Chapter Twenty-Seven Sienna
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sienna
I’m floating peacefully among stars when a woman’s voice echoes through the universe. “Your children are on their way.”
The words pull me back to earth, like a magnet, to my bed in the hospital.
My children . . . Amanda and Connor . . . the heartbeat of my life.
I need to see them.
Wake up, Sienna! Wake up!
I open my eyes, and the nurse bends over me. I want to say thank you—thank you!—but I can’t do it. I’m in some sort of suspended consciousness. I’m here, but not really here.
In the next few seconds, I begin to feel physical pain—in my head, my shoulder, and my arm. It’s ghastly, and terror stabs at me because I’ve been through this before. A lifetime ago. I know this is just the beginning and it’s going to get worse. Much worse.
“That’s it, very good,” the doctor says as he pinches my forearm again.
This time I force my eyes open and struggle to focus. My chest burns, and my throat stings. I become aware of a thick tube down my throat.
White-hot panic shoots through me. I want to scream, but I can’t. I’m paralyzed with shock and panic.
The pain intensifies in every realm of my body. My head endures the worst of it. It’s a cruel throbbing just beneath the surface of my skull that no human being should ever be subjected to. Inside the bounds of my consciousness, I’m in agony. I’m screaming my head off.
I reach for the tube down my throat and try to pull it out, but the nurse grabs hold of my wrist. “Don’t do that. It’s for your safety.”
I shake my head from side to side on the pillow. I don’t want it! Get it out!
The doctor bends over me. “Sienna. My name is Dr. Malik. You’ve been in a coma. We need to make sure that you can breathe on your own before we remove it. Can you squeeze my hand, please?”
I squeeze with all my might.
“Good. Now wiggle your toes.”
I wiggle my whole feet.
“Just your toes.”
I roll my eyes and fulfill his request.
“Blink three times for me. Very good.”
I wait impatiently while he positions his stethoscope in various locations on my chest and listens. “RSBI is looking good. Respirator rate less than twenty per minute. Oxygenation is good. She’s alert. SpO2 of ninety . . .” He rattles off a few more stats, then turns to the nurse. “Let’s extubate.”
Eyes wide, I watch while they pull on masks and gloves and assemble some equipment. My heart races with anxiety. I’m desperate for them to hurry and get this thing out of me, but I’m terrified.
The nurse raises the head of my bed until I’m partially sitting up.
She lays a blue absorbent pad on my chest like a bib.
They set up some suction tubes. The doctor asks me to take some deep breaths, and he listens to my chest with his stethoscope.
“More big breaths. Good. Now I’ll get you to breathe in, hold that breath, and that’s when I’ll pull the tube out. Do you understand?”
I nod.
“Good. Ready? Here we go. Take a big breath. Now hold it!”
He pulls the tube out. The shock of the removal makes me sit forward and cough uncontrollably.
“You’re doing fine. Cough it out.” He sticks a suction tube into my mouth, then sets nasal cannulas in my nostrils for oxygen and hooks the tube behind my ears while I try to calm down.
He listens to my chest again and asks me to take a few breaths while he studies the monitors. “Vital signs look good.”
The nurse cleans up the blue pad, and the doctor leans over me again. “Can you tell me your full name?”
The area around my vocal cords is scratchy and raw, but I manage to croak out my name.
I’m not entirely recovered from the trauma of extubation, but my children are on their way, and that’s worth breathing for. I can’t wait to see them. I’m glad to be back, because all I want is the incomparable joy of holding my babies close to my heart.