by Jeff Strand
"Conscious."
"Does she have blurred vision?" asks the dispatcher.
"Do you have blurred vision?"
Amy reaches for the phone. I hand it to her.
"Hi," she says. "It makes more sense to talk directly to me. No, I don't. No. Yes. A bad nosebleed. Right, I understand that. We're just being cautious. No, it hasn't. Yes. Ummmm...really energetic sex." Amy half-smiles but then wipes tears from her eyes. "Thank you."
I hurry into the bathroom and return with a wet cloth.
Amy flexes her left arm. "As far as I can tell my motor skills are fine. It doesn't feel like anything is too wrong, but it's a lot of blood."
She gives me a brave smile, but she's scared.
I wipe the blood off her face as well as I can while she's talking on the phone.
"I don't think we need to wait in the room," she tells the dispatcher. "I can walk fine. We'll meet them out front." To me, she says, "Pack up our stuff and get dressed. They'll be here in four minutes."
She hangs up the phone.
"You'll be okay," I tell her. "I promise."
"When a brain aneurysm ruptures, you don't bleed from your nose. It doesn't work that way. I'm okay. I really think I'm okay."
"I'm sure you are." I'm losing it. I'm losing it in a big way. Got to stay calm. Got to stay calm.
"We've got to be smart about this, of course. I'm not saying we should send the ambulance away, but I think it's just a bad nosebleed."
"I think so, too."
"I assure you, I do not feel like I have permanent brain damage right now. I'm not good at being jolted out of a dream, but I don't want you to panic, because this is going to turn out to be nothing, okay?"
"Okay."
I quickly wipe most of Amy's blood off my chest and start to put on my clothes. Within three minutes we're packed, dressed, and headed downstairs.
We can hear the siren as we step outside of the hotel. As the ambulance pulls up, Amy gives my hand a tight squeeze.
"Would you do me a quick favor?"
"Anything."
"Go inside and warn somebody at the front desk that there are bloody towels and sheets in our room. I don't want some poor housekeeper to think she stumbled upon a murder scene."
No blood actually got on the sheets, but, yeah, we don't want to cause any unnecessary heart attacks. I hurry inside. Nobody is at the front desk. I ring the bell.
I wait a moment, then ring it again.
"Hello?" I call out.
Nobody answers.
"Hello? Anybody?"
"I'll be with you in a moment, sir," a guy says from the back room.
"I just need to leave a message."
The guy doesn't emerge from the back room. "I can take care of that for you in a moment, sir. Please be patient."
"I just need to tell somebody that there are bloody washcloths in our room, and there's an ambulance out front to pick up my girlfriend, but I don't want anybody to worry if they see all of the blood."
"Which room are you in, sir?"
"I forget. Just tell the housekeeping staff that one of the rooms is going to have bloody washcloths in it, and not to panic when they see them."
"All right, I'll pass the message along."
"Thank you. And we apologize for the blood."
I'm positive that it wasn't necessary to apologize for the blood, but I can't help how I'm hard-wired. I hurry back out of the hotel. Amy is already in the back of the ambulance. I climb in with her.
A paramedic is taking her blood pressure. He seems to know what he's doing. He's not referring to an instruction manual. Good. Excellent. First the 911 dispatcher, and now the ambulance paramedic seem to be well trained at their jobs. Awesome. Perfect. Sweet.
"You're going to be fine," I assure Amy.
She nods.
I say it again. She nods again. I say it a third time, and then realize that perhaps I'm being more annoying than helpful, and I refrain from saying it a fourth time.
"Is there anything I can help with?" I ask the paramedic.
He assures me that he doesn't require my assistance.
I take Amy's hand. I'm trying to keep my breathing under control and wish I had a brown sack to breathe into. I don't ask for one.
I can't lose her already.
It's not fair.
Not that I believe life is supposed to be fair, but it should be more fair than this, right?
