I maybe had a total of a half hour of sleep when the alarm on my phone went off an hour before I was supposed to be at the hospital. Nikkie was already awake and going through the bag we were taking with us.
“I just need your phone charger and we’ll have everything.”
I handed it to her, and then threw on jeans and a t-shirt. No point in dressing up today.
Nikki had a similar idea – jeans and one of my old sweatshirts.
“I can’t eat anything, but do you want to grab breakfast before we go?”
She just shook her head and took my hand. We walked in silence across the street to the hospital.
“More paperwork?” Nikki and I asked the admissions clerk. I guess the novel I filled out the day before wasn’t enough.
“We require a new consent form each visit.”
I signed the paper and handed it back to her.
“Thank you. You are first up, so it shouldn’t be long before they call you back. I need your right arm, please.” She wrapped the hospital bracelet around my wrist.
Damn. Now it’s real. I thought.
“Clarke?” A nurse called us before I even made it to my seat.
We followed her back to a small room with a curtain and a bed.
“Change into this and I’ll be back to check your vitals,” she took a folded hospital gown from a drawer and placed it on the bed.
“So what even was the point of yesterday?” Nikki asked
“Another copay.” I said.
I sat on the edge of the bed after I changed, still not ready to be fully in hospital patient mode yet. I almost preferred the way things happened before, when I didn’t have time to think, only time to react. I was so anxious for this to be over with that time had all but stopped.
My skin felt like glass. I was afraid it would shatter the first time someone tried to stick a needle in me. My arm was still bruised from the pre-op tests the day before.
Our world tour seemed shorter than the 10 minutes it took for the nurse to come back in the room, wheeling a cart full of not fun things meant for me.
“Go ahead and lay back in the bed and get comfortable,” she said.
I raised my eyebrow at her.
“As best as you can,” she said.
She frowned when she saw my blood pressure results.
“Ok, I need to talk to the doctor about this. With the blood thinners you are on, it shouldn’t have jumped this much in a day. I could probably go ahead and start your IV, though.”
She rubbed her hand up and down my arm, but left the room without saying anything or starting the IV.
Nikki and looked at each other. “Now that I’m here, I’d really just like to get this over with.”
“I know,” she pulled her chair closer and took my hand in hers. She put her other hand on my chest. “I can feel your heart beating so hard. You haven’t been this stressed since Everette was born. I’m here. You have the best doctor you could have. Breathe, it’s going to be ok.”
I closed my eyes and let a long breath out. I had tried so hard to be brave, to just suck it up and deal. I guess it’s true what they say, numbers don’t lie.
“There you go. Again,” she said.
She ran her hand up and down my arm until the nurse came back.
“Sorry about that, folks. I needed to run your numbers by Dr. Grimsley first.”
“What did he say?”
“He says you are just under the threshold. A few more points, and your blood pressure would be too high for us to do the surgery.” She moved her cart of stuff back behind my head so I couldn’t see her. “Your arm is so tight that I was worried I wouldn’t be able to start your IV,” she kept talking. “Believe it or not, we do try to make this as painless as possible.”
“Oh!” the pain in my arm caught me by surprise.
“Ok, all done. I had to try and catch you when you weren’t so tensed up, or it would have hurt worse. That was a mild anti-anxiety medicine to help take the edge off. I’ll be back in about 10 minutes after it has time to take effect.”
Nikki kissed my forehead when the nurse left, then the spot on my forearm that was still throbbing.
“Did you know she was going to do that?” I asked her.
“No, I was paying attention to you, not to her.”
“Glad you’re still on my side.”
“We are all on your side, darling. You are the one that’s not. It’s time for those big muscles of yours, and that soft heart I love so much, to rest so you can get back to taking care of all of us.”
I nodded. “Ok, I’m trying.”
Her fingertips brushed against me ever so lightly and I started to sink deeper into the bed. I didn’t realize I had been holding myself just off the surface until then.
I didn’t know if ten minutes or 10 hours had passed when the nurse came back in the room. My eyes were getting heavy, although I was fighting it so I could spend every minute with Nikki.
“Let’s see how that blood pressure is doing,” she said. “Much better.”
“I’m trying to behave myself,” I said.
“Oh, you just got yourself a little worked up is all. It happens.”
“I have to admit, I would much rather be at the beach.”
“That makes two of us,” she said.
“Three of us,” Nikki spoke up.
“Well, we are all in agreement, but I’d hate to be the one to deal with Dr. Grimsley when he finds out we all skipped town for the beach.”
“I can tell he likes a schedule.”
“That’s for sure. But, we’ve figured out how to build in buffers without him noticing too much, so you are actually going to be right on time.”
“For once,” Nikki and I said at the same time.
“Ok, you are ready,” she said.
I looked at my arm. I hadn’t even felt the IV go in. Why weren’t anxiety meds standard practice? It seems like it would save nurses and patients a whole lot of stress.
“That’s just saline. You will get antibiotics and anesthesia through the line once you are in the OR.” I remembered from before how much it burned when they pushed medicine through the IV. I’d almost rather be stuck again. Maybe the medicine she gave me would help with that, too. She was still entering information into the computer when two orderlies came in the room.
“Doc is ready for him,” they said.
“He’s ready for Doc. I’ll see you in a couple hours,” the nurse said to me.
Nikki managed to sneak in a kiss on my forehead before they wheeled me out of the room. They moved fast. I could barely get a glimpse of my surroundings. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine I was on the bus off to a new city we had never played before. I didn’t have to pretend for long, we must have been close to the OR already.
It was all a flash of bright lights, the quick motion of them sliding me onto the table. I thought I saw Dr. Grimsely, but I couldn’t be sure with the masks. I felt like I was in the middle of a beehive as people swarmed around me and machines started buzzing. A stinging sensation, and if I was conscious after that, I don’t remember.