37 from the occasional nurse. My mom is at home for now, just a 30-minute drive away, and I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t be here either if I didn’t have to be. It is my fourth visit to the children's hospital in the last two months, and each time my mom has made herself a temporary home here on the turquoise pullout couch that my dad now sits on. Of all my experiences in that hospital, the interior design choices are some of my least favorite. Usually, I like turquoise, but that couch paired with the offensively bright orange chair to its left created a garish effect. It is as if the interior designers wanted the furniture to compensate for the suffering that kids would experience in those rooms, like they thought that the brightly colored furniture would sit there with these plastered, blinding smiles. As if the color orange could tell hospitalized kids that tomorrow will be a better day with less nausea and more sunshine. My dad must have gotten tired of watching me just sitting on the white hospital bed, doing nothing except mindlessly scroll on my phone, and he tells me that we should go for a walk. The idea is strange to me. I can’t quite articulate why, but I don’t feel like walking. I guess I don’t want to go through the effort of getting up, even if I am feeling well enough to do so. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I don’t feel like doing anything at all, not when chemicals have so recently ravaged my body and not when I feel like a collection of limp bones
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