Downright Dead

by Barbara Ebel

  Freddie’s weight was on top of her, his organ harder than it looked. He wiggled his way between her legs. She felt like a detached participant as he pushed his way forward. There was no pleasure when she felt a thrust in her vagina like a door had been forced open.

  “There it goes,” he mumbled next to her ear.

  Another three shoves of discomfort, he pulled away. His hand wrapped around his penis, he trotted off to the bathroom. She slowly sat up in a daze. Between her legs, the light from the television revealed to her a light bloody discharge. She went to the kitchen to scout around for a tissue. By the time Freddie was back in the room, she was buttoning her blouse over her bra. He dressed while eyeing the tennis match.

  -----

  Mary didn’t have to worry any more about bloody vaginal discharges of any kind because her period never came later in the month, causing her to panic. Against her best judgment, she confided in her best friend, but that only made her feel worse. After all, the four young adults had not double dated again. Freddie had not so much as called her.

  In partial denial of her situation, she missed her period again the next month. That was when despair and depression followed her like an evil shadow. Instead of being mortified by going to a doctor’s office, she bought a “one-step pregnancy test.” Sitting hunched over on the edge of the bathtub, her heart froze when she read the positive result.

  That night, she confronted her mother with the news, and her mother broke the news to her father. Her dad yelled at her the most. “What were you doing having sex at your age? Who’s the father? We taught you better,” etc., etc.

  Her parents were “right to lifers” and, following in her parents footsteps, she pretty much was one herself. She didn’t know which option would be worse - aborting a baby or keeping it at her age and circumstances.

  Telling Freddie was another story. Since she never heard from him, she went to his parents’ house, where she found his mother to be hospitable. “I went out with your son,” she said at the door, “and he hasn’t returned my calls. I need to tell him something.”

  The woman rubbed her hands together. “Come in, young lady. I was just making a sandwich.”

  Mary stepped into the hallway, the smell of oven-baked cookies filling her nostrils. She nervously put her weight on one foot and then the other. What would Freddie say and do about her pregnancy, if anything at all?

  “Well,” the woman said, “I surmise you only want to talk to my son. Good luck. You seem like a nice girl, so my advice to you is to date someone else. He has growing up to do and I would hate for you to get hurt.”

  Mary took a deep breath. What an honest mother. Too bad it was too late to follow her advice. “Is he here?” she stammered.

  “I hate to tell you, no. I made him go rent a place himself. He’s too old to be a squatter in his parents’ house while earning the fat check he makes. Besides, the fact is that we don’t see eye to eye on anything and he leaves his stuff around like he has a maidservant picking up after him.”

  Mary bit her lip while her sandals were now rooted to the door mat. All of a sudden, the aroma of the cookies in the back of the house wasn’t tempting.

  “Damn if I know where he went,” Freddie’s mother continued. “He’ll call one of these days, our relationship will settle into a more adult tolerance of each other, and life will go on.”

  Mary made a decision right then and there. Right now, she would keep Freddie out of the picture. She had enough to worry about besides hunting down the no-good guy who thrusted her into this position to start with.

  -----

  After replaying the last year in her mind, Mary fell asleep. After several hours, she awoke and had a sensation of claustrophobia from the hospital room. She jostled around in the bed and fumbled with the sheet. After pushing the white linen off her breasts, she checked the clock on the nightstand. It was almost midnight and she grappled with telling Dorothy Clark that her GI tract felt like mud churning around in a pig’s pen and she also felt warm. She pushed the call button.

  The nurse came in along with the tech taking vital signs. “We’re killing two birds with one stone,” Dorothy said.

  The tech took her temperature and then Mary extended her arm for the blood pressure cuff. The woman cycled the machine while Dorothy stood with her hands on her hips.

  “It’s really hot in here,” Mary said, “and I feel sick to my stomach.”

  “So you’re flushed and nauseated,” Dorothy paraphrased. “You don’t have a temperature and it’s not hot in here. I can bring you something for nausea.”

