So I had my interview on Thursday and got a call on Friday for a second interview on Monday. SCORE. RIGHT? WRONG. Why do I say that you say to yourself. Well on my lazy Sunday while I was streaming some "My Boys" and seriously procrastinating on getting things ready for the next day I got a call from my father stating my uncle was in the hospital. Apparently he had fainted and dislocated his shoulder or something and my grandmother who lives with him was hysterical and it was my duty to console her. So I rushed to my grandmother like a maniac to rescue my poor 15 year old cousin who did not know how to console sad grandma. Also the language barrier does not help. My cousin's Albanian is decent for someone who was born here and speaks Albanian to her parents once in a blue moon but consoling conversations are not daily speaking activities so let's just say the vocab is definitely limited. I desperately tried to console my grandmother throughout the day to no avail and then we were able to speak with my aunt who was at the hospital with my uncle and it seems he had only torn a ligament, and I say only because the day had turned into night now and other things were happening in the shadow without my knowledge.
Around 8pm I received a call from my aunt to tell me that my uncle was fine but that in the process my father had gotten ill. He had fainted due to the stress, which had happened to him before due to high blood pressure. So I thought this was nothing major or so I was made believe, again WRONG. I closed up shop at my mom's job as she headed to the hospital. What I learned the next day in the hospital was that my father had fainted because his heart had STOPPED, yes stopped. Fainting spell my (insert something colorful of your choice here). Well he was at this point fine as they had done CPR and brought him to and he was supposed to be released on Monday. He had had these fainting spells before and they were brought on by emotional stress (?????) and high blood pressure (????). Well to say the least I went to my second interview on Monday and I think it went okay and could've gone better but no response as of yet. Well interview aside I went to the hospital to see my father and told my mother to go home and get a few things and she would come back. At this point they wanted to monitor these spells my father was having and gave him a device to do so and after 5 more of these he would need to come back the hospital to see why these were happening.
We started chatting about my interview and how I thought it went when my father stated that it was happening again and to call the doctor so I ran two steps to the attending doctor and told him it was happening again. When we returned no more than 5 seconds later my father's heart rate had decreased from 70 odd beats or so to below 40.... and that was bad. The monitor with the beats was red and about 4 doctors and 6 nurses came running to his room as he was now flat-lined. In disbelief I had backtracked to the wall as I saw them trying to revive him. Terrified is not the word and my state of panic can be described without doing it justice. I was asked to wait outside and a few minutes later which felt more like days I heard them asking him if he was okay. I had never been so glad to hear his voice. I asked if I could come back in and was allowed in. There he was completely fine, shaken but fine, I was relieved and confused. The doctor began to speak about surgery and a pacemaker and my father asked her to stop as he could feel the fainting spell again and he was lying down on a bed. I had asked her to stop but there it was that alarming beeping again as his heart beat kept dropping and dropping and he flat-lined yet again and I was kicked outside a second time. I could hear them rushing behind the closed curtain, I had had a deja-vu feeling before as I watched them do CPR that first time but this time I just felt numb.
He was brought to again and attached to a defibrillator of some sort in case his heart rate dropped. The doctor were now trying to convince him to get a temporary pacemaker and then a permanent one but he would not have it. My whole family on my father's side suffers from hosphobia (made that up, my word for fear of hospitals). Well he would not have it and doctors kept pestering which was getting under my skin as I had never seen my father this way. I'm talking about fear and not stubbornness which runs in the family as well, I should know mule here. But my father has always been that indestructible force to be reckoned with and now he was this fragile thing that I wanted to protect and care for. I told the doctor I would speak with him but for but he was pestered with the same thing for days (more on that later).
