Message was clear that mom needed her

I am feeling like a bigoted, racist xenophobe lately. A xenophobe is one unduly fearful of what is foreign and especially of people of foreign origin. I never thought of myself this way before. But when a doctor calls me after I have gone to sleep and the only words I can understand are Reid Hospital and my mom’s name, there is a problem.
After asking the poor woman to repeat herself many, many times, I finally figured out that someone was required to make the trip to Richmond and spend the night with Mom. Also, whoever had power of attorney needed to contact them for permission for a treatment they wanted to use.
As my husband and I left, I still didn’t know what was going on, only that Mom needed me. I voiced my frustration at my inability to understand what was going on. Why on earth someone with a heavy accent doesn’t enlist a translator is beyond me.
I called my brother, David, who has power of attorney, and relayed what little I knew. He called the hospital and talked to the same unintelligible doctor. He called me and was as irritated, concerned and frustrated as I was.
When we finally got to her room, her nurse explained what was going on. It wasn’t good, but it was controllable, somewhat. I sent my husband home and spent a sleepless night in her room. Either she needed attention, or someone was coming in to perform one test or another.
She finally got to sleep around breakfast time. They started to wake her up and I snapped. I told them no. She just got to sleep, plus she wasn’t going to eat anyway. Surprisingly, they let her sleep. They probably thought I was awful, but at that point, I didn’t care.
Back to the racist, bigoted xenophobe I have become. I never did see the doctor who called me and may never know whether or not she was easier to understand in person and when I was awake.
For the record, the teddy bear of a doctor who first told us her condition was dire had an accent. But we could understand him perfectly. The heart doctor with the friendly smile also was easy to understand, as was the Nigerian with the musical voice. I doubt if any of them spoke English as a first language, yet they were fluent enough that we didn’t struggle with the words they spoke, just the message they relayed.
Later that morning, my sister-in-law, Apryl, called and asked me where Mom kept her pictures. She and David loaded up a box of them and brought them to the hospital. We were hoping to distract Mom for awhile, but she slept most of the day.
We went through the pictures and made fun of each other’s outdated hair styles. Whenever Mom was awake we tried asking her about the identities of the people in the older photographs, but she was too tired to answer.
We fed her chocolate milk and apple juice, and anything else she asked for. She was asleep when we left. We stopped by the nurse’s desk and requested that if anyone needed to call us, please make sure they can speak English. The nurse responded with a haughty, “All our doctors are fluent in English.”
David barely stopped himself from saying anything other than, “No, they aren’t.”
It’s been a tough week, compounded by unnecessary misunderstanding. I truly wish things were different, but they aren’t. Perhaps February will be better than January was.