by Kat Obie
Calling up her first aid skills that she used to teach back in college, she started to shout Corey’s name and tap his shoulder for responsiveness. There was no response, which just made her all nervous.
He could just be unconscious. He probably is still breathing and has a pulse, she thought to herself. He has to be breathing.
So the next step was to check his pulse but with his head and shoulders leaning against the boards, she couldn’t get the right angle to see things. She would have to try to move Corey and he was heavy when he was dead weight. A very solid two hundred plus pounds. Looking at the best way to get him lying flat, she opted to grab him from behind in a fireman’s drag and just pull him back. If she fell on her ass, he wouldn’t get a cracked head in the process.
Thankfully, she was able to get him to the floor without falling on her butt. She could see he was breathing as she was moving him. Then she felt for a pulse and that was there too.
“Oh, thank God.”
She then put her hands to head and tried to think of what to do next. She didn’t want to run around like a chicken cut off. She needed a plan. Thankfully Petey was in the house so she wasn’t alone.
“Alright, got to call 911 and then tell Petey.”
She ran upstairs to get her cell phone that she left up in the office. She called out and said, “Petey, we have a huge problem with Corey. Can you head down to the rink?”
She wasn’t sure if he had heard her but then she heard footsteps thud down the stairs as she dialed 911. It was seriously the most stressful phone call ever.
35
Jenna
Jenna felt so completely useless. She rode in the ambulance with Corey. She was holding his hand and rubbing his forehead but she wasn’t sure if he even knew she was there. He was completely unresponsive to anything. There was no reaction when he was moved onto the gurney and into the ambulance, and it absolutely freaked her out.
Petey was following the ambulance to the hospital, so she knew she had a way home, but she was completely freaked out for Corey. She kept trying to tell herself that the fact that he was breathing on his own and had a pulse was good.
She realized as she got to the hospital she didn’t have a list of Corey’s meds, but she did have the name of his new medicine. Hopefully everything should be in the system. At least she hoped it was. She wasn’t allowed to stay with Corey when they immediately pulled him back for treatment.
It felt like she was standing in the dust and her world was crumbling. She didn’t let herself cry but it was taking everything in her to remain strong. She wasn’t really conscious of her surroundings. It wasn’t until a warm body started to guide her to a seated position in the waiting room that she realized Petey was helping her.
“He’s going to be okay,” he said confidently. She wanted to believe him but she knew there was a strong chance that it was just lip service to comfort her.
She couldn’t help herself. “We don’t even know what happened.”
“We don’t, but you said it yourself, he’s breathing and he has a pulse. That rules out the most life-threatening situations.”
She looked up at Petey. She knew he was right. They had to focus on how he had most of the important life signs even if he was unconscious. She didn’t have to act as his lungs or as his heart. “I know but I can’t lose him yet.”
“You can’t think that way. You got to stay calm.”
She nodded her head knowing that he was right. She was glad to have someone there with her. Then she realized the dumbest thing but it felt so important. “Wait, what happened to his skates? Did we bring him a pair of shoes?”
“I took the skates off. They’re at the house. I didn’t think to grab his Jordans. On the plus side, he has socks on.”
“Wait, why wouldn’t he have socks on?” asked Jenna, almost thrown off by the whole thing. He was skating, so wouldn’t his feet get cold if he didn’t have socks on?
Petey just smiled. “Not all guys skate with their socks on and he was one who didn’t' used to use socks. The skates are just too tight to allow it.”
“Ew.”
Petey then laughed. “Oh, yeah. Crestie doesn’t wear socks and with the way he sweats, it’s super gross. Worst part of getting dressed next to a goalie.”
Jenna giggled slightly. She was grateful to be distracted from thinking about Corey’s health. She just wanted to know what was going on.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I told Lager and Scotty about the situation. They’re coming.”
“Oh, good. I didn’t even think to call them. I could have Alice swing by the house to grab a pair of shoes. Wait, she doesn’t have a key to the place.”
“Don’t worry about the shoes right now. We will have time to get them. Stay calm. He’s going to be okay.”
“I should have checked in on him,” she said quietly. She was starting to blame herself for getting into the flow and losing herself in her work. He could have been down there all day. She was trying to think back if there were any other signs.
“It’s not your fault,” said Petey. “I should have looked harder too. I should have known he was down at the rink, but instead I went up to my room to look at apartment listings so I wouldn’t be in the way.”
She didn’t feel any better. She was fretting and didn’t realize she said out loud, “Did he know he was getting sick?”
Petey was looking at her in confusion. But while the question was written all over his face, he couldn’t ask it. They were interrupted by the arrival of Lager, Alice and Scotty in the waiting room. Alice immediately came up to her and said with a hug, “I’m so sorry. What happened?”
Jenna shook her head. “I don’t know. He seemed to be fine this morning. Hell, he was in a good mood minus that godforsaken cough he’d been fighting all week. Doc prescribed him a new medication that I picked up for him today. He took the medicine. I was working all day. I went to check on Corey and he wasn’t in bed. I was glad thinking he was feeling good and was up and about. Petey mentioned that he hadn’t seen Corey, so I went to find him. He was at the edge of the rink unconscious.”