  Mary and the tech made small talk and Dorothy came back with a round pill and a paper cup. Mary gulped down the medicine. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. And by the way … don’t consider yourself singled out or on death’s door because of these symptoms. They are to be expected.”

  Mary swallowed that advice as the two women left. There was nothing to be concerned about and, in the morning, maybe her doctors would give her excellent news and she could go home to her place. She wanted to go back to work in another day or two, where she worked at the front desk of the local library. Her boss had been understanding of her situation earlier in the day and had let her leave early.

  Optimistic thoughts began circulating in her head. Her baby would go to full term, she had the infant’s names picked out, and she would see her mother tomorrow. In her heart, she knew she would love her baby as much, or more, than she loved her mother. She let her eyelids close and she drifted off …

  -----

  A few hours later at the nurses’ station, Dorothy Clark wadded up an empty bag of potato chips and tossed it over the desk to the garbage basket. “I’ll never make a women’s basketball team,” she barked to the anesthesia resident on call.

  “You hold down the court,” the resident said. “I just topped off an epidural and I’m going back to bed.”

  Dorothy rose, stretched, and put the chip wrapper directly into the can. She decided to walk the hallway and check on patients. Those with laboring epidurals slept comfortably. Remembering Mary Chandler’s prior complaints, she poked her head into her room and observed the woman sleeping. So much for her patient’s prior flushing and nausea, she thought.

  She then pushed a rolling medicine cart down the hallway and gave certain patients their medications. Lastly, she positioned herself back at the main desk. The rest of the shift flew by and, before long, Nurse Sherry was back for the day shift and the female medical student Annabel strolled in to begin her own rounds.

  CHAPTER 9

  Ready to start her second day, Annabel rode up the elevators to the OB/GYN floor. The man next to her coughed loudly and sent a spray into the air. One sign on the door read “Clean your Hands” and the other one said “Cover your Cough.” She grimaced as the door opened and she hurried out.

  As she turned right, she anticipated the questions that Ling Watson would throw her way this morning. She studied another two hours after Bob had left her last night and covered the subject of the neonate’s physiologic changes at birth as much as possible in the short time frame.

  The wing was vastly different from the day before when poor Bonnie Barker suffered her postpartum hemorrhage. Peace and quiet ran down the hallways like a gentle stream on a calm day. She went straight to the lounge and tucked away her backpack. The night nurse was giving Sherry a report, so she left them alone. She bumped into Emmet when she left.

  “Hey, doc,” he said.

  “Hey yourself. Were any babies born overnight?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. Deliveries come in waves.”

  “Really?”

  “For sure. I can tell those fancy researchers working on their projects about the effect of the moon and the tides on women giving birth. I’ve been working here for years and I swear on the Holy Bible that deliveries occur in waves. Just wait…”

  “Wait for what?”

  “A full moon.”

  Annabel’s ey
es widened. “I’m aware of old wives’ tales predicting a baby’s gender, but I have never heard about full moons being associated with a surge in births.”

  “You have now. I’m telling ya.”

  “Then I will take your word for it.”

  Annabel pulled out her index cards on her patients and decided to round on Mary Chandler first. She hoped the young girl’s preeclampsia would be so under control that the residents would send her home today after her mother showed up. But what did she know? Maybe it would take a week. After all, she still had a lot to learn about the dreaded obstetric complication, particularly since she didn’t get to read about her patient last night.

  Down the hallway, she glanced into Room Six. It was as peaceful inside as the hallway, so she assumed that her patient had slept well. She must be fast asleep, Annabel thought, because she lay slightly aligned on her side, facing the window, and didn’t stir.

  “Miss? Doctor?”

  Annabel turned towards the lobby. A slender woman wearing a matching blouse and pants waved at her as she approached. Large glasses framed her wide face. “I’m Kathleen Chandler. Do you know which room my daughter is in?”

  Annabel was surprised at her early arrival. “Yes. Right in here. She’ll be happy to see you before breakfast.”

