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Me: Thanks. Love you too.
I scroll back up, then lean against Miles, showing him the picture.
“He’s going to be a goner when Rae has the baby.”
“Just like you are. I’m so glad we have you.”
He pulls me tighter to him. “You’ll always have me.”
For a moment, my brain gives me a reprieve and lets me believe that.
The waiting goes on. Mackie and Dani bring fancy coffees from a café in the hospital. I pace laps around the room. Other families come and go. I pace more.
An hour later, and I’m sitting in a chair with my head in my hands. I want to scream. Miles calmly rubs my back, and while it feels good, I’m also overflowing with anxious energy. I’m twitchy and ragey.
Someone tell me something.
But that thought gives me pause, remembering my mother’s words after my father’s final cancer diagnosis. How she wished she could not know for a few more hours.
Just like I wish I could go back to the farmhouse. Those moments of laughter around the kitchen table.
When tragedy strikes, we itch to go back to the moment before, clinging on to another second of what normal used to be.
“I’m looking for the family of Eileen Davis.”
I shoot out of my chair and over to the doctor, who is standing there in a periwinkle scrubs and a lab coat. Miles is right beside me, and Katie, Dani, and Mackie stop behind us.
“I’m her daughter, Amelia.”
“My name is Doctor Amell. I treated your mother here in the ER. She suffered an ischemic stroke while at the nursing home. Thankfully, they caught it early, and we were able to administer thrombolytics when she got here to help break up the clots and limit the severity of the stroke. It appears to have affected the right side of her body. We don’t yet know the extent of the complications she may have. What we know right now is she is stable. She’s conscious. She has some paralysis on her right side, and her ability to talk is quite limited, partially from facial paralysis, and partly speech related. Without knowing her pre-stroke abilities, it’s hard for me to make an assessment on any decline in speech capabilities. Unfortunately, a stroke can worsen Alzheimer’s symptoms, so we’ll have to see over the coming days how this will impact her. She’ll be moving to our stroke and vascular care unit, and we’ll take things from there. Do you have any questions for me?”
I blink a couple of times. There’s only one question, and I feel stupid asking it. Is she going to be okay? He probably can’t answer that.
“What does this mean for her going forward?”
He nods. “It will depend on the level of impairment. We’ll have rehab services screening and working with her within the next twelve hours, but with a patient in her situation, how we handle it is more of a discussion. A doctor from that unit will talk with you more over the next few days, and when she goes back to the nursing home, you should have a clearer picture of where she’s at and you can set up a plan from there.” He gives me a sympathetic smile. “I wish I could give you clearer answers. Unfortunately, in these situations, there’s a lot of wait and see.”
Swallowing down the lump in my throat, I nod meekly. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Of course. A nurse will let you know when she’s transferred upstairs so you can meet your mother up there.”
“Okay, thanks.” I sound like a repetitive robot.
He nods again and walks away, and I collapse against Miles. I don’t know how I feel or what I’m thinking. I guess I’ll have time to figure it out while we wait some more.
Sometimes I really hate doctors. I’ve experienced some great ones throughout my father’s cancer battle and everything with my mom, but there have been some shitty ones too. Like the one who came in to talk with us in my mother’s room in the stroke recovery unit.
He had zero bedside manner, mansplained, talked in circles without answering questions, and absolutely could not read the room about when to stop with the doom and gloom speech. He kept harping on the fact that my mother would likely never recover from this. He told me over and over about her increased chance of additional strokes. He told me I should be prepared for difficult decisions in the coming months—like whether I’d like her on life support if she had another stroke and needed it.
I stood there, a mix of dumbfounded and utterly pissed, until Katie stepped in, murder in her eyes and told him in no uncertain terms to get the hell out.
I know being realistic is essential for a doctor, but being pessimistic isn’t and that’s all he did. It was like he needed me to know my mother was going to die soon and I’d better be ready for it.
She’s in bed now. Sleepy and disoriented. I’m not sure she even knows I’m here. I wanted the doctor to give me realistic ideas about her recovery or what happens next, but he kept repeating all the negative shit.
I’m exhausted now. All the adrenaline in my body is spent, and I’ve lost track of what time it is. I sent Dani and Mackenzie home a while ago, so it’s just Miles, Katie, and me. I have no idea what I’m doing here, if I should stay or go home, or what happens next.
“You need to eat something,” Miles says.
