32. Xerophiles – Mar
CHAPTER 32
XEROPHILES
MAR
I woke up on Verdi’s couch. My head feels like there is a balloon beneath my skin, slowly being inflated, pressure mounting. I splash cold water from the kitchen sink on my face just to feel something refreshing and instantly wish I were home where I could take a proper shower with my favorite scents. It’s my fault I’m here and not there. Verdi is great company, but there is something about waking up at home that makes the soul feel good.
Verdi is right—there isn’t much in this kitchen for breakfast. I found three eggs in the refrigerator and five slices of bread. I whisk one egg in a bowl as the stove top heats up. I add a splash of what’s left of the chocolate milk with the egg and a little cinnamon I find in her spice cabinet.
Her spice cabinet consists of cinnamon, white sugar, salt, an empty shaker of pepper, and a bottle half full of maple syrup.
After I’ve fried five pieces of French toast and made scrambled eggs, I divide it up onto two plates and sit down at her two-person table. I shovel all of one egg down my esophagus before pouring a generous amount of maple syrup on two slices of French toast.
When I’m on my third bite, my throat tingles. My tongue begins to feel heavy and hot. Something isn’t right. I chug what’s left of the chocolate milk, but it doesn’t work.
My hands find my throat, and I begin clawing at it to try and get some air somehow. Something must have gotten stuck in my throat because I can’t breathe.
I scream, but my voice disappears quickly. I begin pulling off my clothes. They are constricting my airflow. By the time I’m naked, Verdi comes into the room.
“What’s wrong? Your face is purple, Mar!”
I claw at my throat and chest unsure how to help myself. What is wrong?!
Verdi pulls me by the wrist and shoves me into her bathtub as she turns the cold water on.
“Have you taken drugs, Mar?”
I try to shake my head, but I can’t feel my body. The water seems to help until it doesn’t. I somehow manage to get the word, “Hospital,” out.
Verdi pulls her robe from the back of the door and slips it around me as she leads me out to her car.
I’m barely awake when we arrive at the hospital. I’m soaking wet, wearing only Verdi’s robe. I collapse on the cool floor, gasping for air with my hands around my neck.
I wake up in a small room wearing a gown covered in a thin sheet. There’s a tube coming out of each arm. One is connected to a pump that is annoyingly beeping in my ear. The machine says infusion complete and continues to beep. I’m alone. As I wonder where Verdi might be, I see a pair of black dress shoes underneath the curtain they are using for privacy.
A man clears his throat as I watch his hand open the curtain slightly. “Ah, you’re awake. This works out perfectly. I’m Dr. Hammner.”
I attempt to smile, but I can’t. My breathing seems fine. I wonder how long I’ve been here…?
He walks into the room but makes sure the curtain shuts behind him. “How are you feeling?”
My voice cracks when I say, “I’ve been better.”
“I’d say you have. You had what we call an anaphylactic reaction. Which is a big word for saying you stopped breathing. We gave you some epinephrine and here you are, awake.”
“Uhh, thank you?”
He takes a seat in the rolling chair after shaking my limp hand. “It’s my job, saving people. But I would like to know what have you done today?”
Verdi chooses this moment to open the curtain. She has two coffee cups in her hands. She smiles when she sees that I’m awake. “You really are alive! The doc here tried to assure me you were, and I could tell you were breathing, but I thought you were dead, Mar.” She sets the cups on the table next to my bed.
“I’m alive,” I tell her and then look at the doctor. “I haven’t done anything today. We stayed up late, but I was having a hard time sleeping because Verdi was snoring so loud.”
“I do not snore!”
The doctor looks at his watch, then his phone, and then back to me. “Okay, so then what?”
I shrug. “I complained to myself that I was starving, but Verdi had very little in the house to eat. I made eggs and French toast. She was still asleep.”
The doctor clicks his tongue, “Ahh, you had an allergic reaction to food. That makes sense. We’ll need to add that to your chart.”
Allergic reaction? I’ve had eggs for breakfast so many times in my life. “I’m not allergic to eggs,” I assure him.
He shakes his head. “It wasn’t the eggs. What did you put on the French toast?”
“I was going to put powdered sugar on them but there wasn’t any so just maple syrup.”
He nods. “Exactly as I thought.” He turns so he’s facing Verdi. “How long have you had the syrup and where do you keep it?”
Verdi’s lips press into a line as her cheeks redden, “I don’t know. A while…” She gives an anxious giggle. “In the spice cabinet. I didn’t think it had to be refrigerated or that it had an expiration date…?”
He informs us, “There is a type of fungal spores, Xerophiles, that grow on maple syrup at room temperature. Mar, you should be fine now. Don’t eat anymore of that syrup, though.” The doctor looks at Verdi, and orders her, “Throw it away.”
“When will I start feeling like myself?” I ask him. I’m awake and breathing, but my body is sore like I’ve run a marathon or was hit by a car.
“Physically, within three days. We’ll send you home in a few hours. Mentally, is up to you. You will likely be terrified to ever eat anything at your friend’s place again. Don’t push yourself, Doctor orders are to rest for the next three days.”
When the doctor is gone, Verdi holds out the coffee for me, and I shake my head no. I don’t think I need any more adrenaline pumping through my veins right now.
I hear a familiar voice from the hallway outside of the thin curtain. “Which room is she in? I will go in every single one of them until someone tells me! Amarynth!”
Sihn pushes the curtain back and comes running into the exam room as a female voice hollers for security.
He’s out of breath when he asks, “Are you okay?” He touches all over my legs and arms. Does he think I broke bones?
“How did you know I was here?” I ask as he places a kiss on my forehead.
He replies, “Verdi called me and said you were at the ER then hung up.”
She scoots closer to the curtain. “Sorry! My coffee order was ready…” She smiles and backs out of the room, closing the thin cloth behind her.
Sihn half sits on the tiny cot they call a bed and brushes a piece of hair from my face. His big fingers, although rough, feel nice. He uses his other hand to rub a thumb across my knuckles. He looks as if he could cry when he asks, “What happened?”
I tell him about how I wasn’t able to breathe and how the doctor informed me it was related to fungal spores in old maple syrup that I consumed this morning.
“Get out of her bed!” a little redheaded nurse orders Sihn as soon as she walks into the room. “I’ll never understand why people think it’s appropriate to climb up in a hospital bed with a patient.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
She sits down at a computer and begins typing as she talks into the screen. “Nurse Tanji.”
Sihn looks at me, and I shrug. “Huh?”
She turns to face us. “You can call me Nurse Tanji. I don’t like ma’am. Thanks for being polite.” She stands and lifts a stethoscope from her neck. She listens to my heart as she watches a screen above my head. She talks as she removes the stethoscope from her ears, “All of your vitals are good. I’ll go print your discharge papers and get you out of here in a bit.”
She turns and looks at Sihn. “No funny business while I’m gone or for the next three days, doctor orders.”
“That’ll be no problem, ma—Nurse Tanji,” he replies. Sihn flicks the pole that has the pump on it and says, “I don’t know what I would have done if I lost you too, Mar.”