There's a dim glow in an office on the uppermost floor of the building across from this hospital room we’re in. The rest of the offices on the top several floors are completely dark, with reflections of light from adjacent buildings.
I wonder if there's an executive up there dealing with too much. Maybe he or she is up there sweating the details of some big decisions, maybe things have gone a little sideways in his personal life and he's got to spend the evening trying to catch up... if it’s even possible.
Maybe she's up there having trouble focusing because life's weighing on her and she's just not sure what to change, or fix, or if she’s capable of either. Maybe she's feeling sad or overwhelmed by the challenges life has thrown at her.
It's possible that there's no one up there at all. Just an empty office and someone forgot to flip the light switch on the way out.
The dim lights in this room glow in various hues and different levels of brightness. There's the bright red, Rudolph-like glow of Ayla's big toe where her pulse oximeter is attached. The bed has lights under it glowing in an electric blue. There are small sconces on the wall glowing in a warm apricot, and a number of devices with screens beaming rainbows of data into the room.
I have some gentle music playing on my iPad, mostly piano covers of classics and movie scores. Ayla wanted some “lullabies”, and this was where I landed.
It’s very late, and we just got done changing Ayla's trach for the third time today. We are trying, with very little luck, to find a solution to her complicated oxygen saturation problem.
Alaina is trying to sleep on the fold-out convertible couch/table, and I’m sitting over here in this chair watching Ayla’s numbers drop again.
