Is It Getting Better Or Do You Feel The Same?

We went to visit Dad today. I was walking with my youngest sister to take care of her. As we approached the hospital she said she felt the tension growing, and that's exactly what I felt. Even stepping into a chloride-smelling corridor is a challenge for me, and my poor little sister said she had seen a corpse taken away on a cart. Of course it was covered but now she shivers every time she hears a cart rolling down the corridor.
Dad looked better than what I had expected and was in a good mood. Nevertheless, he looked tired and broken and old somehow. He is known as a man who has a shower and shaves twice a day, and now he had a nearly white stubble, and his right eye looked somehow unusual. Here I am sitting in front of his computer, surrounded by photos of him, and I can feel the lack of his presence everywhere. My youngest sister is sleeping with her mom in the double bed, and I am with my sister, and everybody is sleeping except for me, and I'm waiting to get started with my page updating job, which is supposed to be done between 10 pm and 8 am, and I don't feel like getting up before 8.
I have to admit I didn't feel quite well in the hospital. I could stand his having to spit every second minute, and the tube hanging out of his nose, and the room was also better than I had expected, with an en suite bathroom. But the way everyone was talking about CT and MR and swallowing and blood pressure I felt like throwing up. And it was so hot in there, and there was no air with so many of us. A doctor came to examine the man on the next bed and that's when I went out, and my sister came looking for me, and my father's wife told me a dozen times that I have to get used to all this because that's life and I will be a mother some day, etc.
I spent most of the time looking out the window with my youngest sister because some huge cranes were working on the new wing of the hospital, and the highest one was moving right in front of our window, and my sister is amazed by construction vehicles and machines (and I suppose she had to focus on something to escape all that).
The saddest part was that I wanted to hug or at least touch my father so much, but nobody did, and I felt I was not supposed to touch him, either. And I felt so weak trying to avoid his eyes and ashamed because of all the fuss around my medical phobia. I hope he didn't feel wrong about me and will do all right getting better.
In the evening we went shopping and watched an animated movie with my sisters, and I promised to make pancakes tomorrow. Then in the afternoon we are going back to the hospital.