by Rena Mason
I hear shouting. “She’s awake!” “Don’t move!” “Turn it off!” “Get her out!”
The loud thrum and clicks come to a slow stop. Still flailing my arms and legs, I feel myself sliding down the tunnel without moving. Then suddenly, I’m blinded by bright white lights. There is a force pinning me down. I fight to break free. They won’t be putting me back into that coffin. Something pierces my left thigh and then everything fades to black.
Someone or something stirs not far off to my right, but my eyes won’t open. I strain to see. I’m not sure where I am anymore—or even who or what. When I finally get my eyelids to stay up for more than two seconds, the first thing I see is a hand. It’s wrapped in white bandages like a mummy. There’s a small patch of dried blood coming through the back about the size of a quarter. I wiggle my fingers. It’s mine.
“Mom,” I hear Patrick’s voice, but as hard as I try, I can’t turn my head. My muscles ache and feel so weak.
I hear him rise, walk over, and then he leans down so we can see each other, confirm our guesses. I try to smile, but my face hurts a little, so I blink a few times instead.
“I’m gonna go get Dad,” he says.
I try and reach up to stop him, but he’s already gone.
Well, I guess this means I’m back on Earth. I wonder what the hell happened. The twenty-six may have been finished telling me what they wanted me to know and let me go, but I was nowhere near done asking questions. I close my eyes and listen for them. I hear nothing.
I’m in a hospital room, I’ve gathered that much. It makes sense since the last thing I remember is bleeding. It’s coming back to me now—I was with my mom at the casino. She had just hit a jackpot. Oh, I’m never going to hear the end of how I ruined her big win.
Maybe whatever happened to me made the tones go away. Someone comes barging through the door. It’s several people actually. Jon, Patrick, Dr. Swanson, and a couple nurses, I think. This is going to be overwhelming—the mere sight of them already has me exhausted.
Jon walks up and takes my hand. “Honey, are you feeling any pain?”
I nod and then a nurse steps up with a loaded syringe. I quickly raise my bandaged hand and pinch my fingers close together to mean it hurts—just a little bit. Then I point to the stained dressing on my other hand.
“You pulled your IV out. Do you want some pain medicine?” Jon says.
I close my eyes then move my head slow and gently from side to side and motion no. Plastic tubing is draped across my face. It tugs on my nostrils when I move around. Sweet smelling air blows into my nose. It must be oxygen. I open my eyes again and see Jon keeping the nurse back—the one with the syringe. The other nurse comes forward and slides a digital thermometer in my mouth. Dr. Swanson steps up with a pen light and shines it directly into my eyes. “Follow my finger,” he says.
My throat feels so raw I can’t imagine what the hell was down there. It feels like they took a bottle brush and scrubbed it. I try and muster up some saliva to moisten my mouth then whisper, “water.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea just yet, Jon,” Dr. Swanson says.
“You don’t need to drink any water now,” Jon tells me. “You’ve got another IV. See, here.” He points to the other side of the bed. I slowly move my head that way and yeah, there’s an IV all right. Strange I couldn’t feel it before, but I’m feeling it now—a cold tight ache across the back of my other hand.
If I close my eyes and pretend to sleep, it’s possible they might all go away.
* * *
When I wake again, the entire process is much less complicated. Right away, I notice Patrick sitting in a chair near the foot of the bed. Filtered light shines through the window blinds behind him, making him look like a shadow. He’s either playing with one of his handheld gaming devices or his cell phone. I can’t tell, and he has his earbuds in. He looks up and sees me watching him. “I’m gonna go get Dad,” he says.
“Not yet,” I squawk.
He appears rattled. I don’t think either one of us expected my reaction to come out quite so loud or adamant.
I hold up my hand and motion for him to step forward. He pulls his earbuds out then puts his phone on the chair. There’s a plastic mauve pitcher on a little rolling side table next to the bed. I see sweat beads streaming down the side, and my mouth waters with anticipation. When Patrick gets close, I point to the pitcher. “Water,” I say.
“Maybe I should get Dad.”
“No.” I shake my head. “Water first.”
He walks over to another table next to the window then comes back with a Styrofoam cup and a straw. He pours some water into the cup then holds it so I can take a sip. I put my lips around the straw and take in a big swallow.
He pulls the cup away. “Not too fast,” he says.
Spittle drips from my chin and I cast him a wicked glare.
He gets the hint and puts the cup back to where I can take a few more sips. When I’m done I nod for him to take it away.
“Can I get Dad now?” he says.
“Wait a minute,” I manage to say. My throat is still dry, but my voice is coming back. “What happened?”
“Dad can tell you better than me.”
I shake my head no. “I want to hear what you know—what you’ve heard.” I’m nobody’s fool. I know Patrick probably has a handle on the situation better than anyone else here, including Jon and all the other doctors.
“Start from the beginning,” I say. “Don’t talk loud enough for them to hear.” I glance at the door then focus back on Patrick. “I don’t want them to interrupt you.”
