door of the intensive care unit was locked. I could hear sounds from within but could not enter. I knocked on the door several times, my anxiety increasing. Eventually a nurse came out and said that an incident had occurred, and I could not be admitted.
    ‘What incident?’ I asked.
    ‘A cardiac incident. We are dealing with it.’
    ‘But I must come in,’ I said.
    ‘No, I’m sorry,’ was the firm reply.
    ‘But she is my mother. I
must
come in.’
    ‘No. You cannot be admitted. Go to the waiting room and you will be kept informed of progress.’
    ‘What are you doing? What’s happening?’
    The nurse did not reply, but turned back, shutting the door firmly in my face.
    I was trembling and crying. ‘Let me in, open the door. You can’t keep me out.’ That is what I intended to say,