“I’m taking off for the evening,” she said, as she moved around his bed, straightening the blankets and fluffing the pillow behind his head - almost like Lauren did when she tucked in Odin, Nick realized, watching her with amusement. “Do you need anything before I leave?”
“Has my wife called back yet?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “Not that I know of. I’m sorry.”
Nick sighed. He hadn’t exactly expected Lauren to drop everything and hop on the next flight to Key West, but he’d at least thought she would want to know why he was in the hospital and how he was doing. Dani must not have made it sound very serious in her message, or Lauren surely would have called.
“If she still hasn’t called back by morning, I’ll try her again then,” Dani promised, offering him a sympathetic smile. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Nah, I’m all right,” Nick replied, flashing her a tired smile in return.
Dani nodded. “Your night nurse will be Patrick. I’m sure he’ll come in to check on you soon, but if you need anything in the meantime, just hit your call button, okay? I’ll be back tomorrow. Try to get some sleep.”
“I will,” he said. “Thanks for taking such great care of me.”
“Of course!” she chirped, patting his hand. “See you in the morning.”
“‘Night,” he replied. There was a strangely hollow feeling in his chest as he watched her walk away from the room where he would be spending the rest of the night. He wondered how many more nights he would have to spend there. Neither of his doctors had mentioned anything about him being discharged, nor had they given Nick any sort of timeline for his hospital stay. Maybe the night nurse will know, Nick thought, deciding to ask when he met him.
He was disappointed to find that his new nurse, Patrick, was nowhere near as personable as Dani. A heavyset man in his mid-thirties, Patrick wore baggy scrubs that were at least two sizes too big and breathed loudly through his mouth the entire time he was taking Nick’s vital signs.
“Hey, have you heard how long I’ll have to stay here?” he asked, as Patrick was checking his pulse.
Patrick didn’t answer at first. He stared at his watch, counting under his breath as he kept his fat fingers pressed firmly over the artery in Nick’s wrist. “No idea,” he finally said when he was finished, noting the number on Nick’s chart without so much as glancing up. “Ask your doctor in the morning.”
Gee, thanks for nothing, thought Nick, rolling his eyes when Patrick wasn’t looking.
The one advantage to having a male nurse was that Nick could finally ask him to take out the catheter in his penis without feeling completely embarrassed. The downside was that Patrick wasn’t nearly as gentle when pulling it out as Dani probably would have been. He couldn’t wait for her to come back.
It took Nick a long time to fall asleep that night. He lay awake for what felt like forever, listening to the blip of his heart monitor and wondering why Lauren still hadn’t called the hospital. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Dani said had happened to him and worrying about what Dr. Elizabeth said was going to happen. Even if he could have found a way to turn off his brain, the constant beeping of the monitors kept him awake.
At some point, he must have managed to drift off because he woke in the morning to the smell of warm food. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” said a familiar voice, as his eyelids fluttered. “Rise and shine.”
Nick opened his eyes to see Dani’s sweet face smiling down at him. “Morning,” he croaked back, his voice still as hoarse as it had been the day before. He cleared his throat before trying again. “What time is it?” It sounded better that time.
“Just after seven,” said Dani. “I brought you some breakfast.” She raised the head of his bed so that he was sitting up. On the bedside table in front of him was a covered tray. He took off the lid to reveal the blandest meal he’d ever seen: a bowl of plain oatmeal, a piece of unbuttered toast, and a cup of applesauce.
Nick wrinkled his nose. “Thanks, but I’m not really hungry right now.”
“I know, but you should try to eat something solid so you can get your strength back - and your bowels moving.”
“Ugh.” He gave her a look of deepest disgust, which she returned with a big grin.
“C’mon… just a few bites?” she coaxed him. With a heavy sigh, Nick spooned some oatmeal into his mouth. He normally didn’t mind oatmeal, but that morning, something about it made him feel slightly nauseous. He swallowed hard, choking down the tasteless blob. Dani gave him an encouraging smile as she watched. “There you go. Good job.”
Nick couldn’t help but smile, as he thought of his son. “You sound like me making Odin eat his oatmeal.”
She laughed. “Does that make you the picky toddler?”
“I’m not that picky, but this is definitely food fit for a toddler’s palate,” Nick replied. “Plain oatmeal? I at least put fruit in Odin’s.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to let the cafeteria know that for next time, Chef Carter,” she teased, winking at him.
He forced himself to chuckle. “How long do you think I’ll have to stay here?” he asked.
