Midlife MavericksI didn’t sleep well last night. But who sleeps well in a hospital chair, on the children’s ward, surrounded by crying kids and adults snoring like chainsaws?
It started with my son throwing up. Then cramps, then more vomiting. With the weekend bearing down on us, and hospitals being what they are at weekends, on Friday we decided to take him to A&E. The appendicitis symptoms, though not obvious, were all there. And we, unfortunately, knew exactly how far this could go. Two years ago our daughter was very ill with an appendicitis the hospital missed. We nearly lost her. So with this one, we didn’t wait.
Two weeks ago it had been Chica, our fourteen-year-old cat. On a Sunday, off the four of us went to the emergency vet. We left convinced that twenty-four hours later there would be no cat, and that was the feeling we carried every day of the following week. Daily visits and conversations with our vet, who has been with us for seventeen years and has already helped us say goodbye to three cats. An Israeli vet, as competent as they come, with a humanity and an affection that money can’t buy and that appear in no job description. Chica survived. A miracle. Nine lives, as they say.
In the middle of all that chaos, I was able to take days off work and cancel meetings to stay by her side and give her the care she needed. Without asking anyone’s permission, without fear of losing my job or my pay.
Last night, in recovery, with my son, the Irish nurse and the Filipino nurse, in a hospital full of space where he was treated with every care and affection (affection nobody pays for, but which he got all the same), it hit me again. The same thing.
The boy was operated on and treated exceptionally, and it didn’t cost us a cent beyond what we already pay in taxes. There are countries where this wouldn’t be possible. Where a child has no access to healthcare. Where a relative ending up in hospital means the ruin of the whole family.
All of this happens because we’re in Europe. That Europe everyone calls old, conventional, backward, behind the times, the one everyone points the finger at. That Europe where a Portuguese woman, in England, has access to a health system to treat her son, who is at once half Portuguese, half English and half Dutch, as he puts it himself. That same Europe that, this week, gave me an Israeli vet, an Irish nurse and a Filipino nurse looking after my own. Conditions the vast majority of people in the world don’t have.
And I, who am not even a believer, thanked God. For the brute luck that landed on me without my having done a thing to earn it. For being born where I was born, when I was born, to the parents I happened to get. For being able to stop whatever I’m doing and be there for my family whenever and however they need me. For being surrounded by the best friends and the best family in the world. And there’s no argument here: my friends are better than yours.
And it’s for all of this that I’m here, in a hospital chair, while my son watches his iPad in the reclining chair next to me. I can’t sleep. But for once, I don’t mind. I want to stay awake and record this moment: despite all these adventures, I really am extraordinarily lucky.
Comment below. When did you last stop to notice the luck you did nothing to earn? I read every response.
This article was first published in Portuguese in my weekly column Oh pá, não me lixem! for Executiva.
