The First Evening

Melodina had gone to a hospital. I had a rental car. My Mother was taken care of by a friend. Now to find Melodina and Indira. I drove to the Shelburne hospital. The door was unlocked from the parking lot. I walked timidly into dark hallways. I didn't want to shout, after all it was a hospital. There was not a scrap of sensual data to suggest that even a single human being existed except myself. Spooky like a Hollywood movie. Eerie like a wooded area during a thunder storm. I walked slowly around the main floor and my fears were confirmed. No human beings! Locked doors!

I found a dark staircase and made my way cautiously up through the gloom arriving in a pool of light on the second floor. I was in a foyer. Testing the door I found it locked. There was a woman behind a tall counter who, at first refused to look up. When she finally acknowledged that a living breathing person was standing outside the locked glass paneled door she still did not welcome me. All she did was point. I shrugged. She pointed. I scrunched my face into what I hoped looked reasonably like a question. She pointed. I looked around...She pointed. Eventually I realized that there was a numbered key pad on the wall. I looked questioningly and shrugged. She pointed.

Finally! I saw some tiny numbers above the key pad. I punched in the numbers and entered. The security should have been a clue but I was so focused on finding my family that I failed to process all the information. Up at the desk I asked for Melodina Herman and was told she was not there. I explained that the doctor at the clinic downstairs sent my daughter to hospital. "Your daughter" she asked? "Yes." "How old is she?" "15." "Oh" the woman exclaimed. She went on to suggest that Melodina was probably never there because most of there patients were elderly and in need of chronic care.

The woman at the desk refused to let me use the phone to call Headwaters Hospital in Orangeville - a local call. Not understanding why anyone would refuse to help a desperate parent in such a simple way I walked down the stairway and found a pay phone on the ground floor. It would not accept my quarter. A cleaning woman found me after I'd tried several times. When her quarter didn't work either she unlocked an office an let me phone. Melodina was at Headwaters Hospital in the emergency ward. After thanking the cleaning staff several times I went to my car and drove down highway ten to Headwaters Hospital. The drive had never seemed as long as it did in the dark that night.

When I arrived Melodina was finishing up an emergency blood transfusion and was being prepared to travel in the same ambulance she had arrived in to The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. The Orangeville paediatrician had repeated my daughter's blood tests. Her haemoglobin was 37 - normal is about 120 to 130. She had no countable white blood cells. The doctor told my wife that he didn't know what was wrong and he was not going to guess. We are extremely grateful for his humility. He probably saved our daughter's life.

Indira left in the ambulance and I returned home to get tooth brushes, pyjamas clean cloths etc. I then proceeded to Toronto and Sick Kids Hospital. Neither my wife or I remember how or when I returned the rental car or when I got my own car prepared but it was done. I got our belongings and myself to the emergency room and the long first night at one of the most wonderful hospitals in the world began.