Just So You Know

Carol Coven Grannick

Eight years ago I parked here, right here, this spot by the elevator

on ‘Bing Crosby’ as if it grounded me for the day to come.

This is the song, Georgia, that played then each morning at 5:30

when I got out of the car already sickened, nauseated 

from the moment I saw familiar sights on the drive there

in anticipation

of what they might have done to you overnight—

and always did.

This is the elevator that led to the bridge, 

the bridge that led to the desk where I validated the parking ticket.

This is the ticket that cost too much.  

This is the floor, the second floor, with gift shop and restaurants, 

Vietnamese, Vegan, Greek, Au Bon Pain where I bought 

Cape Cod kettle chips each night to stay awake

while driving home, crunching them, banging teeth against one another

while slow-steering through Western Avenue snow tracks of others.

This too is the floor where I walked up, down and around, 

ascending and descending the pair of escalators each time around

so legs would carry and heart would pound 

for myself and you, 

in bed in delirium on a floor I don’t remember

unless it was 8—yes, it was 8—

with a tube in your throat to breathe

with doctors like vultures saying long-term care long-term care

as if hungry for some foul and spoiled food.

I walked up and down escalators in moments I hoped 

they wouldn’t notice, but they did, and when I left the room to walk or pee 

they came in to do to you what they couldn’t when I was there.

More propofol. More fentanyl. Keep him quiet. Keep him quiet.

And this: this is the coffee I bought.

This is the table where I sat 

for a few minutes on the many days that passed—

This is not how I sat though, not how alone I was:

this is me being with you now, alive 

you, a little impatient with my memories 

because you don’t have them

you don’t know 

what it was like

or know why even years later I watch 

for the lanky surgeon in his fancy suit

and dream of hitting him, 

hurting him, hurting, hurting, 

hurting him 

until he cries out, 

What did I do to her?

"Just So You Know" was published in Matter Anthology (Oprelle Publishing, 2023).  It was drafted in the rush of my visceral response as I sat waiting for my husband at the site of his previous devastating hospitalization, during which he barely survived neglect and mismanagement after the post-surgical trauma. The draft, and each subsequent reading or revision, clarified a personal breakthrough: the beneficial, though painful, awareness of post-traumatic stress that medical neglect and mismanagement had caused, and which persisted eight (and now twelve) years beyond. My husband was going to be left to die. It was up to me—with the constant and priceless support of my sister—to get him out alive. The breakthrough of awareness of this long-lasting PTSD energized my determination to continue telling the story, and educating others about the importance of patient advocacy when a loved one is hospitalized.