15 things you'll think about during your dad's latest hospital stay

This is meant to be a related piece to "15 things to do in your dad's hospital room," "15 Things You Find in Your Dad's Hospice Room," and "15 Things You Find When You Clean Out Your Dad’s Apartment". 

1. The Christmas lights at the nurse's station that should really have been switched for saccharine cupids by now
2. What team decided to hang up a clearly labeled DRAFT safety sign
3. Who comes up with the aliases they seem to use for trauma patients and how they decided on Redstone for your dad
4. That his skin either looks like a bruised elephant or like sickeningly conflicting colors of thin paper mache
5. Where you can possibly get food--you're shaky
6. The patient in the ER somewhere with a lot of ammo, but no gun, or so they say
7. Why the staff is being so happily loud and swearing...it feels discordant
8. The used bandaid and gauze that are left on the floor of his ER room as he moves to his hospital room...the last proof he was there
9. Having to do this again for your mother who, for now, supportively sits beside you and her ex-husband
10. Which doctor or nurse you'll forget the name of next even though your mother told you to remember
11. When the woman next door will calm down enough to stop thinking someone wants to kill her
12. If you have time to lie down--you can't keep processing what you're seeing anymore
13. How you'll ever forget him, eyes closed, calling out for help when you think he knows you're there
14. Whether you'll eventually only remember him like this
15. The number of hospital stays he has left

(Prompt by me)

Photo by سامي سالم السليطي Sami Salim on Unsplash