Chapter 18
Chapter 18
“Chelsea! Chelsea! Can you hear me?”
“If you can hear us, say something, honey.”
The lights are so bright, they’re blinding. I try to turn on my side, away from the glare, but there are wires in my arm.
Besides two voices, I hear the beeping and tapping of machines.
And my throat is so dry that I couldn’t talk, even if I wanted to.
“Do you know where you are, Chelsea?” Make that a third voice.
I try to shake my head, but it hurts too much, so I hold up my hand instead.
Someone takes it and threads their warm fingers through mine. “We’re so happy you’re back. You had us worried there, sweetie.”
It’s Uncle Sylvester. Although I can’t quite make out his face, I recognize the deep timbre of his voice. And the lemony scent of his aftershave.
“Can you give your uncle’s hand a squeeze?” This from the third voice, the one I don’t recognize.
I squeeze Uncle Sylvester’s hand, but the effort leaves me exhausted.
“She squeezed it! Did you see that? She squeezed it.”
“Hey, Chels, it’s me, Austin. Boy, did you give us a scare.”
I close my eyes, willing the bright lights and the voices to go away, wanting to sleep for a hundred years.
“Can you stay with us a few minutes longer? Just long enough for me to conduct a couple of brief tests.”
I open my eyes again.
“Do you know where you are, Chelsea? If you can’t talk or move your head, use your fingers. One for yes, two for no.”
I hold out my index finger, pretty sure I’m in a hospital.
“Very good. Do you know why you’re here?”
I make two.
“I’ll explain that to you. But for now, just a couple more questions.”
“Are you feeling any kind of pain?”
One finger.
“Can you show me where?”
I try to lift my hand, but I’m too weak. And frankly, too drained. I feel like I just ran a marathon with a vice grip clamped to my head.
“Your head?” he asks.
One finger.
“On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain?”
I hold out ten fingers, but at the last minute, fold one down, lest he think I have a low threshold for pain.
“We’ll see if we can give you something for that.”
“Anywhere else?”
One finger.
“Can you show me?”
I try to point to my shoulders, my arms, my hips, my legs, but can’t manage it, so I extend two fingers.
“On a scale of one to ten, tell me the pain levels you’re experiencing.”
I hold out five fingers. It’s more soreness than intense pain.
“Okay. We’ll see about that, too. Would you like to rest now?”
One finger.
I wish I could ask him to turn out the light bearing down on me or turn off the machines making all the noise, but I can’t seem to make myself talk. I would be deeply concerned about it if I wasn’t so fatigued.
Someone is bathing my legs in warm water. When I manage to open my eyes to find the culprit, all I see are tiny paws.
“Good morning.”
I follow the paws with my eyes to the voice and find a round open face with big blue eyes smiling down on me.
“It’s good to have you back, Ms. Knight. How are you feeling?”
I make the okay sign with my fingers and try to reach for my mouth, but my arm isn’t cooperating.
She seems to understand anyway, because she holds an ice chip to my lips and rubs it from side to side on my mouth. I’m too weak to suck on it or swallow, but the cold and wet feels good, though it doesn’t quench my insatiable thirst. I point with one finger at the pitcher on the bed table, and she pushes it away.
“It’s too soon for water,” she says. “But we’re giving you everything you need in there.” She bobs her head at my IV drip.
I try to nod, but I can’t lift my head. How long? I want to ask. How long have I been here? And where’s Knox? I dare to let myself contemplate the unbearable.
What if I made it and he didn’t?
I can’t think about that now. I’m having trouble just keeping my eyes open. The woman, who I presume is a doctor or a nurse, is tending to the plastic bladders in the IV drip. Despite her smooth efficiency, the rustling noises of her moving around make my head hurt.
Her scrubs, printed with a loud pattern of bright orange and purple animal paws, aren’t helping either, though I have the strange sensation that I’ve seen them before. Could be that it’s the theme of the room. I’ve spent a good amount of my awake time staring at a framed nature poster on the wall of a fox. A small red one, perched on top of a rock.
For the rest of the day, I drift in and out. There’s a steady procession of people coming through the room. Some I recognize from voice or smell, while others are completely foreign to me.
The room is cold, so cold that I wish I could ask for more blankets but still can’t seem to speak. I’m hoping that my inability to talk is only temporary. The fact that I’m not completely freaking out about it speaks to how out of it I am.
