Santa Cruz Sentinel

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When I walk through the bleak hallways at Children’s Hospital, I constantly encounter places that hold such bittersweet memories for me.

Much of my life has been spent there, and it has become my second home.

The staff is my second family, from the nurses to the people who deliver the food trays. I have known many of them since before I can remember.

My group of friends and I have had some great times, and many bad times, within those walls.

More than once security has been called on myself and others because of our late night games that had us running up and down the halls of the hospital.

But we were merely trying to remain entertained.

Adam is probably the person I knew the longest, since we were little kids.

He spent his time in a wheelchair, wearing doctor scrubs, attached to an oxygen leash.

When we were little, we always used to stay in the same room together. I remember the time the nurses walked into our room and discovered spaghetti on the ceiling.

As we grew up and entered the teen years, we couldn’t room together. Hospital supervisors decided that it wouldn’t be right to have two teen-agers of the opposite sex in the same room.

But we knew the right people to ask so we could room together, because for us we were most like brother and sister and everyone knew it.

We would tell each other stories of our various medical disasters, swapping tales like old war veterans.

Between the two of us, we decided that we had had everything there was to have.

His family was unable to visit him since they lived so far away.

He used to tell me stories about his father, who is a prison guard. From the way Adam described him, you would have thought he was 7-feet tall and 4-feet wide, a man who could strike fear into the hearts of hardened criminals.

I never met Adam’s father until a year ago. Although he looked like a regular guy, I was still nervous to shake his hand.

I know the exact room Adam was in almost a year ago when he took his last breath. I was in the room next to him and spent many hours sitting on the edge of the porcelain bathtub, staring down at the thousands of yellow floor tiles beneath my feet, crying over the friend I was about to lose.

I was told that I couldn’t go into his room and see him, so I would ask people how he was when they were in my room.

I can still see how they all averted their eyes and spoke very softly, trying to answer my question lightly, but knowing they couldn’t hide the truth from me.

My friend Adam, who had Cystic Fibrosis, died last year when he was 17.

Heather Emmert, who is 16 and has CF, is planning to walk in the Great Strides walk-a-thon benefiting Cystic Fibrosis research on Saturday, May 4, at Seascape Park.

The Great Strides walk starts at Seascape Park next to the resort. Registration begins at 9 a.m., and the walk starts at 9:30.

Lunch will be served and a raffle held, with most prizes donated from local businesses. Anyone who wants to come is welcome.

For information, call Tere at 684-1886 or Debbie at (408) 229-6120.

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