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One night, Helen lay awake in bed,
rubbing her belly. Her period had arrived two weeks late, which was nothing
new, but her cramps ripped through her whole pelvis. It was as though there
were a twenty pound weight pulling on her uterus, and a squeezing pain that
radiated through her hips and legs. She thought about taking something for the
pain, but doubted that ibuprofen would dull the pain enough to let her sleep.
So she lay in bed, looking up at the glow in the dark stars her father had
stuck on the ceiling when she was five. There were a few sets arranged like
actual constellations, like the Big Dipper, but most of them were placed in her
father’s attempts at animal shapes. The x-shape was supposed to be a butterfly,
and the straight line of stars with a sideways v at the end was a fish. She remembered him picking her up and lifting
her up so she could stick the last ten on the ceiling herself, and sighed.
Since
she was eleven or twelve, she moved further and further away from him, eager to
prove that she was a woman, not the little girl who used to always be just
footsteps away from her daddy. But after Christmas Eve, when her father was too
sick to get out of bed, she began to regret pushing him away. On nights like
this, when she lay awake, consumed by the pain, she wished she could go back to
being five and hide away in her father’s room. At her age, though, she just had
the faint memory of resting her head on his chest, feeling it rise and fall
under her cheek until she would fall asleep.
When
her cramps started to subside, she edged out of bed, hoping to grab some
ibuprofen from the bathroom medicine cabinet before the pain grounded her
again. The bathroom door was closed, but the light was on inside, so she
knocked.
“Dad?”
There
was no response, but Helen heard him moaning and throwing up. “Shit.” As if on
cue, her cramps returned. She knocked on the door again. “Dad, are you okay?”
Still
no answer. She put her ear to the door and heard the toilet seat being flipped
down. A minute or so later, she heard a lot of muffled splashing, and then a
loud crash. Something big hit the floor. Her forehead beaded with sweat,
dreading the worst. She got down on the floor and tried to peer through the
crack between the door and the floor. There was something blocking some of the
light from coming through the crack. It had to be him.
“I’M
GOING IN!” she shouted through the door, waiting for a response.
It
took seconds for her to pick the lock with a penny. When she opened the door,
she jumped back.
Though
she had sat in on all of her father’s doctor’s appointments since the
diagnosis, and stayed with him at Westwood, she had always hidden behind a
curtain when he had to take his clothes off or have particularly invasive
tests. The privacy curtains were one of the few dividers left in their
relationship. It was difficult to pretend the boundaries they kept for most of
her life were still in place when she had slept in his hospital room, wiped
sweat and vomit from his face, and kept track of his food and medications for
him for over a year.
Now,
she was leaning on the doorframe, frightened for her father’s life but still
embarrassed to find him with his boxers around his ankles. There was a puddle
of brown and red fluid on the floor beneath him. She threw a towel over his
hips, but still felt vaguely guilty for seeing him so compromised, and started
apologizing. He was still breathing faintly, but didn’t stir when she grabbed
his shoulder and shouted at him to wake up. The whole bathroom stunk with stale
vomit and shit; the smell felt like a thick cloud that flew in her face. She
felt herself start to gag, and ran into the kitchen, ripping her cell phone
from the charger cord. After she called 911, she went back into the bathroom,
called Dr. Kutzner and told him what happened.
After
giving him the basics, she paused to let him talk.
“You
called 911?”
“Yeah,
but they won’t be here for another ten minutes!”
“Okay.
Okay. I need you to calm down. Is he breathing?”
“Yes,
but –”
“Helen,
turn him on his side and open his mouth so he doesn’t choke.”
With
her father unconscious, she had to grasp his shoulder and the middle of his
back and roll him onto his side. It was more like pushing a heavy piece of
furniture than Dr. Kutzner made it sound. She readjusted the towel as he threw
up on her leg, twice. She sighed, wondering how much of this ordeal he would
remember, if he survived it.
“The ambulance is here. I’ll call tomorrow.”
Donna
had been in the ED waiting room with her daughter Ashley when she saw the
stretcher rush by, with Helen running ahead of the EMTs. There appeared to be
dried blood and vomit all over her pajama pants. She had her hand on her
stomach, but it was clear to Donna that she was there to watch over her dad.
