Chapter 4
Tracey
W hen evening came, I helped the nurse change out Eleanor’s linens and prepare her for bed.
Tonight, something seemed to be off. Eleanor was more drowsy than usual.
Glancing at the nurse, I said, “I’m worried about her. Can you take her vitals before we move her?”
The nurse nodded, “Tiredness is common in patients receiving radiation treatment, but we can absolutely check her vitals.”
The nurse clipped a pulse oximeter onto her fingertip and spent a few minutes assessing her condition.
I waited for the final verdict. Once the blood pressure cuff deflated, she looked at the reading on the pulse oximeter and announced, “Everything’s looking fine.
Let’s get her cleaned up and her linen changed out. ”
When I leaned over to help pick her up, I noticed Eleanor’s skin was sallow, and her expression seemed a bit distant. “Wait! Something’s really wrong here.” I put my hand to her forehead and tried to get her to respond. “Eleanor, talk to me. Are you okay?”
The nurse leaned over for a closer look. “She looks worse just in the last couple of minutes. Mrs. Sterling, how are you feeling?”
I watched as the color drained from Eleanor’s face, and her body suddenly went rigid.
“Eleanor?” I said sharply. “Can you hear me?”
Her eyes flew open wide, startling me. She stared blankly up towards the ceiling.
“She’s not breathing,” the nurse shouted in a shrill voice before leaping into action.
She started CPR while I watched in horror. For a moment, I felt certain the sharp, precise compressions would bring her back. After a few seconds, I snapped back to reality, and I grabbed my cell phone. I tried to steady my trembling fingers while I punched in the number for emergency services.
I told them what was going on. Staring at the nurse still giving compressions, I prayed everything would be okay. We could not lose Eleanor.
“Please hurry,” I pleaded with real panic in my voice.
The dispatcher kept me on the line. “Help is on the way. Tell me one more time what happened. Talk slowly this time, so I can understand.”
Struggling to keep my voice steady, I explained it again.
“My mother-in-law has a private duty nurse. We were getting ready to change her bedclothes, and she stopped breathing. She is in her late fifties and medically fragile from three bouts of cancer. She recently had radiation treatment. The nurse is doing CPR now. Please tell the ambulance to hurry.”
Footsteps came crashing down the hall, and Bryce burst into the room. When he saw the nurse doing CPR, his eyes went wild with panic. He took a step closer to his mother. I’ve never seen Bryce so panicked.
“Mother!” he shouted. “What happened? Talk to me.” His pleading tone broke my heart.
The nurse never stopped giving compressions, but we heard the sounds of sirens in the distance.
Bryce whirled around and demanded in an accusatory voice, “What the hell did you do to my mother?”
“Nothing,” I whispered shakily. “We hadn’t gotten the chance to do anything. She just stopped breathing.”
“How did she just stop breathing? We took her to the hospital yesterday morning, and they said she was making progress towards recovery.”
Before I could answer, the nurse raised her voice. “Now’s not the time for an inquisition or bickering. Save that for later. Right now, someone needs to meet the ambulance outside and lead the paramedics up here.”
“Of course,” I said. “I’ll go down and meet them.”
Bryce barked, “No, you stay right here and don’t touch a thing.”
He went stomping down the steps, and just like that I began second guessing myself.
Minutes later, my heart hammered in my chest as I watched Bryce lead EMS into the room with their gurney in tow.
The nurse looked relieved as one of the medics took over performing chest compressions.
She stepped back and started giving them a report, “The patient’s name is Eleanor Sterling.
She’s fifty-eight years old, has had three bouts of cancer over the last five years, each treated with radiation.
She also has a history of cardiac issues.
Tonight, I took her vitals right before she collapsed and they were within normal parameters for her. I don’t know what happened.”
“We’ve got it from here. Take a breather,” the EMS worker said curtly.
The nurse looked a little shell-shocked, but backed up, clearly too worried about Eleanor to just walk away.
I stood there with Bryce at my side, struggling to understand what went wrong.
I could hear the paramedics talking to each other, but I didn’t catch all of it.
“She’s unresponsive, with an irregular pulse and unequal pupil dilation.
