Chapter 10
The night passed uneventfully, but Edward never actually slept, in spite of how exhausted he was. He walked into Ajna’s room at about six in the morning and sat in the same chair, in the same place he had just hours ago. Nothing had changed. Ajna still lay under heavy sedation and dimmed lights, but she was also alive. Edward always had a slightly controlling personality and now felt so out of control that the word ‘lost’ didn’t even begin to describe his state of mind. There was nothing he could do but wait and Edward wasn’t very good at waiting for anything. His job was demanding and required a high degree of independent thought and initiative. But here, neither of those qualities would be of any use and he was thrown into the realization that he could neither fight nor change anything about the world he now found himself in. As he leaned over the bed to carefully kiss Ajna’s forehead he discovered an issue that demanded attention. He needed a shower. He approached Bonnie and asked if there was a locker room with a shower he could use. Edward was told that the locker rooms were for staff only and no public showers were available. He looked back at Ajna knowing that he couldn’t possibly be at her side every waking moment and at some point, he would only be in the way. He looked back at Bonnie and thanked her, then walked back into the room and whispered in Ajna’s ear.
“Sweetheart, I have to leave. But I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
It seemed like only the next moment that he found himself behind the wheel of his car, as he was starting the engine. He was still was in such an emotional state that he had no memory of how he got from the SCU-4 unit to the parking garage. He drove out and was immediately struck by the early morning daylight. He put the visor down, but the unexpectedly painful light of day had already seared his tired, bloodshot eyes. Putting on a pair of sunglasses seemed to both numb the pain and hide his exhaustion from the world. As he drove home, he noticed that the ‘war zone’ was oddly quiet and Edward realized that even the criminal element needed rest. Another half mile brought Edward to the neighborhood he and Ajna called home. He pulled into the driveway and after locking the doors walked around to the front steps. The small front porch was covered with flowers, ‘get well’ cards and baked goods delivered by caring neighbors. In a world of technology, bad news travels at broadcast speed and by this time, everyone in the neighborhood knew what had happened. Edward picked up the cards, flowers and food, brought everything inside and laid it all out on the coffee table in the living room. He sat down on the couch and opened each envelope, scanning every card. He wanted to read every word so as not to feel as though he might be discounting the concerns of those around him. His eyes teared up as he read the third card. It wasn’t especially moving, but he had become aware of just how quiet the house was and he felt an emptiness wash over him like nothing he had ever experienced. Edward wiped the tears from his face with the sleeve of his shirt as he put the card back down on the coffee table. Getting back up from the couch, he took the food that had also been left and put it in the refrigerator. He wasted no time going upstairs to the shower. He was afraid that if he sat for too long he would start thinking and he didn’t want to think – about anything. There would be time later to get things organized at home, but right now he just wanted to get a shower and get back to the hospital. Edward quickly grabbed a shower and a change of clothes, trying very hard not to get caught up in the realization that he was alone. Twenty minutes later, he was driving back into Maine Medical Center’s parking garage. He discovered that if he parked one level beneath the helipad he could get to the SCU unit much faster and not have to deal with a lot of people.
Walking quickly back into SCU-4, he noticed that Bonnie was in Ajna’s room. He stood in front of the door and slightly cleared his throat. “Oh, hi,” Bonnie said. “That was quick. Feel a little better now?”
She was putting up new I.V. bags and double checking drip rates. Everything in the room seemed to be run like a well oiled machine with absolute precision and ‘round the clock observation.
“Uh…a bit human,” Edward answered. “It’s amazing what a shower can do, right?”
He stepped back towards the nurse’s desk so Bonnie could do her job without feeling crowded. But, there was one particular thing that Edward’s mind was still trying to grasp and it was from his need to resolve this that he stepped over to room 1043. Something inside him had to know – was that man really dead? He found that the light in the room was on and the bed linen had recently been changed. The room looked clean and orderly, but the bed was empty and had been made ready for the next patient. Edward wondered just how many people had died in that bed. Bonnie had emerged from Ajna’s room. “O.k….you can go in,” she said.
She noticed where Edward was standing, just starring at the bed in room 1043. Bonnie put a hand on his arm causing Edward to startle with a slight gasp. He turned toward her and swallowed nervously and it was at this point that she noticed that Edward’s forehead was glistening with sweat.
“Mr. Drake, are you alright? She asked.
