Waiting Room

When our son was in seventh grade he fell at football practice and had an incredibly nasty broken arm.  My husband was traveling for work, he was in Hawaii and no return flights were available until the next day.  I was on my own in the hospital with a young son in terrible pain.
I'm not good with blood.  I actually passed out once when I saw I'd bruised my leg but in my defense it was a BIG bruise.  The emergency room made me queasy.  I sat in the examnation room with Brad, I kept putting my head down hoping I wouldn't faint.  When the impatient orthopedic surgeon  told me to hold my son's injured arm so he could swab it to see if there was bacteria on the protruding bone I answered, "no, you don't want me doing that."
"Why not?" he asked in what I later learned was his usual brusk voice.
"I'll hurt him when I faint" I softly answered.  I think the pallor of my face must have alerted him to my discomfort and he summoned a nurse.
After putting the arm back in place Brad was taken to surgery to put plates in his arm. Friends were with our young daughter, but I was alone at the hospital.
When the surgery started I was so relieved to have my good friends come up to sit with me.  Then my brothers came and next my mom and dad.  The surgery was finished late in the evening, I prepared to move down to the hospital room to spend the night with our son.  As my family headed out the door my dad, a practical man came over and handed me a couple of twenties, he knew I was overwhelmed  and he wanted to make sure the concrete things would be taken care of.