Starting ambu bag ventilation at twelve breaths per minute. ”
They placed monitor pads on her chest, and the machine began to show a thin green line jumping erratically across the screen.
Another paramedic started an IV and taped it down.
They started moving her from the bed to the gurney, when one of them glanced in our direction.
“We are moving out of here fast,” he said. “Clear a path and do it now.”
Bryce pulled me out of the way and gestured for the nurse to step back. They strapped her frail body into place, as one of them reached over and spoke into a device on his shoulder, “We’re seven minutes out and monitoring her closely. Rapid stroke alert on this one.”
Before I could fully get my head around what had just happened, they were wheeling her out the door. Bryce turned on the nurse. “Stay with the twins. We’re going to follow the ambulance to the hospital. Keep your phone close in case the attending physician has any questions.”
Although she wasn’t a nanny, she stammered, “Yes, sir,” as Bryce grabbed my arm and started dragging me towards the door. I tried to pry his hand off my arm. “Bryce, please, you’re hurting me.”
He stopped in our room, crammed a wad of cash into his pocket and slammed my purse against my chest. “Shut up and get your ass in the car.”
I chalked his behavior up to the stress of this extraordinary situation and rushed to the car.
We followed the ambulance to the hospital, keeping up as best we could, and arrived just in time to see the gurney being wheeled through the double doors of the ER.
Bryce parked up and we practically ran inside.
Instead of sitting, Bryce walked briskly to the reception desk and gave information on his mother.
I could tell he was worried, agitated, and desperate for his mother to be okay.
He quickly became irritated with the receptionist, and his harsh manner made her tear up a bit.
At one time I would have stepped in and tried to smooth things over, but this situation was way past managing.
Knowing that anything I did would have just pissed him off more, I just stood there, feeling a bit lost.
Unable to handle my husband being so abrasive, I turned and walked all the way to the back corner of the waiting room and dropped down into a seat.
The minute he sat down he started in on me.
“I thought you understood that we have to monitor the employees to ensure they’re following through on the job we hired them to do. ”
“I was right there at her side. I even had the nurse take Eleanor’s vitals before we moved her. She was okay one minute and then stopped breathing the next,” my tone was defensive, but I didn’t like that he was practically accusing the nurse of not doing her job properly.
“You know that doesn’t make sense, right?” Bryce countered, lowering his voice.
I hissed, “It’s exactly what happened.”
“We’ll see what the doctors have to say. If you had anything to do with my mother’s death, I’m going to go scorched earth. You need to understand that?”
I choked back my tears. “Do you have any idea how paranoid and delusional you sound right now?”
Bryce’s father arrived and my stomach dropped when he leveled a look of disappointment directly at me. His expression was grim. He raked one hand through his graying hair before he sat down.
“What the hell happened? I left my wife in your care for three damn hours and now she’s in the hospital. You even had a damn nurse in the house.”
Bryce delivered a summary of what had gone on from his slightly twisted point of view.
I quickly interjected, “We were getting ready to change her bed linen and I noticed that something was off. I told the nurse to take her vitals, and they were normal. Almost immediately her eyes flew open, and she went rigid.”
“What the hell does rigid mean, like she was having a seizure?” Richard asked.
I shook my head, “No, it was more like she was frozen in place and wasn’t breathing. The nurse immediately started CPR, and I called emergency services immediately.”
Richard didn’t seem reassured by learning the details. “You were there when this happened. Is that what I heard you say?” he asked. His voice almost sounded accusatory. His lips pressed together in a firm line when I nodded. His cold, dead-eyed stare told me that he blamed me too.
Richard’s head turned and he stared at the double doors leading out of the ER.
He zoned out, remaining silent for a long time.
When he spoke again, his voice seemed a million miles away.
“Don’t think for a damn second that you’re escaping responsibility for this either, Bryce.
When I’m gone, you’re the man of the house.
This happened on your watch. You had better hope your mother recovers. That’s all I’ve got to say.”
Bryce murmured, “Yes, sir,” so quietly that I almost didn’t hear the words.
If I’d thought Bryce was going to come to his senses, I would have been very much mistaken.