Chapter 9
This stupid surgery is annoying in too many ways to count.
I’ve been told that that I have to have a non-rideshare driver. Like, I apparently have to have a friend pick me up.
Obviously not my difficult, nutty mother. My Megan Madonna?
I could, but that would feel like breaking a workplace boundary.
So, who is left? I really don’t have friends.
Do I call up my favorite dumpling people and say that I need a ride to urgent care? Definitely no. So weird.
But then, maybe yes?
At least I know these people aren’t assholes.
After cringing while dialing, I sit up when the call is answered.
“Jia here.”
I fumble over words for a few seconds. “It’s Diana. From the other night.”
“Oh, Diana? You want dim sum? My Choo Choo thought you might. It’s not the weekend, but we can do that for you! Or just dumplings?”
Previous to tonight, the extent of my communication with her grandfather has been me drooling via my posts and making happy gestures tonight as I smiled and pointed to everything on her grandfather’s delectable menu.
I cave and ask her for a hugely nutty favor. A ride to the surgical center, and for some reason, she doesn’t hesitate.
“See you tomorrow!”
I’m waiting outside the next morning when she shows up at my place after she’s double-parked an Infinity sports car.
She points at my arm and shakes her head. “Not only does your hand look wretched, bur your hair might be even worse. Like, more broken than your wrist.”
Not that I’ve ever been vain, nor had reason to be, but I’ve often tried to embrace my curly red hair as best I can, doing what I can to style it circa Julia Roberts in her Mystic Pizza days.
Wild hair, long, fun curls. But working with one hand has indeed left me unable to even put my mess of hair into a scrunchie, so I know I look crazy.
We get into her car, and there are audible and infuriated noises as she wrestles my hair into place.
“Buckle up,” Jia orders.
It’s a good thing she mentioned buckling up because she drives like a wonderful maniac.
Jia peels up to the surgical entrance and slam-parks the car. “Good luck!”
I smile and try not to hear that in Liam Neeson’s voice as I give her a grateful smile.
I’m numb and disconnected when I maneuver myself into the surgeon’s office.
From what I read overnight, apparently, my surgeon is the best of the best. Yet, I find his demeanor rather odd.
Most notably, he blinks about a thousand times a minute as he tells me about the surgery I’m about to have.
He’s also shorter than I am, so I put him at about five feet.
Between his blinking issues and his height, I’m just not sure how he’s going to see anything inside my wrist, nonetheless rearrange my bones. Raised shoes or such, I guess.
Even though I’m leery, I go ahead through what feels like a surgical conveyer belt.
One person takes me into a room and has me change into a gown.
Another escorts me to a bed and inserts an IV.
Then an anesthesiologist grills me with questions and has zero compassion when I tear up and worry about being drugged and becoming a viral meme of people waking up after surgery and behaving like lunatics.
Still, I sign some kind of consent form.
There’s a swab on my neck and another IV, and when I look to my right, the nurse is injecting something in my arm.
“Are you feeling tired?” he asks.
“No. Not really.”
But then I pass out.
Two hours later, I awake, pretty lucid and pain-free, much to my surprise.
I thought I’d be hurting. I’m told that I was given a nerve block, and when it wears off tomorrow morning, I can take the pills they’re sending me home with.
The weird surgeon shows up for thirty seconds, shows me an X-ray of the metal plates and screws that are now part of me forever, then disappears.
It seems I have to eat and drink something before I leave, so I go with applesauce and a ginger ale.
The dude next to me asks for a Budweiser, and I can’t blame him because all things surgery suck.
I sip my ginger-ale and slurp an applesauce.
The nurses here are so nice. But even in my fog, I can see how this whole system is wonky, how everyone is pressured to move so fast. To care for us within a fraction of the time they’d like to.
After I don’t vomit and am allowed to go home, a nurse gently sets me in a wheelchair and takes me outside She doesn’t love that I’ve called for a rideshare home.
I don’t love it either, but I also don’t love that I was here at all with these uncaring creeps while my already sad semblance of an emotional life is shattering into something that even Gorilla Glue can’t handle.
Seconds after I’m wheeled outside, a cherry-red sports car peels into the drop-off/pickup spot in front of this hateful surgical center and slams to a stop.
Jia leans out of the window. “Diana! Get your ass in this car! I’m taking you home!”
The nurse laughs, but approves this pickup.