“It’s hard to say,” Dani replied. “At some point, you’ll probably have to go to a different hospital, one that has a transplant program. I guess that’ll happen whenever you’re stable enough to be transferred. I’m sorry; I don’t know all the details. It’s up to Dr. Elizabeth to decide.”
“That’s okay. That’s still more information than Patrick would give me last night,” said Nick, offering her a half-smile. “Thanks.”
She laughed. “No problem.”
His smile faded as he thought about what she’d said. “So… a heart transplant, huh? That’s really the only way I’m gonna get better?” He said it in an off-handed way, trying to sound casual, hoping she couldn’t hear the tremble of fear in his voice.
“Not necessarily.” Dani’s voice was reassuring. “There are other interventions we can try first to improve your heart function or at least preserve it for as long as possible. A transplant is more like a last resort. But it can take a long time to find a donor heart, so Dr. Elizabeth will probably want to get you on the list, just in case you need one sooner rather than later.”
Nick nodded, swallowing hard, as his heart thumped nervously in his chest. He felt nauseous just thinking about being cut open, having his heart removed and replaced with someone else’s. “Has Lauren called yet?” he asked suddenly, eager to change the subject.
Dani didn’t get the chance to answer. A high-pitched alarm had gone off on the other side of the room. She sprang into action, ripping the privacy curtain back as she rushed over to the next bed. Nick’s heart leapt into his throat. He could tell by the urgency with which she moved that this wasn’t just another alert about an empty IV bag. This time, something bad was happening.
Dani looked up at the monitor above the bed, then leaned over the woman lying in it. She rubbed her fist roughly over the center of the woman’s chest. When there was no response, she ran around to the other side of the bed and smacked the blue button on the wall behind it. She lowered the head of the bed so the woman was lying flat. Then she pulled back her blanket, planted both hands in the center of her chest, and began pushing down hard and fast. Watching from across the room, Nick’s worst fear was confirmed: the woman’s heart had stopped.
His own heart was pounding as he watched Dani pump her chest, wondering what he could do to help. He fumbled for the call button she had shown him the night before, but it turned out not to be necessary. Before he could push it, more people came bursting into the room. He recognized Dr. Rob first, then Dr. Elizabeth, and finally Patrick, his nurse from the night before, who must have been nearing the end of his shift.
“What happened?” Rob asked.
“She arrested,” said Dani, already out of breath from the force she was exerting to keep blood circulating through the woman’s body. “V-fib on the monitor. I just started compressions.”
“I’ll run the code. Patrick, you bag her,” ordered Rob. “Liz, charge the paddles to 120.”
Patrick positioned himself at the head of the bed, where he disconnected the ventilator hose from the woman’s breathing tube. Her head lolled to the side, and Nick was startled to see that her eyes were open. At first he thought she was starting to wake up, but then he realized there was no life behind them. They were like a doll’s eyes, empty and staring at nothing. Nick found this so disturbing that it was a relief when the nurse tilted her head back so that her frozen gaze was fixed upon the ceiling instead of him. Patrick replaced the hose with an inflatable bag he could squeeze to manually force air into her lungs.
In the meantime, Dr. Elizabeth had rolled a red cart up to the bed and pushed a button on the device Nick recognized as a defibrillator. As Dani continued to pump the woman’s chest, Rob pulled down the front of her hospital gown, exposing her bare breasts. They flopped up and down, the fat jiggling with the force of the compressions. Nick felt humiliated for her, horrified by the lack of dignity in the real-life drama unfolding in front of him. He knew he shouldn’t be watching it happen, but it was like driving by a bad car wreck - his morbid curiosity got the better of him, and he couldn’t bring himself to look away.
There was a tattoo on her rib cage, just below her right breast, of a bird in a cage. The little bird almost looked like it was moving, bobbing up and down and rattling the bars, as the woman’s rib cage was repeatedly compressed and released. Nick stared at it, transfixed by the effect.
“Charged to 120,” Dr. Elizabeth said, producing a pair of paddles. “Everyone stand clear.”
Patrick let go of the bag he was squeezing, and Dani stopped pumping, lifting her hands off the patient. They stood back as Dr. Elizabeth pressed the paddles to both sides of the woman’s chest. Her body jerked slightly as the shock was delivered. Almost immediately, they jumped back into action, Dani resuming compressions while Patrick continued bagging. They kept this up for a couple of minutes before Rob said, “Let’s pause for a rhythm check.”
