Laps

I don’t know which lap this is. Neither for this trip, nor in total for the week. I just follow along, maneuvering his medical equipment past any obstacle we meet. How many times have we circled? It’s day 12. He’s been ambulatory since day…I don’t remember. It’s wasn’t long after the surgery was it? The second day? The first? It’s a blur now. I guess that’s why people write this stuff down. People, like nurses, or those who need to do so in order to maintain some semblance of mental control over a situation that is so far out of their control that if they were to admit it….

The fact that there is day and night, and even a next day, is registered by shift changes. What exact date it is, I’m not entirely sure. Day 12. That makes it the 10th of January, right? Or is it the 9th? We started on the 30th of December. I count: 30, 31, 32, 33…no, that’s not how to count dates.

I guess the day of the week correctly because my alarm for my daughter’s Sunday Zoom art class goes off at 9:45. Thirty minutes later her brother calls because she is trying to use our chopsticks for an art project. Her teacher is from Vietnam. She can’t mean actual chopsticks, she must mean those disposable ones. It would be like a white teacher saying, “Ask your mom if you can glue the silverware together.” We haggle until I suggest pencils. Then the debate becomes whether or not we have four unused pencils. I know we do. There’s a box in there. Why can I remember that so clearly but I haven’t a clue what the f***ing date is?

I need a shower. I need another cup of coffee. Then we can do laps. Again. I’ll lose count after one, my mind filled with nothing but the painted Disney characters and printed room numbers on the walls. I’ll forget what day it is, likely before we even begin.