  The woman slipped her cell phone into her shoulder bag. “I couldn’t sleep; with coffee at a gas stop, it only took me two hours down the interstate. How is she doing?”

  Annabel glanced inside without answering. Strange, she thought, that Mary didn’t stir. She should be awake by now and overwrought with joy that her mother stood at the door. But no high-pitched voice called out for them and no big brown eyes looked their way.

  Kathleen brushed past her. She slid her bag down her arm, dropped it on the chair, and thought to make less noise in case her daughter startled to see her. She tiptoed around the bed. A concerned expression crossed her face. “Mary?”

  Her voice rose. “Mary?”

  Mrs. Chandler shook her daughter’s shoulder.

  “She’s not breathing!”

  Annabel ran over. Mary Chandler was not breathing. She also had no pulse.

  -----

  The simultaneousness of what happened next was sheer chaos with order. Annabel bellowed out for help and Room Six was invaded. Dr. Watson confirmed the absence of a palpable pulse in Mary’s carotid artery. And in the thick of it, somehow Emmett took charge of Kathleen Chandler and escorted her away from her daughter’s bedside.

  As Ling Watson barked orders, the anesthesia resident, Kristin Fleming, took over at the head of the bed. As a respiratory therapist helped Kristin deliver oxygen and suction out Mary Chandler’s mouth, Ling threw a head pillow at Annabel.

  Caleb Gash pulled up his sleeves. Annabel froze, clueless about the pillow.

  “Displace the uterus, damn it,” Dr. Watson said.

  Annabel startled. She put the information together that she knew about CPR and advanced cardiac life support. One difference, she figured, was that the heart compressions Caleb were about to deliver would not be effective unless the heavy uterus was displaced to the left. The gravid uterus, she thought, normally compresses the inferior vena cava … which impairs venous return to the heart and reduces cardiac output. Resuscitating Mary would be futile unless they relieved the compression.

  She jumped straight to the bed and used the pillow as a wedge to keep their patient slightly to the left. Caleb shot her a glance, put his hands on the patient, and felt for the best hand position on the sternum.

  On Dr. Watson’s orders, Sherry shut off the pumps and disconnected them so that a new bag of LR hung from a separate pole and Dr. Watson pushed drugs from the crash cart that had been shoved into the room. Sherry scribbled on a clipboard, documenting the drugs Ling injected.

  Annabel’s heart pounded as hard as Dr. Gash seemed to project his palms into the young woman’s chest. What had happened here? Had Mary Chandler’s blood pressure skyrocketed over night with no one being aware … which caused her to stroke, seize, or have a heart attack? How often does preeclampsia cause a pregnant lady to die? This girl was way too young to die.

  The scenario then struck her agonizingly hard. There was more than one patient here. What about baby Emma or Emmett?

  -----

  Before they called off further attempts at resuscitation, another M.D. showed up. The two OB/GYN residents relented to his questions and suggestions. Dialogue was sparse, however, as the minutes ticked by. The end result of their efforts was so horrid that it became difficult to speak.

  Dr. Watson used the fetal monitoring equipment. Like mother … like baby. No spontaneous heartbeats occurred again for Mary Chandler and no fetal heart rates registered from the fetus.

  “Call it,” the senior physician said. “Time of death … seven thirty-six.”

  The respiratory therapist stepped back away from the bed. Kristin Fleming snapped off her blue vinyl gloves. Ling dodged her glance between the dusky dead patient and the new physician, and Dr. Gash somehow sneaked out the door.

  Annabel backed up to the sink and pretended to wash her hands thoroughly. Clearly unnerved, Ling updated their attending. “Dr. Harvey, again … this was the preeclamptic patient, Mary Chandler, who I told you about yesterday.”

  Annabel dried her hands while Ling reiterated a thorough synopsis of the patient’s admission, diagnosis, and care. Both their moods were grim and serious; she felt grateful that she was only the medical student.