He drags the chair he was in over to my bedside then sits down. “Grandma said that you passed out because you were so excited that she won. She said you must have hit your face on the slot machine before you fell on the floor because you were covered in blood when the ambulance came. I guess people were running around all over the place screaming. Then Dad says when he got to the hospital they were already giving you blood transfusions because the paramedics told the ER staff that you bled so much—more blood than two people, they said.
“Dad was mad because they didn’t do labs first to check your blood count. ‘Cause later on when they finally did do them, they were fine. Grandma and Grandpa were mad because nobody told them you were sick. I told them I didn’t know either, but it didn’t help. They stayed until you got quarantined, then they went home ‘cause Grandpa was worried Grandma would get whatever you had.”
“Quarantined?” I give him a stern look.
“None of the specialists could figure out what was going on or why you were bleeding so much and not showing blood loss. One of the doctors thought it might be some rare disease, something like Ebola, and then I had a bloody nose, so they put you in quarantine, and I couldn’t see you for over a week, which was total bullshit, but—”
“A week? How long have I been here?”
“Two weeks, Mom. You’ve been in a coma. You stopped breathing like four or five days ago, and they had to put a breathing tube down your throat. Then Dad told Dr. Swanson to do an MRI ‘cause he thought maybe you had a brain tumor or something. They weren’t supposed to I guess, while you were in a coma anyway, and when you woke up inside there you freaked and pulled your breathing tube out, and your IV, and they got in trouble with the hospital, but Dad said he didn’t give a shit if they wrote him up.”
“Enough with the language, Pat, I’m not that out of it. Now tell me about your nosebleed.”
“It was nothing, Mom, really. Dad had some tool doctor check me out, and he said it was probably just from the dry hospital air. Do you want me to finish the story or not?”
“Tool doctor? Do you mean Dr. Swanson?”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
I smile and nod for him to continue.
“So anyway, after that MRI thing happened, you were breathing fine on your own, so they left the breathing tube out. They also took the quarantine sign down, and we could visit you agai
n. See, no big deal.”
“So, what exactly is wrong with me?”
“That’s just it. They don’t know. Dad and uh, Dr. Swanson, were talking about how they sent some of your blood samples to a guy in South Africa who’s supposed to be a blood scientist expert or something like that. Maybe he’ll be able to figure out what’s going on.
“Can I go get Dad, now?”
“In a minute.” I gesture my head and eyeball the water pitcher again.
He sighs but then gets up and pours a little more into the cup. While he holds the straw to my lips I look up at him and take in several sips. I can see some relief in his expression. I don’t blame him for not liking being cornered for information, but he also knows I believe he’s got one up on the rest of them. As much as I nag him for being a teenager, he has more insight than most adults. We have a special type of trust, the two of us.
Tool doctor—that’s funny. The door swings open, speak of the devil.
“She just woke up,” Patrick tells him, “and she wanted some water.”
Jon follows Dr. Swanson in through the door. “How do you feel, honey?”
“Much better, but…”
“But what?” Jon says.
“I…”
“What?” Dr. Swanson says.
“I have to pee.”
“Oh, that,” Jon says. “That’s just a sensation. You have a bag, a Foley catheter.”
“No. I want it out. I want to do it myself.”
“You’ve got to get up and sit for a while first,” Dr. Swanson says. “Show us your condition is stable, and then we’ll start disconnecting things.”
I nod—Bastard. Now I’ve got to do tricks to earn points.
“I’ll call some of the nurses in to help sit you up,” Dr. Swanson says.
“I can do it myself.”
“That’s their job, Stacy. I agree with Terry,” Jon says.
I flash him a nasty look. “Fine then, let’s get on with it.”
Dr. Swanson leaves the room.
“What about Pat?” I say.
“I can help,” Pat says.
“We know you can, but why don’t you go down to the cafeteria vending machines and get yourself a soda or something,” Jon says.
Patrick huffs.
“Get me one too, please,” I beg. “Something sweet like orange or grape. Do they sell candy bars?”
“No candy bars,” Jon says. “They’ll want to start you on a liquid diet to see if you can keep normal food down.”
I give Patrick a look before he leaves. I can tell he’s going to try and sneak me candy.
Dr. Swanson comes back into the room with a female nurse and a young man in scrubs. “This is your nurse, Sally, and an orderly,” he says.
The orderly speaks up, “Vince. Hi.”
Jon steps out of the way and stands next to Dr. Swanson. The nurse comes forward then lowers the side rails. There’s a vinyl recliner in the corner of the room, a vestige from the Seventies, I think. The orderly drags it over.
“Let’s take this nice and slow,” the nurse says. She picks up a controller and raises the head of the bed to a ninety degree angle. “We’re going to turn you around, so your legs can dangle off the side. Sit like that for a minute, okay? We don’t want to rush it and make you dizzy.”
I nod my head. “Okay. I’ve got it.”
The nurse moves out of the way, then the orderly comes up and puts one arm behind me, lifts and turns me in a single motion. My legs are dangling off the bed, but he doesn’t move away. He stands right in front of me to keep me from falling face forward. He is tall and built muscularly. It’s no wonder they brought him in here, they stand back and let him do everything.