I should have been gentler while we were having sex. Shouldn't have tried to bring my A-game to the thrusting. That was reckless and stupid. When she told me to fuck her harder, instead of obliging I should have said, no, that's not a wise idea, we need to consider the possible repercussions of such vigorous intercourse. I did this to her. This is all my fault.
You need to calm the hell down, I tell myself, still working on controlling my breathing so that I don't hyperventilate and force the paramedic to give me an oxygen mask.
She's fine. It's not as if her nose is bleeding right now. If that were the case, yeah, panic would be the appropriate response, but it's not, so she's fine. She's talking and walking, two things that I assume would be difficult if part of her brain had ruptured.
And if there is damage...I'll take care of her. I'll push her around in a wheelchair, feed her, change her bedpan, whatever it takes. I'll talk to her, read to her, comb her hair...
Jesus Christ. She's not a vegetable. Why am I being so dark? She's fully conscious and coherent! In fact, she's squeezing my hand so hard that it hurts a little, and that's not the action of somebody whose motor functions are gone. If she squeezes any harder, I might need medical attention myself. She's fine. Totally fine.
I really wish I had a brown bag or an oxygen mask.
* * *
A couple of doctors wheel Amy off on a gurney, while I am directed to a seat in the waiting room and given some paperwork to fill out.
I've barely started the paperwork and I have to chuckle. I'm envisioning a scenario in which I'm her full-time caregiver and I don't even know her middle name.
I wonder what her middle name is? What fits best between "Amy" and "Husk"? Amy Annabelle Husk? No, probably something with two syllables. Amy Marie Husk? I can see that. Amy Marie Husk. My girlfriend's name is Amy Marie Husk.
I realize that I actually wrote "Amy Marie Husk" on the form. I cross out her middle name. She'll have to fill out most of this form herself, and I should stick to the fields that I actually know.
It's really hot in here. I wish they'd crank up the air conditioning. I'm sweating like crazy. The front of my shirt is sticking to my chest.
I wonder if they'd get mad at me if I went up to the receptionist and asked for a brown bag to breathe into? I don't want to bother them when they've got real medical emergencies to deal with, but I really am having difficulty breathing.
And my chest feels like somebody is squeezing it.
Aw, shit......
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
"That's not a hand."
"But it has five fingers."
"I don't care. It's not a hand."
--Exit Red, Season 2, Episode 2
I wake up in a hospital bed.
Amy is sitting next to me. She looks intensely relieved when she sees that my eyes are open.
She runs her hand across my forehead and smiles. "Hi."
"Hi."
Amy looks perfectly fine. I'm too relieved at this moment to be humiliated by my own state, although I'm sure the mortifying nature of it will sink in before too much longer.
"How do you feel?" she asks.
"All right. What happened?"
"They think you had a heart attack."
"Seriously?"
"A minor one."
"Oh. Jeez."
"Apparently you keeled right over in the waiting room."
"Hmmm."
"You'll probably have to change your diet."
"So how are you?"
"I'm fine." Amy gives me a sheepish smile. "Just a nosebleed. I u
sed to get them all the time in college, but I hadn't in almost twenty years."
"Well, I'm glad to hear that."
"Yeah."
My cell phone, which is resting next to the bed, vibrates. Amy picks it up. "Hi, Craig. Yeah, he's awake now. I was just about to go get a doctor." She gives me a kiss on the cheek then hands me the phone. "It's your roommate," she says, heading for the door.
I take the phone. "Hello?"
"Dude, I'm researching plane ticket prices online. Stay with us, buddy."
"I'm okay."
"Oh, really? A heart attack is okay?"
"It wasn't a bad one."
"Sure, it was one of those good-for-you heart attacks."
"You don't need to come."
"I'm not gonna let you die in Connecticut."
"I'm not dying."
"If you die and I didn't come visit you, I'd never forgive myself."
"I'm not dying."
"Do you know that for sure? Have you ever had a heart attack before?"
"No."
"See?"
"I'd feel worse if I were dying."
