Annoyance tugged at her. "I just need to get my bearings."
"The doctor will be in to see you soon. Maybe she can explain more. Right now, we're pumping you full of fluids. Are you hurting anywhere?"
She nodded, but that only seemed to make the pain worse. "My head is killing me."
"It's probably the dehydration, but you could have bumped it when you fell. How about I get you some pain medicine?"
"Just Tylenol," she said quickly. "I'm in recovery and don't like to be in an altered state."
"Tylenol coming right up. I'll also note your preference in the chart."
The nurse left them, and she felt the side of the bed shift with Bette's weight as she sat next to Kerrie. She looked upset. "Should I have told them you were in recovery? It never crossed my mind that pain medicine would be a problem."
Kerrie moved her hand to Bette's thigh, finding comfort in the touch. "Don't worry about it. I want to thank you for last night. I love knowing you can take care of Kenny in moments like that."
"And you. I was so scared seeing you on the floor."
"I'm sorry for scaring you. I guess I didn't realize how hard I'd been pushing myself."
Bette smoothed her hand on Kerrie's stomach and adjusted the covers. "I think you do so much for others that you forget to take care of Kerrie."
Kerrie snorted, then winced at the action as a jolt of pain went through her head. "Yeah, I've heard that before. Shit, what time is it? I need to call in."
"I already texted Tyler and told him you were sick."
A little guilt nudged at her gut. She didn't know how she felt about someone doing things for her like that. Taking care of Kenny, helping her during an emergency, and calling into work for her. Even when she was chastising Kerrie about staying in the damn hospital. "Thank you again."
Kerrie dozed off and on for a few hours, and every time she woke, Bette was right beside her. The doctor had come by, a wispy, tall lady with a gruff but kind bedside manner. Kerrie insisted she be released despite Bette's pleas to rest, and after going round and round a bit, the doctor said she would only be comfortable releasing her if she peed twice.
The problem was she hadn't even peed once. Not even a little tingling of an urge. It was starting to piss her off. She didn't like feeling helpless. Feeling weak. The longer she lay there, the harder it became. She wanted to go home. She wanted to have some kind of control, but lying there in the hospital bed, she realized that she didn't have any control. And that terrified her. Control was all she had to make her feel secure. And now she felt anything but secure.
Around 2:00 in the afternoon, she was finally able to go to the bathroom. She had already had four bags of fluids, and she was drinking water and eating ice chips as often as she could between naps. But it still didn't feel like she was getting hydrated. Even her skin felt dry, like she had baked in the oven a little too long.
After helping Kerrie get back to the bed, Bette covered her up and made sure she could reach her table.
"If you're okay, I'm going to go to the house and take a shower and check on Kenny. I think it'll be a little bit more before you'll be able to pee again."
"Yeah, I know. That's fine. Go do what you need to do. I'm not going anywhere for at least a few more hours," she answered, bitterness in her voice.
"I'd say probably more like five or six," commented Trina, the day shift nurse, as she walked into the room. "I've got you another bag."
Kerrie groaned, running her hand through her hair. "My God, is it ever going to stop? Surely, at this point, my eyeballs should be floating."
The nurse snorted as she hung up the bag. "You were pretty severely dehydrated. It's going to take a while before you start feeling well again."
"Of course it is," Kerrie said, rolling her eyes.
"Well, if you need anything, just hit the buzzer, and one of us will come in."
They watched Trina leave, and Bette picked up her purse. "All right. I'll be back in a few hours. Call me if you need me. I wrote my number down here," she motioned at the little slip of paper on the table. "I'll bring your phone with me. Until then, just use the landline by your bed."
Nodding, she leaned up to give Bette a goodbye kiss. "Thank you. Could you bring me a change of clothes? I'm not trying to wear this lovely ensemble outside of this room."
"You got it. I wouldn't want all these nurses to try to take you from me when they get a view of your backside hanging out of that gown," teased Bette with a wink. "I'll be back."
For the next few hours, Kerrie drifted in and out of consciousness. It was like she couldn't get enough sleep, just like she couldn't get enough fluids, and she wasn't quite sure how she had gotten to this point. She knew she'd been tired in the last few days. She was perpetually tired; the feeling had become normal, but there had been something a little more exhausting in this kind of tiredness.
Work had been overwhelming. Grants were coming to a close, and they were releasing what funding was left so that it would be used up. That was the thing about having state funding. If they gave you money, you had to use it all. Otherwise, theywould say you didn't need it, and they wouldn't give you as much the next year. Normally, as soon as parole officers heard that they had money to spend, the floodgates would open with clients coming in. She was at her max of 12, and Wilson was at 11. Not to mention, Tindle Street was down a counselor for a week while Thomas took vacation time. Someone had to help, and the people at The Main didn't know how to run a building on their own. The only thing they could do was help with notes, and even then, they really didn't volunteer to do that. So Kerrie went to rescue Clinton despite having her own full caseload.