“Oh, my God. That’s crazy,” Alice said with another hug.
“He’s strong,” said Scotty. “Don’t worry.”
“Easy for you to say,” said Jenna as she tried to keep calm, but Corey had been so still and lifeless in the ambulance. It didn’t sit right.
Then Lager scooped her up into a tight hug. “Really. He’s a tough kid and he loves you too much. He wouldn’t just give up.”
“Shouldn’t I be giving you a hug?” asked Jenna. She didn’t know a better way to bring up the bomb that Petey dropped the night before. Then again, most of the time, guys didn’t show their emotions, so she doubted that he would want to talk about it.
“It was coming. Although I still want to kill Toli.”
Scotty was quick to say, “Don’t kill him until the off-season. He is a teammate for now.”
“I told you I would wait until the off-season or when he’s off the team, whatever happens first. I won’t jeopardize the team. I make no promises about trying to ram him into the boards at every opportunity.”
Petey jumped in and said, “I think that’s all of us. It’s just a damn shame that Corey won’t be able to help to do it for a bit.”
Jenna was glad that Petey was talking about how Corey was still there and how he would be slamming Toli into the boards on Lager’s behalf. Corey’s big body would be so effective at doing a subtle, but constant retaliation on the cheating teammate. Plus talking about that somehow took some of the stress off the situation of waiting to see what was going on with Corey.
Corey
Things were really hazy. Not the woozy kind of hazy that forced him off the ice to rest. Everything was disconnected and fuzzy. He had no clue what was going on.
After what felt like an eternity, he was able to get a little bit of focus with his vision. But what he saw wasn’t a pretty sight. He knew shit got real. He saw his
body on a hospital bed and got a lot of work done by doctors. There were doctors everywhere doing things that he didn't understand but he saw his body was connected with tubes, IVs and sensors.
“What the hell? How am I floating?”
That’s when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Was it his shoulder if he wasn’t in his body? He wasn’t sure but he turned around and saw both a ton of dark ass mist and what could only be best described as a tunnel. There was a person floating to the tunnel that he could vaguely recognize but couldn’t place.
“You are at a crossroads,” the guy floating next to him said.
“What? Who are you?” asked Corey.
Initially, the figure looked to be Corey’s age. When the person all of a sudden changed in form and grew much older, Corey instantly recognized him. It was Grandpa Charlie. It was his favorite grandpa who died from cancer when he was a kid.
“Don’t tell me you don’t recognize me.”
“I do now. But back to the original questions, what’s going on and how am I out of my body?”
Grandpa Charlie turned back to the younger form but with a modern twist on hair style that almost mimicked his own when he still had hair. “You are a crossroads, kiddo.”
He pushed his hands through his hair, something he didn’t realize he did until he was bald and ended up pushing the beanie off his head. Then he realized that in this dream or version of himself, whatever it was, he had his hair again. It felt right to push something back.
“So I’m dying.”
“Potentially.”
“What the hell happened? I don’t remember much. I was taking a skate and then I got super woozy.”
“Bad medication mix,” said his grandpa. “The cough medicine you took doesn’t play well with everything else you’re taking.”
Corey shook his head in disbelief. Of course it was a drug interaction. He feared something like that would happen, but he always thought about overdose. Not a bad cocktail that was prescribed to him. He could see things weren’t great. But he was hoping he was dreaming and just purely delusional.
“So what do I do?”
“You make a choice.” He looked at his grandpa in disbelief. Grandpa Charlie said bluntly, “You weren’t this dense when you were a kid. Did you take too many pucks to the head?”
“No. Just this is all fucking weird. While I understand I have to make a choice, it just seems so crazy. You’re telling me that I get to decide to go back to life or what, die and go to heaven with you?”
“There we go. You’re catching on. So what do you decide?”
“Easy. Life. While things are shitty with the cancer, I still have unfinished business with Jenna and hockey. Sorry, Grandpa. I’m not going to let cancer beat me and I’m for sure not letting a cough take me out.”
“That’s my boy,” young Grandpa Charlie said as he clapped him on his shoulder. “You are catching on. But are you sure?”
“Between dying now and seeing where things go with the best person I’ve had in my life, I would choose Jenna any given day.”
“Good choice,” Grandpa said clearly. Then things started to shift completely for Corey. He felt a pull back toward his body, all the while there was a huge gust of wind pulling from the tunnel. Grandpa Charlie’s voice got all distorted by the vortexes surrounding his grandpa as he shouted, “I would have kicked your ass if you made any other decision.”
Then everything got all dark again but he wasn’t fully there yet. He was trying to get his thoughts together, let alone control over his body. It was like he was dropped in a game and lost consciousness. Time melted a little bit.
He started to feel something. It was in two spots. He tried to focus on the sensation and placed it to his head and his right hand. Everything felt so dark and he knew he couldn’t move if he tried. But he kept focusing on the sensations because he knew that this was his connection to the material world. He wasn’t quite there yet but he was getting closer. One thing was for sure: he didn’t want to die and he didn’t want to hang out with Grandpa Charlie anymore. He wanted to hang out with Jenna.
