In and out of the hospital

Then I was in eighth grade. One day I came home thinking everything was fine, but only my mom was home, which was weird. She told me that my dad was rushed to the hospital because they found out he had three brain tumors. 

I was so shocked because I thought he was doing better. None of us saw it coming.

My mom and I immediately drove to the hospital, and I just sat in the car crying very quietly, while trying to hold it in. When we got there I went into his room and saw this man I loved so much with tubes coming out of everywhere. This was not him. Seeing him like that was traumatizing.

I went over and I laid on the bed with him and told him how much I loved him. We laid like that together until he had to go into surgery.

Then my mom and I went with him to the pre-operation room. Both of us went into a waiting room where most of my aunts and uncles were. I tried being happy because I felt the need to make everyone else less depressed–even though they were also putting on a happy face for me, so I wouldn’t be worried about my dad. It never occurred to me that he wouldn’t make it through the surgery because no one really told me how extreme the surgery was.I just knew he would make it. 

He did end up making it, but they couldn’t take all the cancer out. The cancer had spread to his lungs, esophagus and brain.  

Throughout the month after his surgery, he started getting extremely skinny. But of course he was still acting really strong, and he would go out every day just to get out of the house.

Until he wasn’t able to anymore.

One day, two or three months after the surgery, I came home and my dad was sitting on the couch and we talked about how we were going to have a fun summer. I went upstairs for only five minutes while my mom and dad were still downstairs. When I came back down, my dad was on the couch soaked in sweat and his eyes were rolled all the way to the back of his head. 

I started screaming because I was terrified. We kept shaking him and yelling his name, but he wouldn’t get up. I called 911 while my mom got him on the ground. Then I handed her the phone while I did CPR compressions. 

Eventually three fire trucks, two ambulances, and three police cars came. I still have no idea why so many emergency vehicles came.

I stood outside while I watched them put my dad into the ambulance. They wouldn’t let us go with him, so my mom and I drove to the hospital in our own car. When we got there, he hadn’t arrived yet for some reason, and so we just stood there crying while people walked by, watching us with sadness on their faces. 

He finally arrived, and he ended up being okay. The doctors thought the episode was caused by medicine or a seizure, which they treated. But they said if I hadn’t given him compressions, he wouldn’t have survived.