"Zaina's Grandfather" or "the Absurdity of a Feverish Night" or "thermometers: epic fail"

I am humbled.
"Anyone here a doctor?"
and before I know it
nudged to the bedside
of a shivering, aching
bundle known simply as
"grandpa."

Amidst debates of accuracy
(The case of Hand to Forehead v. Thermometer,
as heard by the honorable Judge Med Student)
I silently watch the bundle recoil in disgust,
his own daughter's hands
the vessels of such frigid misery.

Barely able to breathe
(confined to a private nasal cannula hell)
the bundle suffers continual onslaughts
as seemingly helpful hands
repeatedly shove a thermometer
into his gasping mouth.
"94.3....no fever! Right?"

Could anything be right here?
The senseless agony of the bundle, the once potent patriarch
("pulmonary fibrosis, never smoked a day in his life").
The need to trust the absurd number coming from this cheap piece of plastic if it provides the perfect excuse to pretend for another minute that nothing's wrong.
The role thrust upon me:
messenger of scientific fact,
harbinger of lost hope,
asking me to (but praying I won't) judge.

My own eyes waver between
the two images in the stuffy room:
the bundle shaken with chills,
face twisted, pleading
begging to be believed, begging to be relieved
the wife, children, grandchildren in despair
digging for some expert opinion to confirm their denial,
to turn the bundle back into grandpa.

Eyes beam spotlights on my face
expectantly urging, hoping, praying
the words they want will cross my lips,
ease this heaviness, this guilt, this death
this stifling death
this suffocating death.

Anger and sorrow and futility
overwhelm my being and in
battling down the word vomit
I surrender to the senselessness.

"Maybe you should get a different thermometer."