by Mark Clodi
"Downtime?!"
"Flatlined, dead. Not officially. You came back, through no effort of the doctors either, no heart massage or anything like that. You might have some holes in your memory for a while, until your body fully recovers." the nurse sounded hesitant.
"What aren't you telling me? You said I could ask you anything and you wouldn't lie to me. I remember that."
She brightened considerably, "See? You'll do fine! That was weeks ago. We've been cutting back on your pain medication. Things should start to solidify for you now." As she said this she wheeled him passed a patient standing outside his door. His skin was gray, his black hair and dark eyes followed Mike slowly as they glided by. The flesh was pulled away from the man's teeth and his hospital gown was wet with drool down the front of his chest. One hand was curled in a claw like fist, with open sores on the knuckles.
"Whoa. What happened to him?" Mike asked.
Puzzled the nurse turned looking down the empty hallway, "Who dear?"
Craning his head around Mike looked again, seeing nothing he responded, "Nothing. Nothing. Just talking to myself."
By dinner time Mike was happy to have remembered the entire afternoon. He switched from the news to a long movie shot over a decade ago. That night a blond haired woman delivered his meal to him. She was not dressed in a nurse’s uniform or in one of the green orderly gowns either. She bubbled over with happiness at seeing him awake. "Oh, Mike! You're up! The nurse says you've been awake since I left! Are you in pain?"
Slowly Mike's brain worked, he churned through his mind looking for a frame of reference. Yes, this woman was familiar. She said she had been here earlier. The nurse said his wife had been was here earlier, but this woman didn't look like anyone he knew. "No. No pain, they cut back on the pain meds, things have been more, lucid...this afternoon. I've watched a movie."
She smiled, "Yeah, which one?"
"Ah, something about planes, Pearl Harbor, I think. Cool special effects and bad acting. And it kind of ended weird. I thought, you know maybe it would end at the end of the war or something, it just kind of stopped after some raid into China or something."
"Oh my God!" the woman squealed, "This is the most conversation I had with you in almost two months! You are getting better!"
Her name came to him in a rush; he remembered a cake, the honey moon on an island off the coast of Mexico. His company had paid for most of it as a form of congratulations on his marriage. A flood of memory came back to him. His father had died two years ago. Tiffany, or 'Tif' for short. She pouted when she didn't get her way. She was twenty-nine. She'd be thirty now, if it were July. He'd be thirty-one.
"What?" Tiffany asked, seeing his face.
"I missed your birthday."
"Oh. Well, you almost missed all of the rest of them. Getting you back is the best birthday gift I could have. I was so mad after the accident. I couldn't believe you would go off and leave me alone!"
"Well, I didn’t plan to..." Mike began hesitantly.
"Hah! Just like the rest of our lives then. Nothing abnormal there!"
"What about work? What have they had to say?"
Tiffany's face turned into a frown. "I know you are on the road to recovery now, this is the first time you asked about work. What can they do? You are their rising star. You still have a job. They flooded the place with flowers the first couple of weeks. After they realized you were going to be out on disability for six months or so they cooled, but told me to have you contact them when you are up to it. Are you going to be ready to come home in two days?"
Mike thought about it and said, "Can you help me to the bathroom now?"
Tiffany did and once Mike was safely back in his bed he said, "Yeah, if you don't mind taking me to the bathroom all the time, I think I can come home."
"Silly! We'll have a nurse there for four hours a day to help out for at least the first two weeks.It won't be that bad."
Breaking a smile Mike said, "Oh, okay then so long as you are not stuck all the time on 'Mike' duty it should be okay. Who’s paying for the nurse?"
"Insurance. That's what we paid for, right?"
"Is the wolf nurse going to be the one helping out?"
Tiffany looked perplexed, "Nurse Wolfe? I don't think so. I don't think it is someone who has been caring for you here. This is their job. We'll have a home care specialist, I think, she'll spend half her work day with us and then goes on to another family, at least that is what the doctors said. So? You gonna eat that dinner or let it get cold?"
