It was cold.  Hospitals were always cold.  The temperature outside didn’t even matter, hospitals were always cold both figuratively and literally.  I could never really figure out why, but I guess it was just how bright and sterile everything was.  You’d think the bright, white walls reflecting the blinding overhead fluorescent lights would give the building a warmer feel, but honestly it just makes you feel like you’re being interrogated by a really angry cop who has an arrest quota to meet.  Not exactly the best environment for healing, if you ask me.

 

“Hey.” My mom’s voice broke through my thoughts.  She looked tired, and I couldn’t blame her for that.  She’s done nothing but work lately, so this hospital visit was the last thing she needed.  “I’m gonna go outside and call your brother, come get me if he needs anything.”

 

I merely nodded, my gaze following her as she exited the room before falling back on the figure in the hospital bed.  My mom had originally asked me to stay home for when my brother came home from school, but I begged her to let me come, just for a bit.  She folded under the condition that I’d go home with my aunt when she stopped by.  I accepted without hesitation, I just wanted to see my dad.

 

There was really nothing physically wrong with him, despite what he had convinced himself of in work that morning.  He got sick at his desk, his hands going numb as his co-workers called for an ambulance.  He immediately claimed a heart attack to the paramedics, the hospital did an EKG and blood work on him to check on his heart, but in the end it was something much less life threatening, but just as devious in nature: a severe panic attack.  This news wasn’t a surprise to any of us, my dad had been an absolute mess for years now over finances, the idea of losing the house, of being homeless.  My mom constantly assured me that it was all in his head, that we might have to juggle funds a bit, but such drastic circumstances were a long way from us.  Part of the reason she worked so much was to put my dad at ease, to bring extra money in.  But anxiety is a wicked little monster that makes you deathly afraid of even the most irrational things, and that in itself terrifies me.

 

My dad had fallen asleep shortly after we got there, after we discussed what happened and were assured that he was physically fine.  He was clearly spent, his body limp and his face pale, his usual bright blue eyes dull.  But more than that, he looked embarrassed.  I tried to talk to him, engage him in conversation to take his mind off of everything that happened, but he would barely make eye contact with me, answering me in a short, curt fashion.  A pang of guilt shot through me.  He might have been okay with his wife seeing him like this, but not his daughter.

 

As my mom re-entered the room I cringed at the sound of the door opening and closing.  Every sound in this place seemed to reverberate loudly off of the marble floors and plaster walls.  I could have sworn I was able to hear a patient coughing three floors up earlier.  I glanced back at my dad to see if it roused him, but all he did was snort in his sleep and begin to snore.  At least that meant he was in a pretty deep sleep, he only ever snores when he’s out cold. 

 

“How’s David?” I kept my voice at a whisper, just barely above that of the beeping of the heart monitor, and even that volume seemed too loud.

 

My mom shrugged. “He seems okay.  I explained what happened.  He was surprised, but I assured him that dad’s fine.  He was a bit unnerved with being left home alone, though.”

 

I grimaced.  I felt even worse now about deciding to come.  “I’ll go home with Aunt Kate.  I promise.”

 

“Has he woken up at all?”

 

I shook my head.

 

We sat in silence for awhile, and I was left to my thoughts once again.  How many times had I made myself sick over the most ridiculous things?  All too often I was reduced to hysterical tears over school, for no reason in particular other than the vague ‘I’m going to fail and never graduate’ thoughts that plagued my mind, and sometimes for reasons that were unknown even to myself.  I used to get mad at my dad over his irrational financial fears, for the stress he put my mom under, making her think that she hasn’t done enough, but now that I thought about it, my own fears were just as irrational, and certainly not worth becoming sick over.  It’s not something we can help, and the idea of my own anxiety reaching such a peak that I wind up hospitalized scared me.

 

“Hey, ma,” I speak up again, hesitant to voice my concerns.  I choose my words carefully, my hands fidgeting in my lap.  I don’t want to come across as selfish, but even as I sat there, I could feel my own anxiety tightening my chest.  “Do you think he’ll ever be able to get this under control?  I mean, even with therapy and medication it seems like it’s only getting worse.”

 

She didn’t even look up from her phone.  “He can’t help it.” 

​

I knew that already though, I thought.  I sighed, running a hand down my face.  “It’s just...what if there is no way to actually get better?”

 

She finally looked up at me, her brow raised.  “The important part is to try, and to get the help you need.  There is no real fix for it.”  Her gaze softened. “Medication and therapy does help.  He was a lot worse before we started that.”

 

I figured she’d see through me.  I shifted in my seat.  Hospital chairs are only marginally more comfortable than a slab of concrete. “But if this is what it’s like with all of that, it’s just...a little scary.”

 

A particularly loud snore from my dad cut her off before she could speak, sighing in what could only be considered exasperation. “There’s something ironic about getting anxiety over anxiety.”

​

She was deflecting, which I could understand, this wasn’t exactly the time or place for this conversation.  I smiled despite myself.  “Well, like father like daughter, I guess.”

 

Looking back at my sleeping dad, I felt a heavy knot forming in the pit of my stomach.  All I could see under those sterile white sheets was me in forty years, still unable to get a grip on my own irrational fears, even with people around to help me through it.  Listening to his even breathing—and snoring—I did my best to block the thoughts from my mind, the steady beeping of the heart monitor matching the thumping of my own heart in my chest. This wasn’t about me, after all.