Dani had just hung a fresh bag of clear fluid from his IV pole and was updating his chart when his question caused her to look up. “I don’t think so. I would have called your wife, but I couldn’t find a number for her. I’m so sorry,” she said, offering a sympathetic smile.
“That’s okay; I’ll do it. Where’s my phone?” he wondered, looking around the small room. He didn’t see any of his personal possessions, nor had anything been delivered to him - no cards, no flowers, no balloons… no signs at all that any of his family or friends had heard he was in the hospital. The realization that he could have passed away without anyone knowing was a scary one. More than ever, he needed to talk to Lauren.
“Actually, that was part of the problem: I wasn’t able to find your phone,” said Dani, her smile fading. “It wasn’t with you when we brought you in. I thought maybe you’d left it at the bar, but I called them and the Uber driver, and they both said they didn’t have it.” She bit her lip uncertainly. “I’m sorry. I hope someone didn’t steal it.”
Nick frowned. It wasn’t like him to leave his phone sitting around, but he couldn’t specifically remember putting it in his pocket before they’d left the bar, either. Even if he had, he supposed it could have fallen out somewhere. “It’s all right,” he said finally, shrugging. “Hers is the one number I know by heart. Is there a phone in here I can use?”
“We don’t have phones in the ICU rooms,” she replied apologetically, “but if you write it down for me, I can give her a call for you.”
It wasn’t the way Nick wanted his wife to find out what had happened - it would have been better for her to hear it from him firsthand - but he didn’t seem to have any other option. “Okay,” he agreed, scrawling Lauren’s number across the whiteboard Dani had brought him earlier. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” replied Dani, as he handed her the whiteboard. “Where is your wife, if you don’t mind my asking? Still on the West Coast?”
Nick nodded. “She’s in Vegas.”
“Should I tell her to come here, or…?”
Nick hesitated. He had been trying to reconcile with Lauren for a while now, but he realized this wasn’t the way he wanted it to happen. “No,” he replied firmly. “Just tell her what’s going on with me. You don’t have to give her all the gory details; just make sure she knows I’m okay for now. She can decide for herself whether to fly down here or not.”
“Okay,” said Dani, offering him a sweet smile. “Sit tight, and I’ll go call her right now.”
“Thanks,” Nick replied. He watched her walk out the door and disappear down a hallway, which he could see through a window to his right. There was a red stripe painted along the otherwise stark white wall that reminded him of somewhere he’d been before, but he couldn’t seem to place it. He racked his brain, trying to remember if he’d ever had a reason to visit the hospital while in Key West. He came up with nothing. Still, he couldn’t shake the sense of deja vu he felt as he looked around the room, anxiously waiting for Dani to return.
To his left, a curtain had been pulled all the way across, obscuring his view of what he assumed was another patient’s bed. He could hear more machines hissing and blipping softly on the other side of the curtain. He wondered who was behind it and how much of his conversation they had overheard, but he wasn’t brave enough to call out to his mystery roommate. His curiosity would have to wait.
There wasn’t much else to look at - no windows to the outside world, no artwork on the walls, and worst of all, no TV. Without Dani, there was no one to talk to and nothing to distract him from the fact that he was dying. He lay in his hospital bed, unable to block out the obnoxious beeping of the heart monitor. It was an unsettling sound, a constant reminder of how sick he had become, and he wondered how long he could stand to listen to it before it drove him crazy.
No matter how much time he had left, Nick knew he didn’t want to spend his last days like that. I’ve gotta get out of this place, he thought, his barely-controlled panic closing in on him again. He heard his heart rate accelerate as he sat up and pushed back the covers. Someone had put a pair of tall, white compression socks on his legs, Nick saw, as he swung them over the side of the bed. He felt light-headed at first, but he fought the dizziness, determined to make it to his feet.
It was a struggle to stand up without accidentally disconnecting any of the tubes or wires, but he managed somehow. Once he was out of bed, however, he realized some of the equipment he was hooked up to was permanently attached to the wall. He couldn’t take more than a few steps without pulling the lines taut. Shackled to his hospital bed, he felt more like a prisoner than a patient.
“Nick! What are you doing up?”
And there’s the warden, Nick thought when he heard Dani’s voice from the doorway. He held his hands up over his head, as if to surrender. “Busted,” he said, smirking. But as he turned around to face her, another wave of dizziness hit him hard, throwing him off balance. He swayed for a second before his knees buckled, and down he went, collapsing onto the floor before Dani could catch him.
“Shit!” she swore, as she sank to her knees beside him. “Are you okay?” Her face blurred before his eyes. Something was wrong with his sight; the whole room suddenly seemed tinged with a sickly shade of yellow, as if he were seeing it through a filter.
“I don’t know…” He didn’t seem to be hurt, but his heart was hammering, and it was hard to breathe. “I feel really woozy…”
Dani pressed her fingertips to the inside of his wrist. “Your pulse is irregular. Let’s get you back in bed before you pass out again.” She rose to her feet and punched a red button on the wall behind his bed. In a matter of seconds, Rob came running back into the room.
“What happened?” he asked when he saw Nick on the floor.
“Syncopal episode,” she replied. “He tried to get out of bed by himself and dropped his pressure. Pulse is weak and thready. Help me get him up, please?”
Together, she and Rob hoisted Nick to his feet and helped him back into bed. They did all of the heavy lifting, yet the effort left Nick gasping for air. He clawed at his chest, his heart galloping uncontrollably inside it.
“He’s throwing PVCs,” said Rob, looking at the rhythm on the heart monitor. “Push two grams of magnesium sulfate.”