According to many regulars at Pete’s diner, the only time Helen had been
treated at Westwood was when she fainted after she had lost thirty pounds.
“Mom,
what’s that smell?” Ashley whispered, pinching her nose.
“Honey,
that man is very sick. You know what you’re smelling.”
“Wait,
that was Leni’s dad!” Ashley exclaimed. “I thought he was getting better.”
“I
know, baby.” Reuben’s leukemia was practically common knowledge in Pleasant Valley.
For Christmas, Pete had organized a benefit for Reuben, to help pay off his
insurance and home bills, and also a smaller fund to give Helen a new dress for
her senior prom. “I did too.”
Ashley
ended up in the bed next to Reuben. Donna hated that Westwood still only separated
the ER beds with curtains. The only private rooms were the trauma rooms, which
they usually reserved for people who had been in car crashes or shootings.
Donna knew it was dangerous to put an immune-compromised cancer patient with
severe diarrhea so close to other patients, but Westwood had trouble raising
money for the ER. Most people who donated money to the hospital were interested
in donating to the pediatric and oncology wards.
Donna
could hear Helen’s voice interspersed between the two nurses trying to keep her
father hydrated and clean and the panicky ER intern, who had apparently never
seen severe C. Difficile. The official
diagnosis hadn’t come yet, but that’s what Donna supposed it was. She first saw
it when she had a clinical rotation in a nursing home. The spores had lingered
on a single bedrail for days, infecting ten patients and a nurse who was taking
antibiotics for a bladder infection. From what Donna remembered, it was a
messy, painful illness. Most of the people who had it recovered after three
days of IV antibiotics and fluids, but one man had a fever of 104 and fell,
killing him. She imagined Reuben got it because of his chemo regimen. One of
the common effects of chemo was a dramatic reduction in white blood cells.
While there were many things patients could do to insulate themselves from
pathogens, from avoiding undercooked food to having relatives do housecleaning,
it was impossible to keep out everything.
Behind
the curtain, the steady beep of Reuben’s heart and blood pressure monitors sped
up, setting off a series of alarms. Donna paused and turned around
instinctively.
“What’s
going on?!” Helen shrieked over the alarm.
“Step
outside, miss,” the intern ordered.
“His
pressure’s 80 over 50!” one of the nurses shouted.
“No,”
Helen said.
“Someone
get that girl out of here.”
“I
need you to leave right now,” the intern
barked.
“Not
before you tell me what’s going on.” Helen stomped her foot and pushed her way
back behind the curtain. Her father had nasal oxygen and a fast IV drip,
alongside a mess of monitor leads. The color in his face had faded to a grayish
pallor, even though his heart was racing. She put her hand to his neck, and
only felt a faint stir against her fingertips. Her body started to shake. She
had never seen anyone this sick, and the alarms started beeping again.
“CODE
GREY!” the intern shouted out.
At
Westwood, Code Grey was the code for a security emergency, but Helen thought it
was a medical code, and reached for her father’s hand.
Donna
held Ashley’s hand while her arm was set and cast, but kept one ear angled
toward Helen. No one was there to hold her hand as she asked the doctor and
nurses to explain what they were doing. The girl couldn’t get an answer because
of how quickly they were working. Ashley squeezed her hand tighter.
“Mom?”
she asked. “What’s wrong?”
Donna
attempted a smile. “I’m just glad I can be here for you, Ashley.”
They
heard a scream on the other side of the curtain. Donna clutched her chest. It
was Helen. Poor girl. The smell that followed her father into Westwood cast a
deathly wave over them. Donna saw Ashley cover her mouth and gag. Helen started
screaming at the intern, demanding that she stay with her father, and the
intern kept shouting out Code Grey. Donna covered Ashley’s ears and told her
not to worry.
The
security officer who responded to the call had thought he had been called in to
break up a fight or to restrain a violent patient. It was not unusual for him
to be called to the ED to help hold someone down long enough for the nurses to
secure their wrists and ankles in restraints. He had been told that there was
an aggressive woman at Bed 5 who was badgering a doctor and thought to be
violent. What he saw was a teenage girl clutching her father’s white and blue
hand, sobbing, and begging for someone to tell her if he was dying. She put her
head to his chest and started mumbling something about stars.
