Chapter 45

          “I think she’s coming to, get the nurse”

          Where is that voice coming from? I can’t move anything; it’s so hard to breath. Open eyes, open up! Am I dead?

          “She’s trying to open her eyes. Andrea, can you hear me?”

          It’s so bright; I can’t keep my eyes open. Am I in Heaven? I know that voice; is Nick in Heaven with me?

          “Andrea, I’m Sam, your nurse. You are coming out of the anesthesia and that can be very frightening. Try to open your eyes for me.”

          Do what she says, open eyes, open again.

          “Good girl. I know you feel sleepy but just focus on my voice. Does it seem like you are having a hard time breathing? That’s expected; it happens when the anesthesia wears off. Just continue taking slow deep breaths. Your throat is going to tickle and feel scratchy from the breathing tube being inserted and extracted from surgery. I am going to check your vitals while you relax.”

          “Okay,” a barely audible whisper tried to escape Andrea’s mouth.

          “Go ahead and talk to her,” Sam said to someone behind her, but Andrea couldn’t see who because she was unable to lift her head up yet.

          “Hi baby, I’m here,” a comforting voice said as the body it belonged to approached the bed and snatched her hand up into his. He continued to rub her hand and talk to her while the nurse finished her tasks.
         
          “Dr. Gabella should be in shortly to talk about how the surgery went and where to go from here. Try to get to wake up a little more so she is alert when the doctor comes to talk to her.”

          Sam walked out of the room and Nick took a seat on the bed next to his wife. “Everyone that was here before you went into surgery is down in the waiting room. No one wanted to leave until you were out and they could talk to you.”

          “I’m here too,” Annie said as she abandoned her perch against the wall and walked over to Andrea’s bedside. Annie and Nick kept talking to Andrea and five minutes later they had raised the head of her bed so she was sitting up more and she was half-heartedly taking part in their conversations.

          “Knock knock,” a female voice cheerfully announced as the door opened. “How is our patient doing?”

          “Hey Dr. Gabella, she is doing okay,” responded Nick as he smiled down at his wife.

          “Well, good news. The surgery went very well. We were able to extract the cancerous lump and no cancer had spread from the lump to anywhere else like I had initially thought. I’m sure you were happy to wake up with both breasts, instead of one like you expected,” she said to Andrea.

          Oh my God, I didn’t even remember, she said to herself, startled. She lifted her hand up and felt across her chest as a tear fell down her cheek as the awareness that she wasn’t going to be “less of woman” like she had previously feared would happen from the mastectomy she was supposed to have. She winced in pain as she pressed too hard against the breast that had just been operated on.

          “Careful sweetie, that’s going to be sore for a couple of weeks,” Dr. Gabella said with a smile. “Well, I am going to get your discharge paperwork ready. It’ll give you the full rundown of post-surgery care as well as the follow-up appointments you’ll need to make. I’ll be back with those and some final information for you in a little while. Any questions before I go?”

          It was at that moment Andrea remembered the tiny, helpless life growing inside her, and she now found it even harder to breathe than before. “The baby,” she whispered, still discovery the difficulty that talking normally was posing to her.

          Dr. Gabella placed her hand on top of Andrea’s and smiled warmly at her. “We did an ultrasound at the end of the surgery and the baby looks wonderful. We picked up heart patterns, brain activity, and the baby’s measurements were right on the money for being 10 weeks pregnant.”

          “Thank you Doctor,” Nick said as he bent down and kissed Andrea on the forehead, then gently on her lips.

          “My pleasure,” was all Dr. Gabella said before leaving the room. I wish all cases turned out this way, she reflected to herself as she pulled the door to Andrea’s room shut.


          After Dr. Gabella had come back with the discharge instructions and follow-up information, Annie walked down the hall to the waiting room to tell everyone what the doctor had said.