"Is it a cheeseburger?"
It wasn't a cheeseburger. However the tender slices of turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy went down well. Mike was famished and even ate the mushy green beans and apple sauce.
Part IV
The drive home was uncomfortable. Tiffany's two-seater was the only family vehicle, not that Mike's corvette would have been that much roomier. They pushed the seat all the way back and wedged the cast leg in at an angle and Mike fit.
Tiffany had called Mike's company and they had once again filled his room with vases and flowers. Even after she had gone around gifting away most of the flowers to less fortunate patients, the trunk was overflowing with them. Mike's angle in the car had his face pressed up the passenger window and he reveled in the cloudy horizon. To the east there was a break in the clouds. It looked like a window into another world, where sunny skies ruled. The shafts of golden light breaking into his world's otherwise gloomy day were an anomaly.
Exiting the highway, they were stopped by a traffic light and Mike saw the usual pan-handlers begging for change. One was a short squat man with a blue shirt and a brimless red hat that ended in a point. The guy was insanely small and had a large white 'santa' beard. He was a gnome. Mike closed his eyes and shook his head. Peeking he saw the gnome was still there, holding a dirty sign declaring he would work for food.
Behind him a dirty, unshaven white guy also held a sign, his declared '!yenom sag deeN !pleH' Ah, it was just upside down, held in one grimy paw while the man’s cataract covered eyes tried to focus on the traffic. The hand held out for change looked like it was encrusted with blood. There was more blood leaking through the guys faded, olive drab coat pocket. The gnome and the reverse sign guy approached relentlessly, almost making it to the car before the light changed and Tiffany floored it.
"I hate pan handlers!" she muttered under her breath as they pulled away.
"I am not too fond of them myself." said Mike agreeably.
They pulled into a nice neighborhood, pausing at a gate where Tiffany spoke briefly with a guard inside a small glass windowed hut. As they drove past the enormous houses sitting on acre-sized lots with sophisticated landscaping Mike was wondering which one was his. Pulling down one street he noticed a young woman pushing a baby carriage down the sidewalk. The carriage looked empty and behind her, dragging on the ground was a lifeless baby. It was attached to her with a pallid umbilical cord that wound its way up one of her legs. Every step she took dragged the lifeless child another pace along the ground. Seeing Mike she smiled and waved vigorously, calling out his name.
Tiffany gave a half-hearted wave back and continued on, "You didn't want to stop and chat did you?"
"No, no I didn't." Mike said.
Pulling the car into a wide three-vehicle driveway Tiffany paused to let the garage door pull open. There was a blue sedan parked in front of the house on the street, and as Mike was struggling to get out of the car a black-haired Hispanic woman came up the driveway to assist them.
"Mister and Missus Keller? Let me help you. I am Rebecca Morales, the nurse from Home Care. I thought I would come by today and help get you settled in." Rebecca said.
"Oh, that is nice of you! Call me Tiffany, and the hurt guy is Mike."
They pulled Mike free of the car and Rebecca said, "Thanks Tiffany. Mike how does it feel to be home? Any pain from the trip?"
Mike thought about the gnome and dead baby as he looked into Rebecca’s brown eyes, "No, no
pain. It feels great to be here, I expect to be up and about in no time."
"Are you really feeling okay, hon?" asked Tiffany.
"Sure. I feel great."
"Want to do a little light work then? Nothing physical, but I have tons of paperwork to fill out and fax to the insurance companies and you would not believe the number of checks you need to sign."
"Well I feel good enough to sign checks."
"Good enough, I think we need to get a different car to replace yours, so we have to talk about that too."
The women got Mike into his house and situated on a black leather couch with the television on. Mike flipped to the news and there was a report of some problems in China, some sort of riots and government cover-up.