"There could be an air bubble in your heart. Did you think about that? Do you know what happens when there's an air bubble in your heart?"
"It's nice that you called, but you're actually increasing my stress level quite a bit."
"We're going to get through this," says Craig. "We're going to put you on an exercise regimen, and we're going to start eating healthier, and you're going to get checkups every week!"
"I don't need checkups every week."
"I don't care what you think you need! I'm not going to lose you. I've already told Margaret that her kids will have to move out of your room. Well, I'm going to. I figured I'd call her from Connecticut. It would be mean to watch her cry in person."
"I appreciate this," I tell him. "But it's really not necessary for you to fly out here. Why don't you use that time to clean the place up, get it ready for my return?"
There's a long silence on the other end.
"So," Craig says, "I tell you how much you mean to me, and your response is to assign me chores?"
"No, no, not at all. I just thought it would be nice to have the apartment disinfected and stuff before I got back."
"Disinfected? It's not like you have cancer. It doesn't do any good to throw bleach around for a heart attack patient. Do you not want me to come? Is that it?"
"That's not it at all. But I don't know how long I'm going to be in here. I don't know anything. I just woke up. They may release me before you even show up."
"They're just going to dump you out on the street with a bad heart? That's grounds for a lawsuit."
"How about I call you back when I've got an update?"
"Fine. Fine. Whatever. I won't buy the plane tickets, then. I'll talk to you later. Oh, by the way, your boss is going to call. Bye."
Craig hangs up. My brain wants to reflect upon the idea that Gigi is going to call, but before any processing of that information can occur, Amy walks in with the doctor.
Having already judged people based on their physical appearance with Eddie, I'd like to avoid this with the doctor, but no amount of self-improvement on my part is going to change the fact that he looks like a mad scientist. He's got crazy hair and crazy eyes. He looks ready to let out a deranged "Muahahaha!" cackle and start doing bizarre experiments on my spinal column.
"Hello, Todd," the doctor says, without the "Muahahaha!" He shakes my hand. "You gave us a bit of a scare out there."
"I'm sorry."
"Oh, no need to apologize. I'm Doctor Gary Doom."
"Doctor Doom?"
"Yes, but not the spelling you're thinking. D-U-M-E." He chuckles. "Nothing sinister about it at all." He seems kind of amused by this, even though reactions like mine must now number in the hundreds of thousands.
"Is that why you became a doctor?" I ask him.
"So I could be Doctor Dume?"
"Yes."
"No. I became a doctor to save lives."
"I guess that makes more sense."
Now I feel like I've pissed him off a bit, which isn't a good thing to do to somebody who has unlimited access to scalpels. At the same time, it would have been disingenuous to let the "Doctor Doom" thing drop after only one comment.
I start to tell him that we ate at a restaurant owned by a guy whose name also sounded like his profession, but decide that I should just shut up and let the doctor speak.
He begins to explain the situation. He uses lots of extremely large words that I don't understand, and some medium-sized words (like "ventricle") that I do. But, yes, despite being only thirty-five years old and in good health, I did indeed have a heart attack.
He says "surgery" and I feel like I'm going to have another heart attack right there in the hospital bed, but then I realize that he said it within the context of telling me that no surgery would be necessary.
He says "waltz," and I guess he's telling me that I'll never waltz again, which seems like an odd side effect for a heart attack, unless he means that all strenuous dancing is off limits for me, which is no major loss since I'm not exactly a big fan of dancing anyway. Then I realize that while I was panicking over the word "surgery" I wasn't paying close enough attention to the things he said immediately after that, and what he actually said was that I'm not going to be able to just waltz out of here.
I'm going to have to stay in the hospital overnight for observation and a few more tests. How delightful. How peachy. Dandy. I'll be surprised if Amy doesn't ask me to marry her right here. How can she resist the allure of Heart Attack Boy?
Doctor Dume finishes up, and I'm pleased that he makes no effort to graft the body of a cat onto my chest. I'm sure there'll be time for his ghoulish experiments while I slumber. He leaves the room.