Everyone froze, their eyes shifting to the heart monitor overhead. It was still sounding its frantic alarm, the green line going across the screen in a series of short, jagged peaks. “Still in V-fib,” Dr. Elizabeth observed.
“Resume CPR,” said Rob. “Let’s give her an amp of epi and shock her again.”
They moved like a well-oiled machine, each of them doing their part. Rob injected a syringeful of something into the woman’s IV line, while Patrick supplied her lungs with air. The whole time, Dani’s hands pumped her heart, delivering oxygenated blood to the rest of her body.
Nick could tell Dani was getting tired. Beads of sweat stood out on her flushed face, and strands of her short, blonde hair were plastered to her forehead. She was breathing hard, panting in time to the beat of her compressions. He watched her with a mixture of fascination and dismay, wondering if this was how hard she had worked on him. He felt woozy as he pictured himself in this poor woman’s place, without a pulse, his lifeless body being pummeled in a violent effort to bring him back.
“Trade me, babe,” Dani said breathlessly to Rob after the second defibrillator shock, and he switched places with her like it was all part of a well-rehearsed routine, taking over the compressions while she administered medication at regular intervals.
This went on for several more rounds, until they paused to check for a pulse and found that the green line on the monitor had gone flat. “Asystole,” said Dr. Elizabeth softly.
“Should we try another high-dose epi?” asked Dani.
Rob shook his head, wiping the sweat from his face. “We’ve been at it almost twenty minutes already. I’m calling it.” He squinted at the clock on the wall. “Time of death: seven thirty-two.”
Dani sighed as she stripped off her sterile gloves, tossing them into the trash bin. She raked her hands through her short, blonde hair and bowed her head for a few seconds before she straightened back up. “I’ll clean up the body,” she said matter-of-factly. “Elizabeth, will you call her family?”
“Of course,” the doctor replied, nodding. Then she, Rob, and Patrick retreated from the room, leaving Dani to deal with the dead woman.
For a few seconds, Nick watched her stand, silent and still, in the center of the room, her back to him. Then he cleared his throat awkwardly and asked, “Are you okay?”
She turned around slowly and smiled at him sadly. “Yeah, I’m okay,” she said, coming back to his side of the room. He scooted over to make room for her to sit on the edge of his bed. “It might sound crazy, but believe it or not, you actually get used to this kind of thing after a while. Not that it’s ever easy to lose a patient, but... you learn to deal with it,” she added with a listless shrug. “What about you? Are you okay?”
He looked over at the woman in the other bed. One of her arms was hanging limply over the edge, her glassy gray eyes staring into eternity. Her upper half was still exposed, but the little bird tattooed on her side no longer seemed to be trying to escape its cage. It sat frozen on its perch, looking like it had given up on ever getting out, like it knew it would be locked inside the bars of ink forever. A lump rose in Nick’s throat as he nodded. “Compared with her? Yeah. I’m feeling pretty damn lucky, actually.”
She gave him a grim smile. “You should. Only ten percent of people who have a cardiac arrest outside the hospital survive. The rest end up like her.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry you had to see that, though. I should have closed the curtain.”
He shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m sorry you had to do all that stuff to me.” A shiver shot down his spine as he imagined himself in that state again.
“Hey, at least it worked on you,” she replied, rubbing his arm reassuringly. “You were one of the ten percent.”
He forced a smile. “Thanks to you. You were pretty amazing.”
Dani shook her head. “I was just doing my job. Speaking of which… I should probably get back to work, huh?” She slid off of his bed. “God, it’s not even eight a.m. yet. This is gonna be a long-ass day.” Sighing, she turned and smiled back at him. “Thanks for giving me a chance to decompress.”
“Anytime,” said Nick. “Just as long as it’s not me who needs resuscitating.”
She shuddered. “Sweetheart, I hope I never have to resuscitate you again. You better eat some more of that heart-healthy oatmeal while I’m working over here.”
He snorted, staring down at his cold oatmeal, which was exactly the same color as the dead woman’s ashen face. “Oh yeah, ‘cause nothing works up an appetite quite like watching someone die.”
Dani made a face, scrunching up her nose. “Sorry. I really should have closed this,” she repeated, drawing the curtain back across the room before she disappeared around it.
As soon as she was gone, Nick pushed his breakfast tray away in disgust. He pressed the button to lower the head of his bed until he was lying down again. Then he closed his eyes, hoping he could fall back to sleep and forget about what he had just witnessed.
***