  Dr. Harvey pulled the sheet up on Mary. “Obviously, she’ll go for an autopsy.” He carefully scanned the whole room and then pointed to the IV pumps with fluid bags above. “And send them to the lab for analysis.”

  “They are just …” Ling started.

  “Did I ask you what they are?” he asked. “I can read the labels.”

  Annabel held back as Dr. Harvey, Dr. Watson, and Sherry exited Room Six. The stark white sheet outlined Mary’s pregnancy, now no more than a stillborn who never had a chance. A wave of sadness came over her like her chest was being squeezed. At least, she thought, this young woman would be buried or cremated with her fetus. They would be together forever.

  In the hallway, Annabel saw Dr. Harvey and Ling duck into an empty room with a whimpering Kathleen Chandler. Their hands supported her under her armpits, leading the way, as if she would lose consciousness.

  Someone pulled at her sleeve. It was Stuart Schneider.

  “Didn’t you go home yet?” Annabel asked.

  “I slept longer than I wanted. Sorry I didn’t give you a report when you arrived. However, not much went on and I slept much of the night.”

  “Lucky you.”

  He glanced up from the floor and practically whispered. “What happened?”

  “The young girl with preeclampsia died,” Annabel began. The two students made themselves less conspicuous and huddled outside the room where the senior doctors had taken Mrs. Chandler. Over the next ten minutes she shared the events with him, telling him what transpired.

  “Jeez,” Stuart said, shaking his head. The door finally opened and Dr. Harvey and Dr. Watson passed them. Kathleen Chandler stayed put. Her sobbing ramped up from inside the room while she placed a call.

  “Mike,” Kathleen Chandler said into her cell phone. “I have the worst possible news.”

  A pause ensued and Annabel and Stuart heard what came next. “I got here and … Mary … she died.”

  On the other end, Kathleen’s husband responded to her with a long, silent pause, after which he said, “What did you say?”

  Kathleen put her other hand on her lips as if to stop an onslaught of tears that were somehow going to flow from her mouth. “I said our daughter is dead. Downright dead.”

  “That’s what I thought you said. It can’t be. Women don’t die because they’re pregnant, especially not our daughter.”

  “Mike,” she cried, “you better get here.”

  He controlled his disbelief and his anger. There was no doub
t as to what she told him. His wife needed him. “I’m on my way.”

  When Mike Chandler ended the call, his fury built up like a volcano ready to erupt. How could their only daughter be dead? How could she have died in a hospital where she went for help? Better yet, how did his sweet, immature daughter get pregnant to begin with? He still had a difficult time facing that fact in the first place.

  -----

  Stuart wrinkled his face at Annabel after listening to the one-sided conversation they just heard from the room. He shook his head, leaned into her, and spoke softly. “I’d better go.”

  She nodded and he took off. Mrs. Chandler still hung back in the room; Annabel wondered if she’d ever come out.

  Annabel hurried to the nurses’ station and, behind the desk, the door to the lounge was closed. Trusting her instincts, she figured it was shut tight for the senior doctors inside to be left undisturbed. Too bad her books were in there, she thought; she could use the time to read. However, she probably couldn’t concentrate on studying after what happened even if she tried.

  “Best that you don’t go in.”

  Emmett stood next to her, his eyebrows arching up while he leaned his elbows on the desk. “Dr. Harvey must be taking control in there. He gives them residents latitude until they mess up. Then he sets them straight again and everything goes back to normal. But this time, who the hell knows what happened.”

  “You must see things,” Annabel said, “and notice which doctors are good … and which ones need improvement.”

  “Oh yeah. Like the patients really love Dr. Harvey. Bedside manner and all.”

  “I saw what you did … escorting the patient’s mother, Kathleen Chandler, out of the chaos. That was a thoughtful gesture on your part.”

  “Yeah. I come in handy once in a while.”

  “She told me, you know. Mary Chandler. She had made up her mind for sure; she planned on naming her baby Emma or Emmett.”