Waiting in Hospitals

There's something about waiting around in Hospitals. You are there because of some awful reason, or very rarely there's the joyous occasion of a family member popping out another human being.
Recently I've been waiting in Hospitals a whole lot. The thing I noticed mostly is the calm. The hushed, lazy, lethargic calm.
After the initial frightened moment, the rush, the shouting and screaming, the panic, the undeniable sick feeling you only get from fear you might lose a loved one, there is calm.
I don't like the calm, I don't trust it. Why is everyone so sloppy and slow? I look around the waiting room, to see all the different people, the sports injury, the brawler, the piles of elderly people, having fallen over, the mothers entertaining their kids after the inevitable bump on the head, or fingers trapped in door. They chat, they scoff their nibbles from the vending machines, slurp their vending machine coffee. They pass the time. They make the best of it, they look on the bright side. Their biggest problem is the time wasting boredom of waiting for triage.
I am numb, I can't talk, I can't eat. My whole body is throbbing with rhythm of my recently overworked heart, still trying to escape my chest. I've been ushered in, I'm waiting for the recuss nurse to come and get me and take me through. A million possible reasons for them taking so long are rushing through my head. I feel the tears fill up my eyes, but I don't react to them, I just let them still there in a pool under my eyelid. The tears do not fall, they just stay in my eyes, stinging, making my cheeks flush.
Eventually we are taken into the room where we can be together. Together to tell another doctor exactly what we've told the other doctors on all the different occasions. Together to hear him spout his mumbo jumbo jargon. Together to be told the schedule this time round, the events that we have to look forward to. Exactly what they are planning to do this time. Together to head down to X ray, to the bloods, then eventually, the ward.
We've been here before, I know where the blankets are here, and I know which toilet I can use.
They says it's a stable condition. So now it's the endless waiting game I'm so used to. I have a minute to find myself, make the phone calls, check that someone has fed the dog and the cats. It's then that I realise I haven't eaten or drank anything in at least 6 hours, it's more than that because I wasn't eating when we left. My mouth is dry, but the thought of scooping together my coins in order use that old machine isn't appealing to me. It's not what I need, it will bring me no comfort.
I've just remembered it's Saturday night, I was supposed to meet my friends hours ago. None of it matters now. There is nothing that can soothe me. Nothing to do.
I sit there, in the wipe clean chair, I'm cold. It was daytime when we left I didn't think to grab a jumper. I see the other patients in the ward, some of them have their families with them too.
There's a young man whose grandmother has the bed at the end. His grandmother wants a cigarette. He doesn't have a lighter to give her, but takes her in her wheelchair anyway with the hope that someone might have one to lend along the way.
There's a middle aged woman, blissfully asleep in the bed next to us. Her family speak in whispers so as not to wale her. All of this pointless because then the I.V finishes and the alarm wails for 10 minutes before someone comes to turn it off. 
That's the thing about waiting in Hospitals, so much life scurries past you, while your loved one hangs in the balance.  It's a powerful, reckoning reminder of how fragile this all is. Everyone thinks they are the main character in their story, that it can't happen to them, but it does. In the real world. Life is a tiny china cup that is easily tipped. But in these moments you realise what's important, you no longer think about that thing you were supposed to do at work, or whether or not you like that guy enough for a second date. All that matters is that you are here,  you're still here,  alive, loved. And even if things don't get better. It will be ok.
The time rolls by as do 2 attendants, a nurse, a consultant and 2 interns. Eventually we call time, before we get too tired to drive. The hunger is starting to have an effect and I am useless here anyway. And yet again we leave, not together.
The drive is easy, the tears roll down my face, without blurring my vision, as it all slowly pours out of me.
I remind myself that it will be okay. It will be okay.