Well my mother showed up and soon enough the whole family learned the news except for my grandmother (who still doesn't know, we cannot bring ourselves to tell her she is 86 and I fear for her health if she hears of this), my sister as well being out of the country was not told until after my father put the pacemaker in on Wednesday morning. I had wanted to tell her because if I had been out of the country I would have wanted to know as well and she chewed my head of when I did tell her eventually. But getting ahead of myself, that night I refused to leave my father's side even though the hospital has this policy that you cannot stay overnight and no later than 11pm which I thought was ridiculous. I hate this hospital to begin with because of my own experiences there, sprained ankles, regular visits, appendectomy and much more. My stubbornness set it with my colorful language, there was no way I could not stay the night. And this is where the interview question comes in: What is one of your weaknesses and one of your strengths. My stubbornness is both, it is my weakness because it can wreak havoc and backfire but it is also my strength because it makes me determined and helps me attain my goals, I have mastered it beautifully. I spent the night, I didn't get any sleep every time that monitor would beep I would jolt from the cushy but nerve pinching chair. The nurse had told me that the heart rate should be 60 to 100 beats no less no more, at least 10 times throughout the night and maybe more I lost count the monitor dropped lower than 60 lowest being 56, and each time I would stand and stare at it begging for it to go back up. I was chanting, go back up, go back up, up, up. The defibrillator or pacemaker not sure what it was would jolt my father a bit if the heart rate dropped so the numbers crept up but the nerves were there, the anxiety and the uncertainty.
Everyone had spoken with my father and wanted him to get this surgery but he was not sure this would make a difference and did not want to get surgery. I had a heart to heart with him telling him of the night before and what I had been through. I did trick him I think because I know my father's weakness, it is my sister and myself so if he didn't want to do this for himself, he would do it for us. Everyone spoke to him, my cousin, my uncle, my mom, my aunts. I told him after our conversation that I would go home to shower and return and that he should think about it and let me know because by morning he had to make a decision. If he said no the doctors would have no choice but to release him. He was not even looking me in the eyes as I tried to talk to him so I had to cup his face. After our agreement another nurse had come in trying to speak with him about getting this surgery at this point it may have been about 10 people of hospital staff telling him it was simple and routine.
Remember me being fed up and stubborn well it lead to me talking to a doctor and a nurse aside on the issue. Not asking concerned questions but reprimanding them, as at this point the one who needed protection was my father and I in turn had become the force to be reckoned with. To the doctor I told that while this may be routine and normal in her everyday life and job to my father and us it wasn't. It was a serious procedure that he did not believe would make a difference. A procedure he was afraid of. I had remembered my father's reassuring words and my own fear when they had told me that my appendix would need to be removed and how they had used words such as easy and fast and not a big deal to describe one of my organs being extracted from my body. Granted at this point I see my antics were childish even at my 16 years of age, an organ I didn't need was being removed because otherwise it could lead to an eruption, poisoning of my blood and eventual death. But I refused to believe this was easy and painless, I suffered for 3 days and could not walk without pain. I could've stayed in bed as used a bed pan but I refused stubbornness had set in and I walked to the bathroom with help at first in pain and then later myself by leaning on the wall, almost fainting. But I had won and had done it my way.
But I digress I told the doctor that no one else should speak to my father about getting this surgery that I would try to convince him and if not it was his choice. I felt for him not only because he was my father but because I had been in his shoes, scared and he had been there for me.
Then the nurse had crossed the line and started talking about the surgery and how it would benefit him and I had to pull her aside. I told her that I appreciated what they had done for him and that I was on the same page as them and if it had been up to me those papers would be signed but he had his choice and he would make it. I advised the nurse to not let anyone else speak of the surgery or try to convince my father while I was away and that I would return shortly. If I found out they had they would had to deal with me. I said it in the nicest most politically correct way I knew. It may have not been necessary or called for but remember stubbornness (weakness and strength). Well my father did have the surgery and he is finally home and is doing great. I am very glad and very humbled.
I did however get my thank you letters to the interviewers returned stating that the address was insufficient which was weird I had copied the address directly from business cards I was given. I hope it doesn't hurt my chances at this position. I do not want to be perceived as an ungrateful jerk who did not appreciate people taking time out of their busy schedule to meet with me. On that note I will take a trip to that office and play the role of messenger and hand deliver my snail mail notes. And that was my crazy week from hell.
I apologize for the lengthy and insane post, just felt the need to get this off my chest. On a different note I would also like to lament the loss of Steve Jobs who I believe was a revolutionary and a force to be reckoned with. He has changed the way people interact with technology and our lives for the better. He will be sorely missed. I will add below his commencement speech for Stanford June 2005 I think it describes what I have experienced this week best and how it has impacted me I could not have said it better. I will leave you with a few words of my own before I borrow his.
"Be Grateful. Be Humble. Be Risky and Bold. Above all, live your life the way you want"
“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” [Stanford commencement speech, June 2005]