In
between giving verbal medication orders, a short male doctor in a rumpled lab
coat would turn his head over his shoulder and tell the girl her father had C.
Diff and that he would go to the ICU if his
blood pressure stabilized.
“IF?”
she shrieked. She drew in a sharp breath and then another. And another, and another,
without pausing to exhale. “What do you mean, ‘if’?”
“I
can’t promise you anything,” the intern shrugged. “But if you give us some
space we can do our jobs right. Say goodbye and go with the security officer.”
She
couldn’t bring herself to say goodbye. Not even bye. It would have felt like
she was saying goodbye forever. Maybe she was. He had been silent from the time
he fell on the bathroom floor. The last thing she said to him before that was
“good night.” Thinking of that brought a tight pain to her chest. She didn’t
want there to be a last word. Standing by his bedside, desperately hoping even
for him to open his eyes, she had never felt so alone.
“Daddy,”
she choked. “Wake up. Please.”
His
hand twitched. The doctor told Helen it was a reflex, but she knew he had heard
her.
When
Helen was lead away by the officer, she started to quiet down, but she was
still shaking all over. Donna walked over to her and asked the security officer
to let her stay with her. He shook his head gravely.
“I’m
sorry ma’am, but I can’t let her stay here,” he explained.
Donna
used the age difference between her and the security officer to her advantage,
and gave him a disappointed frown. It was the same one she used on Ashley when
she came back from a party smelling like vodka, and it shamed him into
loosening his grip on Helen’s arm.
“They
want to put him in the ICU,” Helen whimpered. “They wouldn’t tell me why.”
Donna
nodded. “I’m so sorry, Helen. They should have told you why.”
“The
doctor said something about Diff.”
“C.
Difficile. It’s a bacterial infection. It’s
usually not this bad.”
“I
tried to keep him safe, but—”
“This
isn’t your fault, honey.”
“I
couldn’t do it.”
Donna
looked over Helen. She had started to clutch her stomach and looked pale. There
was a new red spot on the back of her pajama pants. “Helen, look at me. Tell me
about the blood. Are you feeling nauseous or feverish?”
“I’m not sick. My period started. I’ll
get something later.”
“I’ll
get you a pad. I’m sure the girls upstairs can get you some clean clothes.”
***
A
few hours later, Reuben was cleared to go upstairs to the ICU, and Helen
followed a few feet behind him. Donna had left to take Ashley home, but gave
Helen her cell phone number first, in case she wanted to talk to someone.
The
ICU nurses kept giving her father IV fluids and electrolytes, and he slowly
rose back into consciousness. They told Helen that when he woke up the last
thing he remembered was walking into the bathroom feeling nauseous. She exhaled
with relief, and asked when she could see him. Looking at her clothes and
seeing her gripping her belly, they first whisked her away and took her vitals.
After deciding that she didn’t have C. Diff,
they offered her a packet of ibuprofen tablets for her cramps and a clean set
of scrubs, adding that her father’s insurance would be billed eight dollars for
the ibuprofen.
“Can
I get rid of these?” she asked, pointing to her pajamas.
They
enthusiastically nodded yes, and led her to the patient shower.
Helen
threw her pajamas into a hazardous waste bin. She showered for an hour, scrubbing
her body until it was pink all over. She changed into a set of blue scrubs, and
curled up in the family lounge of the ICU to go to sleep. Her belly still
bothered her, but she was just tired enough that once she curled her legs into
her stomach, she fell asleep. It was the deep, dreamless sleep that only comes
with complete exhaustion or heavy medication. When she woke up, one of the
residents was sprawled out on the couch across from her, snoring. It was nine
in the morning, but she still felt like it was the middle of the night. She
bummed another pad and more ibuprofen off the nurses, and forced herself to
walk around a bit to get her thoughts straightened out. Before she could visit
her father, she had to wash her hands, put on a yellow paper gown, cover her
shoes with paper booties, and wear gloves and a mask. Glancing at her reflection
in the window, she thought of the men in white suits who took away E.T. She
could only see her eyes. She asked why all this was necessary, and her father’s
nurse reminded her that Westwood was trying to reduce the incidence of C.
Diff across the hospital.