She also noticed that his skin was slightly pale and became very concerned over what she was seeing. “Mr. Drake, why don’t you come and sit down for a few minutes,” she said.
She walked Edward to a chair behind the nurse’s desk and quietly asked another nurse for a blood pressure monitor and an oxygen saturation meter. She also thought it might be a good idea to check his blood glucose. The only thing that seemed to deviate from normal was that his blood glucose was sixty five. Bonnie told him it would be a good idea for him to go to the cafeteria for some breakfast.
“You’re not gonna be any good to Ajna lying on the floor,” she said.
In half an hour, he had returned looking more alert and with much better color. As he approached the room, he noticed that a large machine had been wheeled in. Bonnie had told him that the doctor had ordered some x-rays to assess the reinflation of her lung. The x-rays were shot in 3-D, just as they had been done in critical care. This relatively new technology was able to image both bone and soft tissue and made older imaging systems, like MRI’s obsolete.
The x-ray was brought up on a holographic viewer almost instantly and the doctor quickly confirmed that Ajna’s lung was almost completely reinflated. Edward got as close as he could to hear what was being said when the doctor looked up at him.
“Edward,” he said. “Finally, some good news! Ajna’s lung looks almost completely reinflated and I think the chest tube can come out tomorrow.”Edward exhaled a breath of relief knowing this was a big step on Ajna’s long road of recovery.
“Doctor,” asked Edward. “When can she get off the breathing machine?”
The doctor was again quick with an answer that was both confident and logical.
“Well, this is a good first step and quite honestly, I’ve never seen a lung recover this quickly. But, she’s going to have to stay on the ventilator for…maybe three more days while the sutures in her lung heal a bit more.”
Edward now held a great deal of confidence and respect for the doctor who had saved Ajna’s life. After the portable x-ray machine had been wheeled out, the nurses went in to make sure that everything was in place and that all the tubes and wires were disentangled. When the nurses left, he stepped into the room and sat in the same chair that he had used for the last day. Edward sat helplessly and watched Ajna breath, even though she was breathing through the corrugated tubing of a ventilator. He felt better having food in his stomach, but he was still exhausted. He thought that it might have been a good idea to have taken a short nap on the couch before leaving for the hospital. If he was to be of any help to Ajna in her recovery, he would have to be rested and thinking clearly.
He stayed for about four hours and decided that he should go home to get some rest while he could still keep his eyes open and maybe do a few things around the house. Again, the drive home was quiet and this when he pulled into the driveway he decided to go into the house through the back door. He just didn’t feel like dealing with neighbors coming out with questions and ‘I’m so sorry about what happened’. He knew that people were simply expressing their concern, but he just wanted to be left along. Once in the house, he went immediately to the couch. He sat down still looking at the cards and flowers that he had retrieved from the front porch this morning. His first instinct was to stay out of the bedroom. That was the place where the two of them shared their passion, their link with each other. That link was still there, but now Edward felt like he was only one half of a whole. The other half – his best half – was lying on a bed at Maine Medical Center breathing through a machine. Ordinarily, he might have felt that prolonging life through technology could be considered a violation of life itself. After all, what kind of life could one have if it was to be spent dependant on machines? He decided that ethical issues were best left to philosophers and laid down on the couch. He was sound asleep almost as soon as his head landed on the cushion, yet he experienced his worse fears as his dreams drifted from terror to terror as his sleeping mind projected a funeral scene within the theater of his dreams. It was this that startled him into alertness and he rose to a sitting position with his face covered in sweat while his hands trembled uncontrollably. Without a moment’s thought, he walked quickly over to the kitchen sink and threw cold water against his face and splashed some in his hair. He stood up, grabbed a towel and put it up to his face. Putting it back on the side of the sink he began to get caught up in a moment of reflection. He couldn’t afford to fall apart, but he didn’t want to become numb either. He needed to be able to think straight. Bonnie had given him a card with the unit phone number on it in case he needed or wanted to call and while at the hospital, he was told that there a chaplain was available in case he needed to talk. He discovered he wasn’t very fond of the word ‘chaplain’. They were usually needed to comfort the dying and counsel their families and Edward resented even the suggestion that he may need this particular service. He kept his mind occupied by doing some house cleaning. But two hours later, he found himself driving back to the hospital where he continued to sit by Ajna’s side.