Breathing rate is normal.
            It’s going down.
            Now it’s up.
            What about heart?
            What’s heart rate?
            164. 
            153.
            129.
            111.
            Why’s it dropping?
            Now it’s up again.  It’s at 117.  118.  122.  It’s low, but it’s steady.  Not moving up and down.  Not fluctuating wildly.  I wish it was higher, maybe in the 130s or 140s, but this is good.  Steady is good.  It’s better than low.
            You can look away now.  Look away from the monitor.  You don’t have to keep staring at it.  Everything’s normal.  Heart rate is good.  Breathing is good.  It hasn’t dropped in days.  Regardless, you keep looking at the monitor.  You can’t turn away.  Something won’t let you accept that everything is normal.  You can’t begin to not worry, you just can’t.
            He wouldn’t still be here if everything was fine.  Something must be wrong, it must be.  So you keep looking at the monitor.  You watch it go up and down. 
Up. 
Down. 
Up. 
Down. 
Down. 
Up. 
Up. 
Steady. 
Steady. 
Up. 
Down. 
You should probably turn away now.  It has you in its grasp, and you hate how you feel when it takes over.
But then you think that while the monitor may control you, it also provides reassurance.  If you look at it, you know what heart rate is.  You know what respiration is.  You know if he’s still breathing.  While the monitor makes you obsessive, it also tells you that everything’s fine.  It tells you that there is nothing to worry about.  That’s why you keep looking at it.  The monitor has the answers.  It gives you the information you need.
            But then the monitor shows that heart rate is dropping.  The alarm goes off.  You look around for help. 
            What did you do wrong?
            Why did heart rate drop?
            You were just holding him and then it dropped. 
            The machine is making noises.
            Something’s wrong. 
            You look desperately at the monitor in an attempt to understand what happened.  You notice that the monitor reads artifact.  Maybe there’s nothing to worry about.  The leads must be loose.  They probably need to be changed.  The nurses didn’t even come over when the monitor started making noises.  It must not be a big deal.  The monitor didn’t even drop that low.  80 is the target.  Did he go below it?  Think.  What were the numbers?  Think.  OK, he went below it.  Down from 107 to 50, but then to 80, down to 60 something, and back up to over 100.  Then, all the sudden, it was at 150.
            Yep, it was artifact.
            No need to worry, just artifact.   
            Maybe it will end soon.  Maybe he won’t need the monitor much longer.  Barring a setback, it will only be a few more days and all of you can be free of the monitor forever. 
            And you certainly want to be free of the monitor.  You don’t want every moment of your visit to be consumed by it.  You want to be looking at him, watching him, getting to know him, but your attention always drifts to the monitor.  Instead of focusing on him, you watch the monitor fluctuate. 
            Up.
            Down.
            Down.
            Up some.
            Level, more or less level.
            You want to look away, you do.  You want to focus on him, not the monitor.  And you have made progress in that regard.  After all, you don’t really notice breathing now.  But is that because of better self-control or because there hasn’t been much need to look at breathing?  It’s been a while since there’s been a breathing problem.  It often drops, but you know that it doesn’t mean anything.  His heart rate would drop if something was wrong, and heart rate doesn’t drop.  Not with breathing anyway. 
            You hate to admit it, but you want to leave.  You just want to get the hell out of there.  You can’t stand the monitor.  It never lets you do what you want.  You want to be with him.  You want to be near him.  You want to hold him.  But the monitor won’t let you.  It makes you spend your entire visit looking to see if anything is wrong, looking at something other than him. 
            This is why you can’t stand the monitor.  You can’t stand its noises.  You can’t stand how it controls you.  Part of you hates the monitor.  And even if there was no monitor, part of you still couldn’t stand to be there.  You can’t stand the people.  You can’t stand the silence.  You can’t stand anything about being there.  No one communicates.  No one talks to you.  No one answers questions.  And that’s why part of you likes the monitor, or at least doesn’t hate it.  That’s because, in a sense, the only help you get is from the monitor.
            The monitor is always there.  It’s constant.  It beeps.  It sounds alarms.  It monitors.  It lets you know that it is there.  And that’s a lot more than you can say for most of the people you deal with when you go see him.
            Sure, sometimes the monitor gets a little haywire and won’t work right.  Sometimes the nurses shut if off while they change the leads or let it work out a kink.  But those times are rare.  No, the monitor is, for the most part, constant.  It tells you what you need to know.  It tells you if he is breathing.  It tells you if his heart is beating.  For now, that’s all you really need to know.  Asking for anything else is selfish.  Asking for communication is selfish.  Asking to know when it’ll be over is selfish.  Asking for anything is selfish.  Asking, just asking a question, is selfish.
            Forget about all of that.  Just pay attention to the monitor. 
            How is it that the monitor came to control so much of your life?  When you’re not there, you think about it.  When you call for an update, all that is in your mind is what the monitor detected since the last time you were there.  Did it go down?  Did it drop below the Brady level?  If so, was it just an artifact?  Was there a problem with the leads?
            You tell yourself to let it go, to forget about the monitor.  You try not to look at it when you go to see him.  You go for a while without noticing it.  You don’t pay attention to its fluctuations.  But it doesn’t take long for you to get curious.  Is he OK?  Is his heart beating?  What does the monitor say?  113?  How long has it been there?  Is the monitor steady?  Is it fluctuating? 
            Look away.
            Don’t let it control you.
            If you look at it now, you won’t be able to stop looking at it.  It will control you. 
            Don’t give in to it.  Don’t get controlled by it.  You’ve gone this long.  Just turn away.  Turn away.
            Don’t look.
            Turn away.
            But you can’t do that.  You have to keep looking.  You have to make sure the monitor is at the proper level.  You don’t want it to drop down low.  You can’t know what it’s doing if you don’t look.
            So you look. 
            You break down and look at the monitor.  It’s normal.  Normal.  Typical fluctuations, but nothing to worry about.  You’re looking at it, though.  You’re still looking at it.  Not at him, but at the monitor.  It’s controlling you.  It always does.  You try not to let it happen, but you fail.
            You always fail.
            The monitor takes control again.
            Before you know it, the visit is over.  It’s time to go home and wait until the next visit. 
            You spent more time looking at the monitor than you did looking at him.  You tried your best, but you can’t take your eyes from it.  You focus on it completely.  Sure, you go stretches without noticing it, but, in the end, it takes control.  You forget about everything else and watch it move.
            171.
            174.
            155.
            156.
            132.
            121.
            144.
            150.
            Is there a pattern?   Does the monitor have a pattern?  Is there a reason behind how it moves?  You wonder that as you walk to your car.  The drive home finds your thoughts focused on the same topic.  The monitor.
            109.
            106.
            104.
            99.
            101.
            107.
            116.
            121.
            120.
            123.
            119.
            The numbers run through your mind again and again and again and again.
            How low did the monitor go?  When it dropped below 80, how far down did it go?  How long was it below 80?  Did it come right up?  What happened?
            Stop thinking about the monitor.
            Stop.
            Just stop.
            Push the monitor away.  Don’t let it control your thoughts.  Don’t let it.
            You’ll just end up in the same cycle again.  Thinking about the monitor while you’re there.  Thinking about the monitor as you leave.  Thinking about the monitor when you get home.  And then there are the dreams.
            Stop.
            Just stop.
            Don’t let the monitor take control of you. 
            137.
            151.
            148.
            146.
            139.
            145.
            138.
            152.
            Next time, you say to yourself, next time you won’t let the monitor control you.  You’ll focus on him.  Yes, you say again, you’ll focus on him and ignore the monitor.  You say it again and again and again and again.