She
sniffed her scrubs before she went inside. Her skin smelled like Dial soap. It
was sharp, almost like men’s soap. She ran it through her hair in the shower
the night before, just in case, but it didn’t feel like she had done enough to
get herself clean.
Reuben
woke up when she cracked open the door. His nurse was setting up another infusion
and explained that he would need intensive fluid replacement and antibiotics
for at least three days. The lab confirmed Donna’s initial suspicion of C.
Diff.
“But
he’ll be okay?” Helen asked.
“His
chances are fine. Dr. Kutzner is going to hold off on the chemo until this is
out of his system. He’s doing much better than last night.”
“Okay.”
Reuben
looked over Helen’s gown and mask. “What’s with this?”
“Special
precautions.”
Her
father yawned deeply. “Sorry. I’ve been getting up every few hours to… you
know, and they want to check my blood pressure and temperature every hour.”
She
rubbed his shoulder. “I know, Dad. I’m just so happy you’re okay.”
Reuben
was confused about why his daughter suddenly threw her arms around his neck and
started crying, when she said she was happy. Sometimes he heard her crying at
night, when she was trying to fall asleep, and tried asking her the next
morning if she was okay. She would always say she was fine, or that she would
be, but then she would poke at her eggs and toast for a while, her eyes
downcast. He wondered if it had something to do with Sam; he hadn’t been back
to the house since Helen told him off.
“Leni?”
“I
didn’t think you were gonna wake up.”
He
remembered feeling really sick the night before, and waking up in a hospital
bed, but he had been hospitalized enough times for infections that he assumed
he was just admitted to the hospital because he was a cancer patient. Even when
he had something that didn’t make him feel that sick, Dr. Kutzner would insist
that he have IV antibiotics and be kept in private rooms to keep him from
catching other patients’ illnesses. He thought that maybe Helen heard him throwing
up, and called Dr. Kutzner, and he told her to call an ambulance because it was
so late at night. But from the way Helen was being so clingy, he began to think
that maybe he had gotten close to dying. He thought someone told him he was in
the ICU.
“Are
you gonna stay here all day?”
“Yeah.”
“You
shouldn’t. They’re taking me down for a CT scan soon.”
“I
can wait.”
“Go
downstairs sweet pea. Get something to eat.”
Helen
shook her head. “I’m fine. The nurses gave me some crackers.”
“I’m
sorry you had to see me like this.”
“Stop…
I’m so happy you’re awake.”
“Sweet
pea, what’s wrong?” He nuzzled her forehead. That used to calm her down when
she was restless. But she was inconsolable.
Helen
was too tired to muffle her sobbing. Her mind was still stuck on the night
before. When she forced herself to sleep, she still wasn’t sure that he would
survive. In the shower, she saw a series of snapshots from their life,
cataloging the pitch of his laugh, the soft, tender way he talked about her
mother, and the warmth of his hand, in case she never had them again. At the
same time, she tried to imagine herself getting older with him still there. She
wanted to have him around for her graduations and to see her get married and
have children, but that night she would have settled for another year, even
another day.
“Was
I really that sick?” he asked.
She
started to step back. “I need a minute.”
It
wasn’t until later that day, when Helen went home to get some of her clean
clothes, that Reuben was able to fill in what happened the night before. His
day nurse told him that Helen found him in the bathroom, unconscious, and
called 911. In the ED, his blood pressure started dropping so low that his
heart almost stopped, but he started to stabilize as he got more fluids and
medicines. She said that the night nurses almost thought Helen had C. Diff too because her clothes were covered in vomit and
her pants had blood stains.
“She
saved your life.”
After
his first attempt to eat solid food (green Jell-O), Reuben saw Donna in his
doorway, dressed in the same infection control gear Helen had to wear.
“Do
you work in the ICU too?” he asked.
“No,
this is my day off. I wanted to check in on Leni.”
“When
did you talk to her? I was in the ER last night and she was apparently there
the whole time.”
“I
was there with Ashley. She broke her arm, and they put her right next to you.”
“My
day nurse told me what happened to me, but all she said about Leni was that the
night nurses thought she was sick because she had throw up.”
“I
don’t know how much Leni would want you to know,” Donna hesitated. “What you
should know is that she was by your side for almost the entire night, watching
over you. But she was terrified. She didn’t know what was going on, and she
thought… well… she thought she might lose you.”
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