Even a Broken Clock is Right Twice a Day

After intense thinking I bargained with my dad, letting him know that instead of calling 911 and the ambulance coming, I would rush him to the hospital in my car. With a little apprehension my dad obliged. Maybe this method made him feel less dependent on others, especially strangers. My mom and I were able to carefully get my dad in the car and safely to the hospital.

Doctors were able to stabilize my dad and of course run more tests on him to see what was causing his instant fatigue. Test results came back. My dad had a condition called pneumothorax, better known as a collapsed lung. I was extremely grateful that we got dad to the hospital when we did. Any time later, we could have had a different result.

Emergency room visits

Tick, tock, tick, tock! The minute hand on the clock tends to sound louder than police sirens, fire truck sirens, and ambulance sirens, especially when you’re waiting in the emergency room for doctors to return with updates on your loved one’s health report. After what seemed like hours, doctors finally enter the room. The once-loud tick tock of the clock seemed to diminish altogether into pure silence. Time felt like it was at a standstill.

Emergency room visits became a new normal after my dad’s prostate cancer diagnosis. Each visit seemed to have a domino effect. It went from pain in his groin area, to intestinal issues, to kidney failure, and to bone density issues.

Alarms going off in my head

One morning, my dad was exhausted from just sitting up in the bed, walking to the bathroom, and getting dressed. Hearing him gasping for air was torture. I begged and pleaded with him to go to the hospital. Dad’s response was always, “I’m alright. I just need to rest for a minute.”

All of the alarms going off in my head knew something wasn’t right and my dad needed medical attention. As the morning turned into afternoon, it had gotten so bad that I didn’t want my dad to fall asleep because I was scared he wouldn’t wake up.

Needing medical attention

See, the thing is when we have an ache, pain, or nagging feeling within our body, our bodies send a signal to our brains letting us know that there’s an irregular or abnormal feeling. After several emergency room visits where doctor reports were not comforting, Dad programmed his mind to think he didn’t need to go in for fear of hearing bad news. He felt better “mending” in the comforts of his own home.

It was in this moment that I knew time was not on my side, nor his. He was struggling with tasks that should not be a struggle, like breathing. The tick tock of the mental minute hand began to move slower and slower. I had to come up with something quick to get my dad the medical attention we both knew he needed. "Think Bev, think," I said to myself! He’s a man who wouldn’t stop and ask for directions knowing he was lost. A man that went to work knowing he wasn’t feeling well.

Listening to our bodies

As broken down as my dad’s body seems after each emergency room visit, his body was still able to signal his brain to let him know that something was wrong. We have to tune in and listen to our bodies when they speak to us. After all, even a broken clock is correct twice a day.