He heard the faintest murmur from the sweetest voice that he knew. “Come on, Cor. Fight for it, babe.”
He tried to break out of his own body but he couldn’t. On the plus side, Jenna’s voice was getting a little stronger and a lot clearer. “I love you.”
He kept trying to squeeze her hand back, open his eyes, or respond to her. It seemed like it was taking a miracle to get it farther than being caught in a space where he could hear Jenna but couldn’t do dick. It was frustrating to be disconnected from the one he wanted. He kept trying to focus on Jenna. She was his anchor, his love. He knew that he had to get back to her. It was more a matter of how, and his spiritual guide was gone. Not that Grandpa Charlie was much help.
He tried to focus on her voice and her touch, the way he would focus on carrying the puck down the line. He could feel more pain and he had the subtle feeling that he was getting there. He couldn’t hold back; he needed to fight to get to Jenna.
He wasn’t going to lose the inner war and stay disconnected from Jenna. He needed to figure out a way to keep his body alive and reacting to him. That wasn’t going to happen. He had to think about the life he wanted to have.
He just continued to fight through to feel the touches and the warmth coming from Jenna. It took forever but he was able to open up his eyes and see his love looking at him. Amazingly he didn’t want to give up, not with Jenna sitting next to him, touching him.
He then felt a tear hit his skin and it made him want to fight harder for his love. He couldn’t let her cry. That seemed to do the trick somehow; it felt like he was coming out of a damn fog. He was so damn grateful his arm responded so he reached up to wipe the tears away. “Hey, hey, don’t cry.” His voice sounded so raw and faint he could barely believe that it was his own.
“You’re okay,” she said with so much awe and joy. “I thought I lost you.”
“Yeah. I’m pretty tough to lose. I hope you don’t mind.” His voice was starting to get a little stronger but it still sounded pretty strange.
At least he got her laughing. “Of course I don’t mind. It’s been so bad for the past couple days.”
“Days? I’m sorry, beautiful.” He kept rubbing her cheek with his thumb. He was glad she stopped crying. He couldn’t believe he’d been out for days. It felt like it was only minutes.
“It’s okay. But, babe, if you get sick before your treatments end, do me a favor and talk to your oncologist for drugs, not Doc Curren. I can’t go through this again.”
“I promise, Jenna. I’m going to do my best not to get sick again. You know what, I’ll do you one better. I’m going to recover and stop putting you under so much stress.”
As much as he wanted to stay awake longer and look into Jenna’s eyes, he felt the pull of sleep. At least it felt like complete utter exhaustion taking him to sleep and not the pull he felt before he lost consciousness. He just felt bad that he couldn’t stay awake longer for Jenna.
36
Jenna
After three days of staying awake and doing a vigil at the hospital waiting for Corey to wake up, it was just a relief to know he was on the mend. The crazy thing was when he woke up, he was so focused on her. If she ever doubted his feelings, he had proved that he loved her.
She was on her way back to the hospital when her phone rang. She picked it up when she saw it was Petey on the line. “Hey, Petey.”
“How’s Cor?” he asked immediately. Jenna knew he and Alice were the two main points of contact to find out about his status. It seemed to be a tag team effort. Both of them were also coming to the hospital to stay. In a weird way, she was glad Corey woke up just prior to the road trip so Petey knew he was awake.
“I think he’s coming home today.” She smiled. She actually had a bag of clothes and shoes for him. She couldn’t wait to have him home.
“That’s good. I’m about ready to go in for a video session but I w
anted to get an update for the guys.”
Jenna just smiled as she pulled into the hospital parking lot. She said hello to the nurses at the desk as she started to head toward his room. Thankfully, he was transferred the previous day from the ICU to a regular room.
When she entered his room, he was sitting up in the bed. He immediately lit up with a huge smile and said, “Hey, beautiful.”
She walked over to him and gave him a huge hug. “Hey, Cor. I can’t believe you’re awake.”
“I wanted to see your face.”
“Liar. You didn’t even know I would be here,” she said with a laugh.
“Why would I think you wouldn’t be here?” he joked right back. “You have been sitting beside me the entire time so of course you’re coming back to me. So I wanted to be awake. Hell, I both heard and felt you there with me. Hearing you say that you loved me. You mean the world to me. More than you might ever know.”
“Awww,” she said, cursing the tears that were welling up in her eyes again. While she was hoping that Corey could hear her she had no idea he would. Her emotions were torn out when she thought that she was losing him.
Much like the day he woke up, he immediately started to thumb away any tears and said, “Hey, hey, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“It’s all good, babe.”
“Are you sure?” He was concerned. She knew a lot of guys didn’t like it when girls cried. Normally that was never an issue for her. But since the doctors said that they nearly lost him as they were trying to pump his stomach, she thought that she might actually lose him and she hadn’t had time to really process what actually happened.
She nodded as she tried to get her emotions in check since she was making him nervous when she didn’t need to. “Yup. Sometimes you make me so damn happy that I cry. Literally.”