“Nick, we’re going to give you some medication to get your heart beating normally again,” Dani explained as she drew up the correct dose and injected the drug into the IV line that had been inserted into the side of Nick’s neck. Within minutes, his heart palpitations and shortness of breath had subsided. Harder to shake was the feeling of panic that had accompanied those symptoms.
“What just happened to me?” he asked, once his heart rate had returned to normal. “You called it something,” he added, looking at Dani. “Sinkable episode?”
“Syncopal,” she corrected. “It’s just the medical term for fainting from a lack of blood flow to your brain. It can happen when you stand up too quickly after lying down for a long time.”
“I didn’t faint,” he argued, his fear giving way to embarrassment. “I just got dizzy and fell.”
“Your poor heart just couldn’t keep up with the demands you were putting on it, so it started adding extra beats, trying to supply blood to all the parts of your body. Your blood pressure dropped suddenly, and that’s what made you dizzy,” Dani explained gently. “It’s good to get up and move around, but you have to do it gradually and give your heart time to adjust. Just ask next time so I can help you, okay?”
Nick nodded. “Okay,” he agreed grudgingly. He hated having to rely on other people. Just six weeks ago, he was performing full-length concerts with no problem; if his heart had struggled to keep up with the physically demanding choreography, he hadn’t felt it then. Now he could hardly get out of bed by himself without it going haywire. It was hard for him to accept how quickly his condition had deteriorated. But he couldn’t keep questioning Dr. Elizabeth’s diagnosis, not after what had just happened. There was no denying it: Nick’s heart was failing, and it was failing fast.
“Did you get a hold of Lauren?” he asked Dani anxiously.
“She didn’t answer, but I left her a message.”
“What did you say?”
“Not much. I gave her my name and the number of the hospital, told her you had been admitted, and asked her to call me back as soon as she can. I don’t like to leave too many details in a voicemail; it’s better to discuss them with the actual person.”
“Agreed,” said Nick, nodding. “Thanks for doing that.”
“You’re welcome.” She smiled. “If you need anything else, just let me know.”
“I could use a drink - how about another one of those Headless Horsemans?” he joked.
“Ha-ha, nice try. How about a shot of one hundred proof H20 instead?” she responded with a smirk.
Nick chuckled. “Actually, a glass of water would be great,” he said seriously. “My mouth’s still really dry.”
Dani nodded. “One water on the rocks, coming right up,” she replied. She left the room and returned with a plastic pitcher of ice water, which she poured into a small cup. “Take it slow,” she warned, as she handed it to him. “This stuff will go straight to your head.”
He smiled and took a grateful sip. The water tasted wonderful to his parched tongue and felt even better as it wet the back of his throat, soothing some of the soreness on its way down. “Oh my god, that’s so freaking good,” he said, not even kidding. “Thank you.”
She laughed. “No problem. You’re pretty easy to please, huh?”
Before Nick could come up with a witty reply, he was startled by a shrill bleeping sound he hadn’t noticed before. “What is that?” he asked as he looked around in dismay, wondering what was wrong with him now. His heart had leaped into his throat when he heard the sudden noise, but otherwise, he felt okay, not woozy or short of breath the way he’d been before.
“Don’t worry,” Dani reassured him, “it’s just the alarm on your neighbor’s IV infusion pump. You enjoy that water while I check next door.”
Nick watched her pull back the pale blue curtain that had provided a semblance of privacy, his curiosity piqued again. Just as he had suspected, there was a second bed on the other side. The woman in it looked worse off than he was. She was hooked up to a ventilator, the hose protruding from her mouth the same way as when he’d first woken up. He sympathized with her, remembering how suffocating it had felt to have the breathing tube shoved down his throat. But she didn’t seem to be conscious; her eyes were closed, her body motionless except for the steady rise and fall of her chest beneath the blanket.
“She needs a new IV bag,” said Dani, shutting off the alarm. “I’ll be right back.” She bustled out of the room, leaving the curtain open.
While she was gone, Nick watched the woman in the other bed. She was young and would probably have been quite pretty under different circumstances, though it was hard to tell with her face half hidden behind the ventilator hose. He couldn’t help wondering what was wrong with her. He didn’t see any obvious signs of illness or injury. In fact, had it not been for the breathing machine, she would have looked like she was simply sleeping, the picture of perfect health.
Dani returned a few minutes later with a full bag of fluid to replace the one on the woman’s IV pole, which was almost empty.
“What happened to her?” he blurted, before he could stop himself from asking. He immediately regretted it when he saw how Dani hesitated, halfway through washing her hands at the sink. “Sorry,” he apologized quickly. “I shouldn’t have asked. I know you’re not supposed to give out information like that.”
“Heart attack,” she said quietly, as she turned to reach for a paper towel.
His eyes widened. “For real? But…” He glanced across the room at the woman again. “She looks so young.”
“She is,” said Dani, drying her hands. “It’s so sad what drug abuse can do to a person.”
Nick’s heart skipped a beat. “Drugs did that?”
Dani nodded. “Cocaine, I think. She’s been in a coma for almost two weeks already, and she’s still showing no signs of waking up any time soon. She’ll be lucky if she pulls through this without permanent brain damage.”
“Wow,” whispered Nick, stunned. He didn’t know what else to say.
Dani shook her head. “I’m sorry. You were right - I really shouldn’t have told you that,” she said, walking back to the woman’s bedside.
She didn’t say anything more as she set about switching out the IV bag and adjusting the settings on the infusion pump. He watched her work, admiring the way she would occasionally brush the woman’s long, black hair back off her forehead or smooth the blankets over her body as she maneuvered around the bed. Her patient would probably never even know about these small acts of compassion, but Nick noticed, and it made him grateful to have her as his nurse.
“You must really like what you do,” he remarked when Dani came back to his side of the room, drawing the curtain closed behind her.
She smiled down at him. “I sure do.”
***
