The Gift

After a while, I hear my mom leave and I turn and look at the ceiling for a while before falling back asleep, wondering who in the grand scheme of things I pissed off to first get cancer, and then at thirteen, suffer a stroke.

I wake up sometime in the afternoon of what I think is the next day, but I’m not sure. Looking around I see someone sitting in the chair next to me and it takes a minute to recognize who it is.

I’ve never seen Anna in normal clothes, nor with her hair out of its braid.

“Hello,” I mumble, and it comes out in a reasonable facsimile of what it should be.

She wasn’t watching me, so I startled her a bit, and she looks at me. “You’re awake,” she says, and I nod. “About time, you had me worried sick.”

You and me both. “I… live fer’ver” I manage.

“I believe it,” she says, taking my hand and squeezing it.

“Work?” I ask. It seems small words spoken slowly manage to come out reasonably clear.

Anna shakes her head. “My day off. Now don’t go getting a big ego, I didn’t come in just for you. I had other business here. A certain other young lady,” she says with a smile, then winks at me.

“How. Long. Out?”

“Three days now. You gave us quite a scare. There are several people who want to see you when you’re feeling up to it. We’ve kept them away for now so you could rest. Doctor’s orders.”

“T’anks.”

“Do you need anything?”

I contemplate the question. To live? To grow old? To… to what? I shake my head no.

“Okay, well I’ll let you rest and come back later. That okay with you?”

“Yeah. P’eas,” I say.

Anna gets up and kisses my forehead before leaving.

I raise myself into a sitting position and decide to take inventory again.

Right hand and foot are good. I think I’m able to move my left fingers and toes, but I can’t seem to move my arm or leg. Vision seems to be okay, but my eyelid seems to be defective. Moving my right arm still hurts like hell and my IV is back.

I’m now a wire squid due to a four lead EKG to monitor my heart. A glance at the monitor tells me that one finger on my left hand has the pulse-ox monitor on it since it’s not on my right hand.

I realize that if what Anna said was true and I’ve been in bed for three days with an IV, then I haven’t peed. And since my bed isn’t soaking… My working hand goes lower, and I almost scream. I really want to put it won’t do any good. They had put in a catheter.

I’m thankful I wasn’t conscious when they put it in. I pray that I can be unconscious when they take it out.

In a bad mood now, I turn on the TV and try to find something to take my mind off of this sucky situation, but I don’t find anything but stupid talk shows. I put it on one of the less annoying ones and simply zone out.

Doing a good job at tuning out just about everything, I think I must have jumped about three feet when Holly says my name.

The heart monitor alarm goes off, making Holly jump too. My hand goes to my chest and I take deep breaths, trying to calm myself.

Looking at Holly, I see she is caught between freaking out thinking I’m having a heart attack and being paralyzed with fear.

I hold my hand out to her as the heart monitor goes quiet now that my heart isn’t going over a hundred and twenty.

“Startled me,” I slur.

“You and me both. I’m sooooo sorry.”

“Don’t be. Zon’d out.”

“I had to sneak in. They won’t let anyone come in to visit you. So, if anyone asks, I bought you some magazines and your book. I’m here on official business and don’t know any better.”

“’K.”

Holly sits down in the chair and takes hold of my hand. “How ya doing? She asks.

“Crappy. Tubes. Wires. Cancer. Now stroke. Feel like… Ol’ lady. Plus, stupid cath.”

Holly laughs at that. “No offense but you look like hell,” she tells me, and I snort.

“Love you too.”

“Oh, I’m sorry Mandy. I wish there was something I could do.”

“Now that you mention it,” someone says from behind Holly making us both jump. “She can… although she’s not supposed to be here.”

We both look and see Jason, who’s staring daggers at Holly who’s weakly holding up magazines. He glances at me and all I can think of to do is hold up my hand which Holly has taken ahold of.

His face softens at my gesture. Still frowning he says, “Except for a few minutes ago, your heart has been fine, so the doc d/c’d the monitor.”

He walks over to the monitor and turns it off, then unwraps the pulse-ox lead from my finger. Pulling out some alcohol pads, he hands them to Holly and says, “One of you can remove the leads and then she can help remove the sticky stuff.” He points to my chest. “That way she’s here officially. Not scaring the bejesus out of you pretending to bring magazines that you can’t even hold at the moment.”

I wonder how long he was outside of it he followed Holly into my room.

He walks back around the bed and behind Holly, who is looking at me trying not to look guilty for being caught, and winks at me.

Putting a hand on Holly’s shoulder, she jumps again, and Jason says, “Don’t stay too long. None of us wants to get in trouble. We can only cover so much.”

I see Holly relax and I do too. “Fright seems to jump start my left,” I say.

He nods. “Good. A sign that the damage wasn’t severe and may go away on its own without too much physical therapy. They will be in later by the way. In the meantime, rest.”

He turns around and leaves, closing my door to give us some privacy. I reach under my shirt and undo the two left leads but have trouble with the ones on the right.

As I grow frustrated Holly says, “Let me? I need to get the pads off and remove the adhesive anyways.”

I hate feeling helpless, but I nod. She pulls my shirt up so she sees all four leads, then un-pops the last two and coils up the wire and puts its back in the basket attached to the monitor. Slowly pulling the four sticky pads off the various points of my chest and sides, she begins to remove the gooey stuff left behind on my skin with the alcohol pads.

The process only takes a few minutes and after which, Holly pulls my shirt back down. “All done,” she announces.

I take her hand and kiss it, then say, “Thank you.”

She blushes and smiles. “You’re my first patient.”

“I’m honor’d Don’t give up your dream. You’re gon’a be good at it,” I tell her slowly, so it all comes out understandable.

She smiles and looks proud. We’re interrupted by a knock at the door.