Everything will be fine. He will pull through. Papa Johnny is going to be fine, I thought to myself as I walked through the long, lightly colored hallway. I looked down at the shiny, white tile floors that were marked with specks of gray. I took in the smell of plastic gloves and medicine. I listened to the sounds of footsteps passing by me followed by a light beeping noise and a large, automatic door being opened and closed. I looked up and saw the large sign, directing patients to the right doors and departments. I watched medical personnel walked past me, conversing about their day.  

            “Mom, how many more floors until we are on Papa’s?” asked my sister, McKenna.

            “Only a few more of these doors and we will be at the elevator we will need to take to reach Papa’s floor”, my mother responded while using her hospital ID badge to open the automatic door. I walked through the large doorway and waited with my mother, sister, and brother for a shiny, charcoal elevator to take us up to the surgical wing of the hospital. After riding the double-doored elevator, we arrived on a floor of the hospital, best known as the surgical wing. I followed my mom off the elevator, making sure to stay close to her and my siblings. Down the hall from us, I noticed a sign stating, “Surgical Waiting Room.” Standing underneath the sign, was a familiar man and woman. I then realized it was my mom’s brother, Tyler and his wife, Kellie. While approaching them, I noticed the look of concern they had written all over their faces. I immediately made eye contact with Kellie.

            “Hey there, girly”, Kellie said to me softly as she embraced me in a hug.

            “Hey, Kellie. How are you doing?” I asked with genuine concern.

            “I’m doing alright, how are you?”

            “I am doing decent. I am a little nervous though. I just want to see Papa.”

            “Why don’t we go see him now? Come on guys, his room is this way.” With that, my family followed Kellie and Tyler. We walked through more wooden doors and entered an extensive, white hallway. At the end of the hall were patient rooms, all enclosed by a blue curtain. These rooms were surrounded by medical staff and their equipment. As a family, the six of us walked down the snow-like hallway, all the way to the end. At the end, on the left, was a small patient room with a name tag stating “Johnny Syring” outside. Inside the room I heard the familiar sound of my grandparents’ laughter. My aunt pulled back the blue curtain, revealing a tiny, dull room cluttered with a bed, medical equipment, a whiteboard, and a large window with a view of St. Paul. On the bulky, granite sill of the window, sat my grandma Meme. In the medium-sized, blue bed next to her lied my Papa Johnny. When spying us grandchildren in the open curtain, my Papa’s face smiled with pure happiness.

            “Hey guys! Come on in!” he stated, beaming with joy. Each of us staggered into the already tight room, one by one. We each took a turn hugging Papa and Meme. I was last to go. When I approached my Papa, I immediately noticed how sickly he truly looked. His usual sun kissed skin was now pale and ashy. He looked me in the eyes and reached out to me with open arms.

            “Hey honey, how have you been?” he asked me softly as he embraced me in a hug.

 I took a deep breath in, leaned out of his hold and said, “I have been doing pretty good. The real question here is, how are you?”

“I am doing just fine, just fine. I’m ready to get this heart problem of mine fixed. I’m sick of feeling terrible every single day. The chest pain I have been feeling lately is excruciating. I am also sick of taking all those lame cardiology tests my doctor keeps making me do.” I chuckled at this witty remark of his. Oh Papa, I thought to myself. Always cracking jokes, no matter how he is feeling. I then walked over to my grandma, Meme. She had a look of fear on her face.

“Hi Meme”, I said quietly as I hugged her.

“Hi honey. Why don’t you come take a seat here by me?” she asked questioningly.

Without hesitation, I sat down next to her on the large sill. Everyone else in the room squished onto the sill as well. While waiting for the doctor, my family conversed about our lives and filled one another in on what had been going on. We continued to converse until interrupted by the curtain being pulled back abruptly. Standing in the doorway were a pair of doctors and nurses in scrubs.

“Johnny, it is time”, one nurse stated with a friendly smile. We all looked at him with despair and fright. We each took our turns hugging him and briefly talking to him. When it was my turn, I looked at him with a smile. I leaned into him, expecting a large hug,

“Good luck Papa. Go and get that heart of yours fixed. I’ll see you in a little bit. Love you”, I whispered to him with tears filling in my eyes. I let go of him and immediately went and sat back on the window sill with my family. I watched as the nurses and doctors wheeled him away and out into the hallway. I looked at my family, all of whom had looks of fear and sadness written across their faces. Everything will be okay, I thought to myself. All that is being done is a stent being placed in his heart. This is a procedure that is performed every day. He will be out and healthy before we know it. As the minutes passed, I sat looking out the window at the dull, yet vibrant city around me. I watched as families came and went, through the doors of the hospital. These people were here for the same reason as me—to be there for their loved one. After a while, looking out the window got boring. I then started talking to my family. We were cracking jokes, trying to fill the silence with laughter. It felt to me as though the minutes were going by as slowly as humanly possible. I could not wait for the moment when I could see my papa again.

After an hour and 40 minutes, there was a noise outside the curtain. With a sudden movement, the curtain was pushed open. A man in white lab coat appeared in the doorway. He smiled, politely walked in, and shook each of our hands. He then took a seat on a small, grey chair with wheels that allowed him to roll over closer to us.

“Hello Syring family. I am doctor Philp. I am the doctor who performed John’s surgery. I am here to inform you all about it. His surgery went well. It went as expected.  He did very good. We placed one stent in the Pulmonary vein, just as planned. He is still waking up from the anesthesia and may still be a little groggy, but he should make a full recovery.” We all smiled with joy. He truly was going to be okay.

We all thanked Dr. Philp for his amazing job. He saved the life of someone very important to our little family. After he exited and left that dreadful blue curtain open, my family walked back down that long, white hallway—except this time we weren’t filled with fear, we were filled with happiness. We were finally going to see our Papa.

As a family, the seven of us strode to my Papa’s room. We made our way to the end of a new hallway, one that was colored in light green and beige. I stopped at looked at to my right. There I saw the name “Johnny Syring” written on a silver name tag outside the already opened door. I peeked in, immediately making eye contact with my already beaming Papa.

“Hey there, honey”, he stated with pure joy. These words were three of the best words I would ever hear in my life.