          “She has to stay for another hour or so until all the anesthesia has worn off and she feels okay to walk, but you can go down to the room one by one and talk to her if you want,” Annie explained as she wiped a few tears away that had fallen out of her eyes from all the stress she was dealing with.

          “Sweetie, how are you holding up? I know this hasn’t been easy for you, especially with Alex being away,” Brian asked as he stood up from the under-stuffed couch in the waiting area and pulled Annie into a warm, friendly hug.

          “I’ve had better days, but I’m just so relieved that the surgery went the way it did, and that the baby is fine. I can’t think what that would do to her if something happened to her baby and I carry a healthy baby to term, you know? It would crush me, so I know it would kill her. And I can’t wait for AJ to get home.” She glanced at her watch. “He should land in four hours and be home shortly after.” AJ had flown back to Orlando to handle some real estate business and was supposed to have gotten back last night but had been delayed.

          “I know. We truly have so much to be thankful for,” he responded as he bent his head and silently thanked God for being with him and his “family” during this time.

          One by one all the guys and Andrea’s mom and dad, who had flown in from WI for her surgery, took turns going down to see her. As the waiting room emptied and everyone went home to get some rest, Annie plopped down on the dreadful couch and sighed. She rubbed her temples with her fingertips for a minute or so trying to ease the pressure that was building in her head.

          “My blood pressure must be through the roof,” she said out loud with a snicker. She leaned back on the couch and closed her eyes. Even the fact that the couch was the most uncomfortable piece of furniture she’d ever sat on didn’t prevent her from dozing off. When she awakened ten minutes later, she felt like she had been sleeping for hours.

          “Thank God for cat naps,” she laughed as she lifted herself up and walked back down the hall. When she reached Andrea’s room and walked in, she found Andrea sitting on the side of the bed slipping her feet into her flip flops. As she pushed the door open further and entered the room completely she saw a familiar face sitting in the chair behind the bed.

          “AJ, what are you doing here?” she squealed as she ran over to him and allowed herself to be wrapped up into his strong lean arms.

          “Well, wife of mine, I thought I would surprise you. I was able to get a earlier flight back and jumped on it. I missed you and I wanted to see how everything went with Andrea.”

          “Well, husband of mine, I’m glad you did,” she said as she kissed him. Even though Andrea had gotten the news of her cancer a few days before the wedding, they still carried out the ceremony as planned. Andrea refused to allow them to change anything because of her, and today marked the one month anniversary of the wedding. Now both girls were happily married, halfway through their first trimesters and life was starting to fall into place once again.

          Andrea stood up from the bed and cringed slightly as she moved her arm to fast and irritated the bandaged area of her body. Nick, Annie and Alex all jumped towards as if she was in danger, and she started laughing.

          “All of you need to take a chill pill, seriously! I may have a hole in my boob but I’m not helpless,” she joked as she made a funny face at them. Even though she felt horrible and just wanted get back to AJ’s house and relax, she wanted to reassure them that she was going to be okay; something she also needed to reassure herself of. She looked at the three faces looking back at her, and tears welled up in her eyes so fast there was no hope of keeping them contained.

          “Thank you, for everything,” she said to them as she cried. “As I was lying on the gurney in the operating room before they put me under I was so scared that I would never get to tell you guys that. So, thank you.”

          Annie began to cry with her cousin and gently pulled her into a hug, being extra careful not to hurt her. “I was so scared that I would never get to say a lot of things to you. I’m so happy you’re all right.”

          “Me too,” Andrea responded as she wiped her tears away and smiled. “Now get me out of here, I’m so ready to blow this Popsicle stand.” Everyone chuckled, glad to see that Andrea was at least acting like she was back to normal. Nick put his arm around his wife and kissed her tenderly as they walked to the elevator. On the ride down, Andrea smiled and reflected on the past year and a half to herself, in a nutshell: I grieved, laughed, lied, loved, got married, got impregnated, and survived. That’s quite a road back home.

The End.

Epilogue coming soon