And then I’m getting eased into the back seat of this cool car.
It’s impossible not to stare at Jia, and I almost hate and love how beautiful this rescuing angel is.
Flawless skin, flawless sleek haircut; flawlessly casual sexy outfit.
Why is some perfect girl picking me up? Like, here I am in pajama pants, no bra—because I couldn’t figure out how to get one on—and my hair in again total disarray, as there was no way to contain my curls with one hand.
My humiliation battles with my gratitude, and I give in and let her buckle me into the back seat of this luxury car.
While I’m not really drugged from the anesthesia, I do feel a bit funny, and I start to laugh uncontrollably because I am surrounded in this back seat by all the versions of my favorite food.
There are actual tens of cartons of dumplings, gyoza, potstickers, soup dumplings, and on and on.
Cartons from too many places to identify right now, but they’re all wonderfully bouncing around with me at every turn.
After I’ve regained myself, I say, “This is so nice of you.”
As she takes off at an alarming speed, I see her glance into the rearview mirror. “Yeah, apologies about all that mess of food. My family wanted to make sure you didn’t starve while you recuperated, so they got all their friends to hook you up.”
I busy myself with righting cartons. “I’m so sorry for inconveniencing you,”
“It’s nothing!”
Jia zips onto the highway, and I’m pretty sure she’s going to kill us.
I had no one else to ask.
“New car?”
“No, just one of four I have. I love all the zippy things.” She glances into the rearview mirror and winks.
It’s almost always impossible to park anywhere near my place, but she finds someone trying and failing to back into a spot nearby, and I watch with terror and admiration as she lowers the window and screams in Chinese until the driver takes off.
She helps me lumber into my apartment and sets me up on the couch.
I feel her inching in and hear her deep sighs as she runs a beautifully manicured hand against my scalp.
“God, your hair is bad. Horrifying really. Yet this insane, natural red color and these waves are too enviable to leave unattended.”
Without my saying a word, Jia swoops in, sweetly guiding me to the sink to wash and condition my hair.
“Don’t smash that cast anywhere!” she warns.
I have no choice but to follow her orders, so I relax into the head massages, the masks and conditioners, then the way she dries and sets my curls with various products until I look sort of cute.
Probably better than I ever have. Before I can apologize about how useless this makeover is, I nearly weep with gratitude as she helps me change into one of my favorite cotton pajama sets.
The new cast weighs about eight hundred pounds, so I appreciate her walking me to the bedroom.
My arm is so weirdly numb, and I accidentally bang it against the kitchen counter and the bathroom door as we toddle forward, like I have no control over my own body.
I just want to go to sleep, and I get into bed and lift my hand onto a pillow next to me.
“Sleep well,” she says, and I hear my front door close seconds later.
Just as I’m hoping to crash, my phone sounds.
I’m beginning to hate RobBob’s texts more and more.
RobBob: Hey. You should call me.
Replying takes ten times as long as it usually does, possibly because I don’t even want to reply and get a response.
Me: Shattered my wrist. Broken in about a thousand places. Was in surgery. Full of new body parts.
The lack of reply tells me what I know to be true because who wants to say anything else awful after that? So, I spare him the responsibility.
Me: He’s dead, right?
Me: Just tell me that Patrick is dead. I need to hear it.
Those damn messaging dots come in so slowly.
RobBob: Yes.
RobBob: Turned off his life support.
RobBob: He’s gone.
RobBob: Jesus, I don’t know what to say about anything. So sorry about your wrist too.
Me: It’s a completely awful storm. I can’t be awake anymore. This is too much.
RobBob: I’ve had about forty whiskies, so I’m with you. I don’t know how to deal. Talk tomorrow.
This force of life, my best friend, cannot possibly be gone. This isn’t happening.
With my good hand, I toss my phone across the room.
Normally, I’m a crier. Like, commercials, movies, and TV shit? So much makes me drop to my knees, but tonight, I feel nothing. Because this shit with Patrick cannot be true.
Despite my desire for this nerve block to die, I’m stuck with it for hours. I bury myself under my comforter, just peeking out, and watch what feels like a hundred episodes of The Mentalist.
At one point, I move my heavy, cast arm from the pillow beside me to my stomach.
While I see my arm on this new spot, I still feel it in the same spot it was before.
My brain and my body are not in sync, and it’s goddamn disturbing.
This is some kind of phantom limb experience that I don’t fucking love.