Chapter Twenty-Three #2
But apparently he hadn’t worked an actual miracle, because Alex shook their head. “No, uh, I’m still not ready for… that. But thank you. I should probably get back to school. I asked Will to borrow the truck during my spare period, but I’ve gotta get back because we’re doing exam prep in chem.”
Right—the kids had exams next week, on top of everything else going on.
“You want to wash your face first? I can find you a cloth.”
“Thanks.”
JOE HATED being sick. He hated feeling weak, he had never gotten the hang of lazing around in bed, he didn’t sleep well when he couldn’t breathe, and the feverish flop sweat? Awful.
But Joe had never been this sick. He could barely muster the energy to be miserable.
He slept a lot. Every once in a while, Austin coaxed him to eat some bread or Cup-a-Soup or down some orange juice, which burned Joe’s throat.
Joe didn’t like being looked after either, but he had the feeling he wasn’t much work at the moment because he couldn’t even do anything.
He spent the days with his eyes closed, more passed out than asleep.
He coughed up great, disgusting green globs of phlegm.
Thursday morning—was it Thursday? The days had all run together—when Austin woke him up and pulled the covers back, he hissed.
“Jesus, Joe, what the fuck?”
Joe blinked heavy eyelids and tried to breathe past the elephant sitting on his chest. “Whassamatter?” The word trailed off into a rattling cough. “Can you—help me get up?” He swung his legs over the side of the bed, but then he had to pause, because he was light-headed. “I gotta… pee.”
“I’m taking you to the hospital,” Austin said. “Your fingernails are blue.”
Slowly, Joe held his hand in front of his face. Austin was right. That probably meant something bad.
Joe didn’t want to go to the hospital, but he also didn’t want his fingertips to fall off. “Okay,” he agreed after a moment. “But can I pee first?”
Will was getting ready to head out for the day when Austin dragged Joe to the front door, and the poor kid’s eyes just about bugged out when he saw Joe’s frail shuffling walk.
“Joe?” he asked in alarm.
“We’re going to the hospital.” Will nodded frantically, and before he could offer, Austin pointed a stern finger in his face. “You are going to school. We’ll be in for a long wait, I’m sure, and there’s nothing you can do.”
“But—”
“School. I will text as soon as I know anything.”
Will reluctantly left, and Joe focused all of his attention on following Austin to his car. The ride to the emergency room passed quickly, which was probably a bad sign, because Joe was pretty sure it was a twenty-minute drive.
It seemed like another bad sign when the nurse at the front desk took one look at Joe and hustled to get him into a bed.
Joe tried to track what was happening, but it was useless. Thank God for Austin.
“Sweet thing.” Someone brushed Joe’s sweaty hair off his forehead and caressed his face. “Open your eyes for me, sweetheart,” a soft voice murmured, and Joe struggled to obey.
He squinted up at Austin, who slowly unblurred and came into view.
“There you are. The doctor has questions, and I don’t have answers. Think you can help us out?”
“Try,” Joe said, because he would. He brushed at his face with a weak arm only to find his attempts to get rid of the unpleasant tickle hampered by tubes and wires.
“Shh, stop that. No, Joe, stop. You have to leave the oxygen tube where it is. Yes, you have an oxygen canula in your nose because your levels were low—that’s why your fingers went blue.”
Joe twitched his right arm, his hand heavy and unbalanced.
“You have an IV and oxygen monitor on your hand. Stop tugging.”
“Why?” Joe croaked.
“Because,” said a new voice, which held warmth despite the clear crispness of the tone, “your lungs are failing to move oxygen through your system. The IV is helping to hydrate you for now, and soon will pump you full of antibiotics.”
Antibiotics. For a cold? “’Fection?”
“We’ve taken blood, and I’ll send you down for a chest X-ray, but I’m pretty confident both tests will say the same thing—pneumonia.”
The doctor wasn’t wrong. Within the hour, she was tutting over his chest X-ray and ordering a course of antibiotics.