Outside the woman with the carriage started past Mike's house, the baby pulled behind her with every agonizing step. Tiffany and Rebecca went out to see her. They peered into the baby carriage and were in an animated conversation out on the front sidewalk for about five minutes while the news droned on. Mike screwed his eyes shut and opened them again several times, but the baby never disappeared.
The two women came in and Rebecca brought Mike to the bathroom and briefed him on the medications he needed to take. For the most part the pills were for pain He had one pill he was to take every six hours or as close to it as possible and another he was to take if he started feeling pain, he could even take it with the first pill if he had to.
Rebecca and Mike hobbled into the dining room where Tiffany had a table full of checks for Mike to sign. Mike started counting them only to be interrupted by Tiffany, "There are twenty three. Incredible, huh? If you had died I could sign them, but as you lived, they all came in your name. I almost tried to get power of attorney so I could deal with them, but we hadn't run out of savings, and your disability checks were direct deposited, so that kept us floating."
About twelve of the checks were from some supplemental disability insurance Mike had. Then there were a bunch from the car insurance company and more from various other insurers. "What a mess! What if I had stayed in a coma longer? Then what would you have done? Geez, they say our medical care isn't messed up." Mike signed and handed the last one over to Tiffany who put everything into her purse.
"I am going to pop over to the bank and get these deposited. When I get back we'll have lunch and fire up the computer to look at cars. Oh, and here." she handed him a wrapped box.
"What's this?"
"A surprise. Nothing cool, but it’s needed, so open it already."
He unwrapped the gift to reveal a box. It said 'Blackberry' on the front and it was indeed the latest model. The box was opened and Tiffany explained that she already charged it up and had the plan turned on. "Your old one didn't make it, hon. They couldn't recover anything out of it either. I guess fire destroys even little computer chips. I had them send me the best one they had as a replacement, and I programmed every number and email address I could think of into it." She smiled and looked pleased with herself.
"Wow! Thanks, Tiff! This is great! I better look over the manual and put it through its paces."
Tiffany left, leaving Rebecca and him alone in the dining room.
"Do you want to head back to the couch? Or to bed? We should get your leg up."
"Oh the couch would be fine. Were you going to stay too? I mean, are you on the clock today already?"
"Yes, I was going to stay, but only for a couple hours today, and yes I am billing these hours, so I will get paid for them."
After settling him on the couch and propping his foot up on top of a couple of pillows, Mike asked, "Remember that woman you and Tiffany were talking to?"
"Yes."
"I can't remember her name."
"Jessica. Tiffany introduced us. She is your neighbor on the north side. Your memory might be a little sporadic for a while yet, don't worry about it."
"Oh. How was her baby?"
"Baby? What baby?"
"I thought she was pushing a baby."
"Oh no, that was a bike, I don't think she has any kids."
"Oh."
"Mike, did you see a baby?"
"Well, yeah it looked like a baby carriage. Does my medicine make me delusional?"
"It’s an opioid. Your dosage should relieve pain, not cause you to see things. You are not a recreational user. Have you been seeing things?"
Mike's only answer was a brief nod.
"What else have you seen?"
"People with wolf heads, people who look like zombies, a gnome, like a garden gnome, only, you know walking around."
"Did you tell your doctor?"
"I don't think so."
"How long has this been happening?"
"Since I could remember waking up."
"Okay, it’s good that you told me. Medicine is a both an art and a science. Some people, a small part of the population, react differently to any available drug. You must just be part of that unique crowd. I am going to put a call into your doctor at the hospital, if it is okay with you?"
"Yeah, sure. I feel relieved to tell someone. The...visions, they are pretty morbid sometimes."
"Well, you just ignore anything that seems out of place. No doubt your brush with death is slanting your hallucinations down morbid paths. Let me call the doctor and we'll see what we can do."
While Rebecca was busy trying to get in touch with a doctor at the hospital, Mike started tinkering with his Blackberry. He had three hundred twenty seven text messages to read, over a thousand emails, and his voice mail had sent him an alert that it was full and needed to be cleaned out. He opened a few text messages to start and after reading a dozen, realized he had no idea what any of these people were talking about. In fact he only recognized two names in all of the messages he had received.
