The Hospital Blues…….

I spent most of the day at the hospital today. I sat in the hospital room with my grandmother and then she had to go get a cauterization done on her heart. I waited until the results came back with my mother, father, Brenda (the lady who stays with her during the day and cooks and cleans), and my aunt. We waited for hours.

Her heart muscle is fine. She has some blockage in a few minor blood vessels around the heart that is causing her discomfort. They are going to do a procedure Monday where they put in some splints and open those collapsed blood vessels. This will ease her discomfort and what she thinks are heart attacks.

Modern medicine is amazing though. I was fascinated when the doctor came and got us and brought us into the room were the procedure had taken place. He had a video of my grandmother’s heart beating and you could see the barium solution fill her heart and then spread out to illuminate her veins around it. I was spellbound as I watched the video. We are truly blessed in modern nations to have these kinds of technologies.

I had plenty of time to think as I waited and I thought long and hard about some things. I thought about me and what lead up to my homelessness. It is so easy to blame it on other things such as my schizophrenia or social phobias but in the end it was my fault. I was at blame. I didn’t make the right decisions and choices and it hit me hard affront in the face.

I was a selfish and self-centered person. I would not do the hard things or make the sacrifices to be there for my family when they needed me. I would not take the responsibility. I was too interested in getting to the bottom of a twelve pack of beer to care. This slowly eroded my families trust and the relationship I had with them. They thought I didn’t care or didn’t have the capacity to do so.

It is so easy to blame my problems on my illnesses but in the end it was just me. I have to do the hard things that most of us do to help out. I have to be there when a family member is in need. I have to make the effort to email and call and just listen. I have to show my family that I do care about them and love them and I will do what it takes to get better and be responsible. If I would have done all these things before hand then I would have never been homeless. My family would have not allowed it as they will not now.

Hindsight is always 20/20 but the lessons you learn can be of such benefit. I vow to continue to improve my life and help others in need. I will never again let my loved ones down because I am too selfish to see the forest for the trees. I do have a mental illness but that is no excuse to not help my folks and be apart of their lives. I can take my medicine and be able to see about them or I could not take it, drink excessively, and live in the woods. The decision is simple