"I'm really sorry about this," I tell Amy.
"You don't have to apologize for having a heart attack. I wouldn't apologize if I'd had a brain aneurysm."
"Yeah, but my medical problem is stupider."
"It's not stupid."
"I freaked out."
"You did not freak out. Freaking out would be if you ran around the hotel room flapping your arms screaming. You waited until the situation was completely under control, and then you had your heart attack."
"I guess."
"There's nothing to be embarrassed about. If anything, you should be milking this for sympathy. I'm the one who should be embarrassed. I got blood all over your chest."
"It washed off."
"Anyway, if you don't need me for anything right now, I'm going to take a cab to the hotel and get the car."
"That sounds like a good idea. Thanks."
Amy gives me a tender kiss on the lips, then leaves the room.
Yes, being in the hospital bites, but Amy is fine, and that's all that really matters. It's important not to let my heart attack distract me from the fact that I got mind-blowingly well laid last night. It was beyond awesome. Even if Doctor Dume did take me down into a dark basement, hook me up with electrodes, and start scraping away my cartilage wherever it might be found, the past twenty-four hours would have been worth it.
I glance over at my phone.
Gigi has not called yet.
I suppose I should call her first.
There's no reason to think this is going to be a bad phone conversation. If somebody was going to have a heart attack anyplace, it would be at a relative's funeral, right? Funerals are a stressful environment. At some point, I'll make a joke about how I think the funeral home was just trying to drum up some extra business. Ha ha! Too bad for them I survived!
Maybe I should wait for her to call. Calling her first might come off as desperate.
But if I don't talk to her soon, my anxiety level will reach epic proportions. That could cause me to make a mistake, like saying, "Oh, hi, Gigi, hard to believe I had a heart attack after having sex with--I mean, at my grandmother's funeral. That's when I had the heart attack. At my grandmother's fune
ral. There was no sex at my grandmother's funeral, I promise. At least none that I saw. It could have been happening in every other room for all I know." I'm unlikely to actually say all of that, but I could definitely mess up. I'd better call her.
As soon as I pick up the phone she calls. So now I'm startled as well as anxious.
"Hello?"
"Todd?"
"Hi, Gigi."
"How are you feeling?" Gigi asks.
"Not too bad."
"Everybody here is really worried about you."
"Tell them I'm fine. It was no big deal. I'll look back on it and laugh."
"When are they going to let you out?"
"Tomorrow. In the morning, I think. You know, just for observation."
"Well, of course. They want to make sure you're okay."
"Yeah. You can't say they're not considerate."
"Do you have a roommate?"
"No, there's just an empty bed. I may get a roommate later. I'm not sure. Nobody has said anything about it."
"Hopefully you'll keep your private room until tomorrow morning."
"Yeah, that would be nice. But, overall, I'm not feeling too bad."
"I'm really glad to hear that."
"Thanks."
"You know I have to fire you, right?"
I'm silent for a moment. "I don't know that."
"I do."
"Oh."
"You lied to get bereavement time, Todd. That's automatic termination. Even if I wanted to keep you, it's not my choice."
I want to explain that she could make it her choice; all she'd have to do is not tell Human Resources that I was a lying scoundrel. But that would involve her contributing to my web of lies, and I think that the even if I wanted to keep you portion of her sentence is telling.
"I'm sorry," I say.
"I'm sure you are." She says this without a trace of sarcasm. She actually sounds sad and hurt. I'd rather she called me an asshole. Although probably not a fucking asshole--that would be going too far.
I don't have anything else to say, so I just sit there, sweating onto my phone. I'm not sure if you can sweat from your ears. Seems like something a thirty-five-year-old should know.
"I debated whether I should tell you while you're still in the hospital," says Gigi. "I wasn't going to, but then I decided that you'll have plenty of downtime to think about your future, so I might as well tell you sooner rather than later."