Calling his voice mail he was prompted to enter a pin number, which he did without thinking, amazed because he could not remember what he had just entered. The first message he got was one telling him his voice mail was full, then a second stating he could add more memory to his digital voice mail account and listing the costs to do so. Finally he was given a tally of the messages he had in his account that were new. There were over two hundred of them. Thinking he must be a pretty popular guy, he started in on the oldest one and moved forward, deleting any that seemed purely personal and archiving those that seemed to be related to business. He spent a half an hour at the task, which, to his surprise cleared up almost half of the messages, before Rebecca approached him, her ear still glued to her phone.
"Mike, the doctor wants to know how often the hallucinations occur. Do you constantly see them or is it once a day or less often?"
"Ah hourly. Some of them persist, like don't go away at all, does that count?"
She nodded and turned away from him, stepping into the dining room.
‘She thinks she was interrupting me on the phone.’ Mike realized, pulling his phone away from his head to look at it. ‘Well I guess I am.’
By the time Tiffany returned, his voice mail was cleared up so he could start receiving messages again. He had started browsing the emails, not looking for anything in particular, but deleting all the spam he could find.
Tiffany breezed in and was stopped in the dining room by Rebecca. They spoke in low voices just out of Mike's sight. Then the women came in and looked at Mike.
"What?"
"Oh, hon, why didn't you tell me you were having problems with your medicine?" said Tiffany
"I wasn't sure if it was just me or not. I didn't want to worry you. It wasn't until I started talking to Rebecca that I figured out something might be wrong."
"Well, you will be okay. Just tell me if you see or hear anything weird and I will tell you what is really there okay? Rebecca said the doctors are talking over alternative pain medicine; they may have something that works better for you."
"The doctor said to adjust your pills down for the time being. I gave your wife the instructions on what to do, we are going to try going down to half a
pill every six hours. You still need to take the others as needed, but save them for when you really need them, and do not hesitate to call the hospital if things get really bad." said Rebecca.
"Okay, I won't." Mike raised his Blackberry. "I'll have this to call you with."
"Fair enough. Mike, I will be back in the morning, first thing, but before I go let’s get you into the den, and make sure you will have everything you need there." said Rebecca.
The women steadied Mike on either side and helped him limp into the den, which Tiffany had been working on in preparation of Mike's homecoming. She had known there would be no way for him to climb the stairs and sleep in the master bedroom at least not for another three weeks until the second cast was due to come off. Mike didn't recognize the den. He couldn't tell what had been changed, but could tell by looking at Tiffany's face that she was expecting him to notice the improvements, so he smiled and said, "It looks awesome! You did a good job!"
"I bought the TV and had the guys from the store mount it for me, then the cable guys came out and hooked it up. I wasn't sure how much time you would be in here so I wanted you to have a TV at least. I figured the mini fridge would be easier for you to get to than the kitchen and I just bought a bunch of random books, classics mostly for you to read. Do you really like it?"
"It’s great Tif! Really great. Is the bed still the same?"
She laughed, "Yeah, no improvements there, but I had Jim install two safety bars in the bathroom. Wanna see?"
Mike went over to the bathroom with the aid of Rebecca and flipped on the light. There was a safety bar by the toilet and another in the tiled shower area. He nodded his approval and then stepped over to the bed and sat down.
Rebecca turned towards him and said, "Mike, for the first few days the doctor feels you shouldn't be getting up or going anywhere on your own. So unless Tiffany or I are here to help you, yell out for us. Next Monday I will be bringing some crutches, and a couple weeks after that you should be out of the cast and graduate to a cane, if all goes well."
Mike nodded and said, "Right, I won't go anywhere without one of you by my side. I can't wait for the crutches, though. It will be nice to move around on my own again."