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KATE: Please tell her thanks so much. I don’t know what we’d do without her…
DRAKE: I will. I’ll be there in 30 minutes. I love you.
KATE: Are you going home first or are you coming right over?
DRAKE: I checked my messages and saw that you’d texted me. I called Karen as soon as I learned. I called over to NYP to see how Dad was. I’ll fill you in when I get there.
KATE: Okay. I’m so scared…
DRAKE: Hold on. I’ll be there soon.
I put my cell away and turned to Elaine, who was sitting with her eyes closed, her face ashen.
“Drake says Dr. Franks is fantastic.”
Elaine opened her eyes and glanced at me. “Yes,” she said in a tired voice. “The nurses in the ER told me Dr. Franks was the on-call neurosurgeon and that he was top in his field, especially in this area. We’re lucky.”
I nodded and tears welled up in my eyes once more. I covered them, not wanting to break down, and tried to breathe deeply to control my emotions. I glanced around the room. There were five other people in the room in two clusters, so there must be three surgeries going on at the moment. I sipped my juice and leaned back, taking in a deep cleansing breath to calm myself. I closed my eyes, and repeated the deep breathing exercise I had used before to regain calm and it seemed to do the trick.
“How are you, dear?” Elaine said softly.
“Fine,” I said and turned my head to look at her. She looked better as well, like the tea was calming her. It gave us both something to do.
“You said he’d been stumbling a lot lately,” I said and turned to her, feeling guilty that I hadn’t been around much or checked more often to see how he was doing. “But I thought it was him getting used to the after effects of his stroke.”
“We didn’t want to alarm you, dear,” she said and took my hand in hers. “He wasn’t feeling well but thought it was a cold. I guess he had something going on and when he fell earlier, I thought it was another example of him having trouble with his left side. I knew as soon as I bent down to help him that it wasn’t just another fall.”
“What happened?” I asked, my gut in a knot about it.
“His eyes were closed, but I thought maybe he was in pain,” she said, and squeezed my hand once more. “I asked him how he was, and he didn’t reply. I tried to shake him, to get his attention but nothing. That was when I knew he wasn’t grimacing in pain. He was unconscious. He’s heavy, and I couldn’t get him up on my own, so I called 9-1-1 right away. Luckily, my training came in handy and I was able to get him in a better position, checked his airway, and waited. I rushed to the door to unlock it and I called down to the concierge to let them know that I’d called 9-1-1. The firemen were the first to arrive.”
I thought about how afraid Elaine must have been, waiting for help to arrive. It brought me back to my own accident – or should I say, attack.
“You must have been frantic,” I said and shook my head.
“It seemed to take forever for them to arrive but finally, they came in and took over. Your father was breathing fine, but he was unconscious. When they began to work on him, assessing him, he regained consciousness, but I could see him already changing. His face had that strange mask-like look and the side of his face drooped. I knew it was a stroke.”
“What did they tell you about his prognosis?”
She closed her eyes. “It’s hard to say,” she said and then glanced at me. “The bleed was big. They’ll do what they can, but Dr. Franks told me to prepare myself. That’s why I answered your call. Your dad asked me not to call you until I knew how he was going to be. He didn’t want to stress you needlessly.”
“He was able to talk though? That's good, right?"
She nodded. "Yes, but then he stopped being able to say anything. He only nodded or shook his head."
"He was just going to die and have you tell me later?”
“No,” she said and squeezed my hand again. “He wanted for me to wait until after the procedure. He said there was no use having you disrupt your entire life until you had to. He was concerned about you.”
“And you went along with him? You should have called me last week. You should have called me as soon as you were finished calling 9-1-1. What about Heath? Have you called him?”
She shook her head. "He's in Haiti for the month. Your father didn't want to cause any problems until we knew more."
Tears filled my eyes once more despite my anger at my father for trying to protect us, and at Elaine for doing as he asked.
“I would have come down right away and spoken to him,” I said, wiping my eyes with my free hand. “I could have told him I love him in case he doesn’t make it through surgery. Heath would fly
back right away…”
