outlooks
... and if he had been watching golf (his favorite sport) on TV. He would answer with yes, “I went the game yesterday,” or “we played tennis this morning.” Something totally off the wall came out of his mouth and nothing made any sense. I couldn’t bear to see him like that. Tears streamed down my face as I slowly walked out of the room and began hearing his wife say, “they think the lymphoma may have spread into the brain.” Devastated and worried more than ever before, I leaned up against the hard hospital wall and slowly shrunk down into a crouched up position and began to cry. Hours passed by and I couldn’t get the courage to go back into the room. As I sat desperately waiting to hear any type of news I watched the doctors and quickly moving nurses go back and forth in and out of his room. The halls were lonely but the people were very caring. Patients hooked up to machines, walking the halls, came to my side and knelt down saying, “are you going to be okay,” and encouraging words like “it will be alright, don’t you worry, just pray.” I just couldn’t bear the thought of having to say goodbye to my wonderful and loving grandpa who was sitting in that small hospital bed helpless. He didn’t have remotely any idea of what was happening to him or what could become. Cancer in my grandpa’s brain? If that’s the case, he will never be the same. I was distraught and my face as red as a tomato. I didn’t have any thought of what to do or what might become of this. All I was capable of was crying, praying, and listening to the nurses whisper quietly. My mom and I had arrived at Shands at about 12 noon. After we realized how serious this was, my mom decided to call her brother who lived in Atlanta and could make it down to the hospital in a few hours. When he arrived he walked out of the elevator and down the hall. I was still on the hospital floor bundled up in two blankets trying to keep warm and bracing the thought of saying goodbye. He hastily came down the hall and as my mother and he greeted each other I experienced something else. I had never seen my mom so worried about anything in her life. She broke down and words began to come out of her mouth that put me into a state of shock yet realization that this could be it. She desperately cried in her brothers arms uttering, “He’s not coming back.” The solely thing I could bear to do was cry. As they took a deep breath, knowing my grandpa wasn’t going to recognize his son, they fearfully walked into the cold unpredictable room. I sat still around the corner up against the wall with my head in my hands curled up in a ball having almost no thoughts flowing through my mind due to exhaustion. My grandpa helpless as ever was moving his hands and feet as fast as they could go, talking about crazy past experiences as if he was dreaming and recalling every situation in his lifetime and motioning things while sleeping such as eating or brushing his teeth. It was a site that was unbearable to see. Something so sad I couldn’t process it. I definitely couldn’t deal with seeing him in that state. It was as if he was someone else. I thought he was gone forever and never coming back. Tests were going to be done the next day. Three extremely important, possibly life changing tests, were going to be completed and results would be known hours later. An MRI on the brain was going to be done to see if the cancer had spread to the brain. If so, not much could be done and I wasn’t ever going to be able to talk to him the same way again. Twelve midnight, going on half a day, had arrived. I was still sitting in the hospital wondering if it was going to be t...