The
phrase stays with me for its simplicity and truth as I walk the long
hospital corridor to see my friend, Blue. There are a thousand
places I would rather be, a thousand things I would rather be doing.
There's a pulse to this place and it mutes my senses. I hate the
muffled background sounds - the call buttons and machines and the
whispering sighs of doors as they open and close - this is a place of
sorrow, secrets and pain.
She
looks tired, I think, but really, the truth is that she looks
exhausted and even more ravaged than she did yesterday. Her smile
takes more effort, her breathing is more labored and her color is
like chalk.
“It's
more fluid in my lungs,” she tells me, “I can feel it.”
“No
talking,” I tell her quietly, “I'm just going to sit with you
awhile.”
Her
fingers close around mine, weaker than yesterday, I can't help but
notice.
“Shut
your eyes,” I say, “Try to relax.”
She
looks so breakable, so defenseless and small, it hurts my heart and I
have to will myself not to break down and cry.
Even
in better times, she never was much more than a tiny slip of a girl.
I'm only five feet tall and she barely came to my chin. We used to
tease her mercilessly that she wasn't a hundred pounds soaking wet
and carrying weights. I was shamefully envious of her flat belly and
Scarlett O'Hara waist while she complained endlessly about being flat
chested. I watched her struggle and finally win over alcohol and
drugs, immediately reaching out to others less fortunate. She knew
the name of every homeless or down and out street person and even if
it meant her last quarter, never turned one away. She played guitar
and drums and wrote songs, rode a Harley, smoked like a chimney,
cussed like a sailor, survived the death of a husband, raised a
daughter alone and worked like a field hand all of her life. That
there will be no more better times is something I can't make sense
of.
The
doctors, who as best we can tell, have differing opinions on how to
proceed, finally agree to siphon the fluid from her lungs for a
second time. This time they draw off a full litre and leave a drain
in place and a half hour later, she's finally able to breathe again.
It takes a considerable more amount of coaxing, pleading and nagging
to convince the nursing staff to change her bed linens and bring her
a supper tray. The respiratory therapist arrives to give her a
breathing treatment and frowns at her heart rate. Soon after, one of
her doctors orders a new EKG. The night nurse appears with a pain
pill and a sedative, we get her sponge bathed and into fresh clothes
and at long last, she sinks wearily back into the pillows and falls
into a drug induced but mostly peaceful sleep.
The
mountains will keep til tomorrow.
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