Sounds and smells

Today I am keeping company with my very very tired father.  He has been napping for most of the day.  Very thirsty, no appetite.  It's tough to see him like this.  No love for the coffee I brought this morning, no yearning for a nice flaky croissant.  So, I sit and make him as comfortable with blankets and drinks as I can.

I am sitting beside Dad's bed, he sits in his chair leaving the bed empty.  It's a special mattress that is constantly inflated with air to prevent Dad from getting (more) bedsores.  He's so skinny that the extra padding is a wonderful relief to his aching bones.  So I am sitting beside the hum of the pump....it's lulling me into a sleepy mode.  Good white noise.  It's good that George is deaf so he can't hear the hum.  The hum is decidedly better than the constant noise of the construction going on all around us.  Floors, drywall, painting, trucks outside it goes on and on.

I listen to Dad snore, George whistles as he schleps down the hall, Joe moans and groans to try and communicate, and still there is the hum of the mattress pump.

Which brings us to smells.....holy Jesus! Walking into a hospital is an olfactory onslaught very much like stepping foot into an elementary school after a wet, warm spring day.  *Barf*  Last week I had the pleasure of doing both all week.  Please realized that I am a hypersensitive person (I keep saying to my friends that I'm sensitive and they laugh - I'm not sure why...) so I can smell things.  My sister has the same keen sense of smell....like a tracking dog, she can smell a french fry stand from a mile away!  Haha!  She'll kill me for that one.

So walking into this hospital daily brings about a nasal battering...antiseptic, urine, poop, other bodily fluids, and some indistinguishable combination of floor cleaner and flowers...I think.  Each day I visit Dad I bring coffee, mostly for us both to enjoy but it's also a wonderful way of blocking the smells.  I got into habit last week of stopping at the convenience store in Carnarvon.  I would go in and buy a small bag of Miss Vickies sea salt and malt vinegar chips and a can of diet Coke.  At first I thought it was to keep me awake....but then I realized it was to disinfect my nasal passages from the hospital smell and to prepare myself for the wet, soaking, sweaty boot, sock stank of the elementary school where I picked up Zac.  Oh god those chips were cathartic!  By the end of the week I said fuck it and bought a big bag!

The onslaught to my nose didn't stop with hospital and Zac's school.  I was able to take Andrew to a badminton tournament this weekend.  Have you ever smelled wet, sweaty, gym shoes that don't have a chance to dry and the stinky feet that come out of them?  Do all teenage boys have sweaty, clammy, gross smelling feet?  DAMN!

It's time for a walk....I'll see what other sounds and smells I will come across today.