The nurse pushes a button on the wall and a cuff that was already around my upper arm tightens. They all wait and stare at the digital readout panel in the wall for the results. It beeps then displays the numbers one hundred and twenty, a line, and the numbers seventy-six underneath. “Good,” she says. Then she moves an IV bag from a pole to a closer one and checks and straightens out all the tubes and wires I have coming out of me. Last, she picks up a bag that was hanging on the side of my bed and puts it next to my leg. It’s warm and full of light yellow urine. Gross.
“Her blood pressure is perfectly normal,” Dr. Swanson says.
“It has been this whole time,” Jon says.
I can tell they’re about to get into some medical discourse about what is wrong or not wrong with me, so I keep looking down. My legs are pale white—too pale, actually. I move my hand from my side then reach over and touch one. It is some type of tight stocking.
“Those are TED hose,” Vince says, “to prevent blood clots while you’re laid up.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Do you feel ready to move into the chair?”
“Yes.” But I wish he wouldn’t say the chair, like it was the naughty chair, or an electric chair, or something equally dreadful.
Vince turns to the nurse for approval. “Go ahead,” she tells him.
He puts his arms around me. “Put your feet on mine.”
I do as he says, then he lifts me up, shuffles his feet and pivots, then sets me down gently into the chair. He slowly backs away. “There, how’s that?”
“Good,” I say. “Can I get something to eat now?”
“Sure,” the nurse says. “What would you like?”
“Not candy,” Jon says.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Whatever it is I’m supposed to eat and keep down so I can get some candy bars and soda.”
Vince laughs. The nurse types on a keyboard I didn’t see before, located on the side table by the window. “I’m ordering you something now,” she says.
“What’s with your sudden desire for sweets?” Jon says. “I’ve never seen you drink soda or eat candy.”
“I don’t know. It’s just something I’m craving.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Dr. Swanson leaves the room as soon as he and Jon finish up their strategy regarding my recovery and eventual discharge. It seems I have a lot of tricks to perform before I can get out of this place.
Vince, the orderly, is about to go as well. “Ring us when you’re ready to get back in bed,” he says, placing the call remote in my hand. “You can turn the TV on and change the channels with this, too.”
“Thanks for everything,” I say. “Hopefully, I’ll be staying out of bed for a while.”
The nurse tells me lunch is on its way and that she has notes to chart then she goes, too.
When they’ve all gone, Jon sits down on the edge of the bed and looks over at me in the recliner. “Are you comfortable?”
“As much as I’m going to be sitting in this antique.”
He smiles. “So…what do you remember?”
“Almost everything up until I passed out at the casino. What happened after that?”
“What I want to know is what happened before?”
“Nothing, really, I remember being dizzy and seeing swirling colors.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, and why isn’t Patrick in school?” The thought just occurred to me that it’s lunchtime as the nurse stated, and he’s not in class.
“He really wanted to be here with you. Honestly, we weren’t sure how this would end up. We’ve been getting his assignments and the school’s been more than gracious about letting him miss some time under the circumstances. The dean, you know, Ray Bloch, said he just has to come in to take his semester finals. That he can skip from Thanksgiving break until the New Year, so long as he keeps his 4.0 grade average. Ray and Pastor Dean have been really supportive about praying for you and stuff like that.”
“Oh, that’s nice. And what’s this I hear about Patrick having a bloody nose?”
“It’s just the desert air and the ventilation system in the hospital. I had Terry check him out. He’s fine. It wasn’t anything like what you experienced. You didn’t have any bloody noses before the incident at t
he cocktail party did you?”
Shit, I can’t tell him now. I’m sure he’s right, and it’s nothing to worry about. There isn’t anything I can do about it in here, anyway. “No. I didn’t. And what about you, have you missed a lot of work?”
“No. Not much. That’s why it’s been kind of nice having Pat here. If things came up at the surgery center, I could go in and take care of them.”
“Ah…I see.” I can’t believe he pulled Pat out of school to watch over me.
“But how do you feel—really? Your prognosis has been anything but normal. You’ve been tested for just about everything under the sun—from epilepsy to hemophilia—and even the Ebola virus.”
“Actually, I feel fine. I’m not sure what all these tubes are for. I just want to go home.”
“Not quite yet. Like Terry said, they want to make sure your condition is stable before they let you go.”
“What’s your guess then?”
“A week maybe.”
“That’s too long.”
“A lot of things happened you don’t know about.”
“Like what?”
“Your mom called me from the casino, hysterical. When I got to the ER they said you were bleeding to death. You coded right there in front of me.”
“Coded? You mean I died?”
“Cardiac arrest—your heart stopped. They brought you back quick, but you were in a coma after that. When your lab results came back there were no signs of blood loss or a heart attack. The EKG data didn’t show any cardiac muscle damage, either. No one could explain it. We tried the hospital labs, outsource labs, everything came back negative. Almost a week later, you spontaneously had a respiratory arrest.”
It’s obvious what he means, but I shrug my shoulders anyway.
“You stopped breathing. We had to intubate you—insert a breathing tube.”
“We?”
“You were in isolation, but I was in the room at the time. They stocked a crash cart just outside your door in case you had another cardiac arrest. Like I said, nobody knew what might happen next. I had already intubated you by the time the code team got to the room.”