“I want him to stay overnight,” she said to Austin, apparently having decided to cut Joe out. Not that Joe minded. It was a relief not to be responsible for this. “I’m not happy with his O2 levels, and I want him under supervision.”
“But he should be okay to come home in the morning,” Austin clarified.
“I’m optimistic, yes. So long as he responds to the antibiotics, the night on oxygen and fluids should be all he needs to kickstart his recovery.”
Satisfied that everything was taken care of, Joe drifted off to sleep.
He woke again to the sound of Austin’s voice. He cracked an eye open and spied him standing by Joe’s bed and gently stroking Joe’s unencumbered left hand. “… says he should be fine with antibiotics. Keeping him overnight is just a precaution. They want to make sure….”
Joe blinked, and Austin was kissing his forehead. “Sweet thing, you with me? I hate to wake you, but I don’t want to just disappear. I have to go home for the night, check on the kids. Yeah, Will too. Sleep tight and I’ll see you in the morning.”
Joe groaned, unhappy, and Austin shushed him. “They have my number just in case, but go to sleep and I’ll be back before you know it.”
He closed his eyes and tried to follow Austin’s advice, but the nurses were cruel villains conspiring against them. They woke Joe several times in the night, taking his temperature and fussing with his IV. Each time, Joe grumbled and tried to complain, but sleep took him back under too quickly.
Still, when he woke up the next morning, he felt crusty and unrested, though more clearheaded than he had in days. Not that he felt sharp, but the world didn’t have a hazy unrealistic feel.
It took him a moment to figure out why he was awake, and when he finally registered his full bladder, he wondered how he was supposed to fix that. After another few seconds, he remembered the call button beside the bed, and soon an orderly showed up to help with his issue.
As if needing Austin’s help hadn’t mortified him enough. Now he was relying on strangers.
And yet he barely had the energy to feel frustrated at his own helplessness.
He’d been awake for five whole minutes in a row, which was more than he could say for the previous day, but he still felt like garbage.
Like he could fall back asleep at any moment.
He wanted a shower and real clothes and his own bed, but he was too tired to do anything about any of it, which made him want to cry.
He definitely shouldn’t cry, though. He was having enough trouble breathing, even with the antibiotics and the oxygen cannula.
Ugh.
He’d hoped to get sprung early, but no such luck.
Fortunately Austin had the foresight to bring Joe’s phone and a charger so he could keep him apprised.
Still waiting on doc. They think after lunch.
Considering the state of the provincial health care system, Joe was surprised they weren’t shoving him out the door so they could give the bed to someone else, but maybe the doctors were all busy with actual crises and didn’t have time to decide if Joe was healthy enough to go home.
Ok, Austin wrote back. Need anything?
Aside from a new immune system and a functional set of lungs? No thx.
Lunch was a dry turkey sandwich, a banana, and a Jell-O cup, like Joe was in some kind of bad sitcom. He managed the banana and the Jell-O, but the sandwich was too dry on his throat and took too much effort to chew, so he gave up after two bites. He wasn’t that hungry anyway.
Finally, around two, the doctor from yesterday popped in.
“Ah, Mr. Romano.” She pulled the chart from the end of his bed—the one the nurses had been updating all night, waking Joe up every time—and flipped through it, then walked over to the IV pole where his oxygen monitor was and checked that too. “How are you feeling this afternoon?”
“Scale of one to ten? One.” He turned his head and coughed a little. “But yesterday was, like, minus three, so.”
“Well, the good news is your numbers are looking a lot better. Fever’s under control, oxygen levels are improving.
I’m going to write you a prescription for some antibiotics and oxygen for home use, but you can go home.
If you get worse again, though, you’ll have to come back, and if you’re not able to get yourself up and around in a week, I want you to see your GP. ”
Joe would’ve promised his firstborn child to get out of the hospital. He didn’t like Gavin that much anyway. “Whatever you say, Doc. You’re the boss.”
Somehow he still fell asleep again before Austin arrived to take him home.