“Chelsea? Chelsea? This is Dr. Sadie. Can you hear me?”
I open my eyes, and with a great amount of effort, manage to move my head to indicate yes.
“Excellent,” she says.
This is a different doctor than the one who had me respond by using my fingers.
“Are we feeling a little better today?”
I think so, but I don’t know how to communicate it, so I hold out one finger.
A small voice that appears to be coming from the corner of the room says, “One finger means yes.”
“Very good,” Dr. Sadie says, and takes my hand in hers. It feels small and delicate. “Can you squeeze my hand, Chelsea?”
I squeeze it, but she doesn’t seem to feel it, because she doesn’t say anything and eventually removes her hand from mine.
“Can you blink your eyes?”
I blink and she smiles, clearly pleased. “You’re doing quite well. As soon as you’re up for it, we’ll run some more tests. But this is good progress. Good progress indeed. Is there anything you need?”
Yeah, an extra blanket, more ice chips, and to know where Knox is. But I can’t say any of those things, not even a sound is able to escape my lips.
“I’ll have one of the nurses bring you another blanket. Your hand is ice cold.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” the small voice says. Too few words for me to pin down who it is, and I can’t lift my head enough to look.
I nod off, only to be jarred awake by a jumping motion and the loud thump of a bass. The music is coming from the ears of someone lifting and lowering my bed up and down. I should be alarmed, but it feels familiar, as if the sensation of being abruptly jostled has happened before. I’m automatically reminded of the young man with stringy blond hair and bedraggled clothes hopping around on the trunk of my car at Bear Creek Beach, making me seasick.
But I’m not in a car, and it’s not the disheveled man. It’s a clean-cut thirty-something with earbuds changing my sheets. Apparently, there’s no rest for the weary in this joint. By the time I come to terms with the fact that I’m not in a parking lot, being besieged by young people, he’s gone.
But now I’m wide awake in an empty room, with only my confusion for company. And the click-clack ing of the machines. There’s also the smell of heavy perfume next to my bed. I take a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the darkness and spot the offender on the bed table next to me. A bouquet of pink stargazer lilies, pretty but cloying.
Next to the flowers is a smiley-face mug with a big helium pumpkin balloon and a collection of cards. I’d read them, but even the covers are fuzzy. I manage to prop myself up on my elbows, but only long enough to see the vacant chair in the corner of the tiny room.
There’s no clock, at least none visible while I’m flat on the bed, and the one window, covered in a blackout shade, leaves no hint about the time of day. But judging from the relative quiet, it’s night. Very late at night.
There’s a nurse call button on the side of my bed. I’m tempted to push it just to make sure this is real and that I’m not dead. I try to roll onto my side and remember the IV. I’d move the tubes out of the way, but the effort is too exhausting, so I remain on my back, staring up at the ceiling, attempting to count the silver flecks in the acoustic tiles.
A short time later, a nurse cracks open the door to check on me, letting in a stream of light. But I feign sleep, hoping she’ll leave me be instead of conducting what seems to be a bi-hourly routine of pinching and prodding.
I’m out of luck, though. She flips on the lamp, and it’s like I just walked out of a darkened movie theater into broad daylight.
“You’re awake.” She sounds surprised.
She checks my IV, the liquids in the bags, and then the monitor making all the noise. “Are you comfortable?”
One finger.
She gently lifts my head and fluffs my pillow. With all the strength I can muster, I raise my hand and touch my lips. They’re dry and cracked, and what I wouldn’t do for another ice chip.
“Oh, you poor thing. Let me get some petroleum jelly, and I’ll be right back.”
True to her word, she returns a short time later with a tube of Vaseline and a handful of tiny samples that she piles on the table next to the sickeningly sweet flowers.
I extend my index finger toward the water pitcher.
“For your lips?”
One finger.
She disappears inside the bathroom and returns with a wet washcloth and uses it to wipe my lips. The water is lukewarm, not as good as the ice chip, but still, the moisture feels like heaven.
“Better?”
One finger.
“I’ll leave the cloth here for you.” She places it on top of my blanket, next to my hand, then reapplies the Vaseline.
She marks something in my chart and closes the door behind her, once again plunging my room in near darkness.
I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. And for the first time since I found myself here, I cry a pool of silent tears that soak my cheeks and neck and drip onto my hospital gown.
The final humiliation comes the next morning when an orderly comes around to empty my catheter bag.