Saturday July 7th, 2007

Saturday morning was like any other in the hospital. The staff doesn’t know it’s the weekend. It has only been a week, but I feel as if I have been doing the hospital thing for about a month. I usually get up early because I can’t sleep well under the physical and emotional conditions. I try and take care of my hygiene as quietly as possible. I still feel nasty afterwards because there is no shower accessible in the hospital. If I haven’t woken up the mama Ali, the nurse does when she brings in the breakfast. I feel that the baby needs the energy so I always try and feed her more than she wants to eat. Funny how she doesn’t enjoy eating powdered eggs while lying upside down with an IV in her arm. After breakfast I try and help her clean up as best as possible. Washing the face and hands. Brushing teeth. Cleaning up anything the nurses have left her like iodine or tape residue. Usually I try and straighten up the room for busy work or we just talk. I think one day she attempted to read. She never watched TV in the morning and very rarely in the evening.

There was almost always a late morning nap because she spent all day in bed. That would be my chance to run down to the cafeteria and get my own breakfast. Daytona and Ormond were just alike. The food had been under the lamps for too long, I was excited to eat until I tasted the food. The places only took cash and they took too much of it. I would always try to get extra food to bring back to the room. The mama Ali wasn’t ever hungry.

Today was slightly different from the usual day. My family always goes out to dinner to celebrate my birthday and since my younger sister was in town, today was the day. I was fully prepared to have everyone order their food to go and to have dinner in the hospital room. That way, my wife would not feel left out at a time when she already felt so bad. She would have none of it. She didn’t want to inconvenience 5 other people so that we can all sit around and watch her eat while wearing a hospital gown, needing a shower, and generally pretending as if we weren’t in a hospital. She made a convincing point. She made me promise to hurry back as soon as possible and to not have any fun. My mother and sister come to the hospital room around lunchtime where I insist on doing an ultrasound again (More goo for me to wipe up later). Again there is no real reason for this other than to show my family that the baby can kick. That is something entirely appropriate for 23 weeks, but yet I still feel proud.

The doctor stops by after lunch to do an exam. We ask him about getting us to the better hospital to deliver the baby. There are only a handful of options. We can go to one in Jacksonville or one of two in Orlando. However, those hospitals don’t just take anyone. First, they need a bed for us. I’d also like a shower, but I don’t mention it. Also, the hospitals want people who are at least 23 weeks at an absolute minimum, something we just reached today. He was going to work on it and keep us updated. That meant another night in Daytona. Sunday didn’t look good either because admitting us to a new hospital would require someone at the new hospital making a decision, and the decision makers tended not to work the Sunday after Independence Day.

After lunch I leave with my family and within a few hours we are heading out to eat. We try out a new fancy restaurant. I actually liked the food, but the guilt was unbearable. When I saw my sister bicker over something with her husband, I wanted the chance to bicker with my wife. When I saw another couple in the restaurant with a screaming toddler, I actually was jealous that they had a screaming toddler. The food even made me feel guilty. From June 29th through July 7th I had survived on 3 food groups. The first was cafeteria. Hot, but bland. The second food group was drive thru. Convenient, but probably committing suicide. The 3rd food group was home cooking. That was made up entirely of PB&J sandwiches I made myself for breakfast before work. This dinner was my first real food in July. By the time the month would be over I would have eaten more fast food than in all of 2006. I don’t think I turned on the stove at all in July 2007.

Soon enough it was time for me to get back to the hospital. This was no small task. The hospital was directly across from the racetrack. In fact, we stay in the hospital that the racers go to when they get in a crash. Tonight is the Pepsi 400. Traffic is bad and it takes twice as long to get back to the hospital as it took to leave it earlier. By the time I get back to the room, the mama Ali was watching TV. We even watched a lap of the race (that’s a lot for us). At the end of the evening the mama Ali went to sleep and the race was over. They conclude the race with a major fireworks show. We are facing away from the track, so I see nothing, but I fall asleep to the sound of something that sounds like gunfire.