A different kind of workout

It begins six days before, just after work, with a brief message from him saying you need to call back. It’s urgent.  So you call, and get nothing but ringing.

You run through the possibilities. Maybe it’s about Nick, the best friend, the one recovering from bypass surgery?

Maybe it’s about the trip. They’re leaving the next day for Florida. Are they taking you up on your offer to run last minute errands? Maybe they need to borrow a suitcase.

Urgent though? Urgent isn’t about suitcases.

Is it about her? The one who didn’t call? The one who’s celebrating a tiny reprieve from infusion labs and laser beams, fatigue and dread? 

Instead of heading to your home, you drive to theirs. You pass the road that could take you straight to the emergency room in under five minutes.  You wonder if you should have turned, then remember how everyone always makes fun of you because you are the queen of imaginary worst case scenarios.   

The phone rings a mile from their house and when you answer it’s her and the shaking in her voice stirs up your insides. You smile because you read somewhere that smiling relaxes. You promise to be there in less than 10 minutes. You pull a u-turn on a busy four-lane road as the school at the corner is dismissing. You floor it, and get to the ER right on time. 

Then you wait with her. You get coffees and muffins and check Facebook. Every few minutes you leave your orange plastic seat and wave to him. He’s still in his street clothes, sitting on a hospital bed in the triage area behind the reception desk, which is a terribly open space. He gives you that smile that you’ve known your whole life, the one that means you’ve got to be kidding me. You give him the same smile and raise your arms in a what the heck way and he does too. Then you both grin, a real laughing grin  this time.

When the two of you are finally allowed to join him, you talk about many things including the swearing guy on the gurney in the hall. The police officer is asking swearing guy to stop with the bad words for God’s sake because these are nice people here.

You broach the subject of canceling the airport shuttle, the flight, the rental car.  The doctor arrives and says might as well, since he won’t be leaving the hospital for quite awhile.  Turns out canceling everything is easy. Dealing with the reality for the canceling? Not so much.

The next day is a snow day and you rejoice because you can sleep in though in truth your sleep is thin and you wake up feeling groggy rather than refreshed. You call the hospital and switch to high alert when they mention the ICU. Your heart rate drops to close to normal when you learn it’s because of overflow, not illness.

At the hospital you learn he got the bed at 6 a.m. and slept less than you because the ER was packed with noisy drunks and addicts.  You wait a lot. You get coffees. Finally, the three of you discuss the choices with two specialists: surgery or meds? The docs enthuse over the surgery. They are optimistic. The three of you agree on the surgery, which will be an hour away, in Boston.

The next day, he calls at school to say they will be moving him in ninety minutes, so he should be in Boston by 2 p.m.  You rush from school to pick her up on the other side of the city. You drive to Boston. At the Weston tolls, she jokes that maybe that’s him, in that ambulance. It’s ambulance number 80. It has the hospital name written in pretty purple type.

You arrive at Tufts Hospital which is a small city. You get lost multiple times before you make it up to the sixth floor of the North building, where he has a huge room all to himself. He’s just arrived. It’s way past four. It likely was him at the Weston tolls.

Thursday morning you wake early and hit the gym before dawn because you have a 20-mile race Sunday, plus the old adrenaline rushes are starting up again, which means your blood pressure is rising. You used to not know how to handle things back when your hair wasn’t specked with white, back in worst case scenario days. Now you self medicate by attacking cardio equipment.  

You drive to Tufts and wait.  The night before, you’d dined on Chinese noodles at a former theatre just a block from the hospital. He stayed back and ate salmon and fruit cup. It’s just the two of you at that restaurant. You talk about faded glory and gaudy chandeliers and say that the place reminds you of the nightclub where Rosanne Arquette did her magic act in Desperately Seeking Susan, one of your favorite movies.

The night of the surgery you stay in the hospital. You eat sandwiches you bought at a shop in the lobby. You are in a waiting room with lots of windows looking out over more waiting rooms. You daydream. You read. You have nothing to say that you haven’t already said two dozen times. When you finally see him, none of you can stop talking.

You leave work early the next day to get him home before the commuter traffic. You learn two things. First, his new roommate, a homeless guy with a growth on his heel, kept him awake all night, talking to air. Second, the operation was a failure. So he needs to start on new meds that have some serious side effects. You ask if he should really be going home. After all, they worked on the heart for six hours just a day ago.  The nurse says he’s fine. Plus, he’s sick of hospitals. He wants to be home. At least he can start golfing in two weeks.

You get in the car just as the evening commute is starting. It’s bitterly cold though it’s spring now. You’re making good time despite the stop and go nonsense at the Weston tolls and at Route 30 in Natick.

At the Westboro exit, in a snarl of traffic, everything changes. He says, “I’m having another episode.” He's talking about the symptoms that made the surgery necessary in the first place. 

“It’s okay. We’re almost home,” you say. Actually, you are twenty-five minutes from home.

Seconds later, there’s another episode, then another. You’re bolting down 495 now, in rush hour traffic. He’s panicking. She’s panicking. You use your left hand to drive, your right to scroll through your phone. You find the doctor’s number and you call.

A nurse comes on the speaker phone. You remember to be thankful that your old car died last year and you chose this one with a cool phone system, though last year at this time you were beyond stressed because your budget could have really used that old horse one more year.  

Your left hand is on the wheel. Your right hand is on his.

You explain the situation in between his cries which go like this: “Jesus I’m having another one! Jesus!” You try to check his pulse but it’s hard to do that and drive and talk to the nurse at the same time so you tell the nurse his color is good, which is the truth, and you hold his hand.

You exit onto 290 and traffic picks up. The nurse asks if you want her to stay on the line. At the same time, all three of you say yes. You can’t help but smile just a bit at that. You’re still 15 minutes from the hospital when your head starts to swirl and you recognize the signs that a panic attack is imminent. You rack your brain for any goody to help you cope. You tell the nurse he’s a golfer. You ask the nurse if she golfs. And the attack fades away as you hear him talk to her about his favorite golf courses. His voice is strained. You can tell he’s beyond stressed, but still, the timbre of his voice, the fact that he is talking,  soothes you.

You pull up to the ER where it all began just five days earlier. They bring him to the same triage bed as before, the one behind the glass, out in the open. Once he is safely in a bed, you start shaking. The adrenaline rush is overwhelming you. You grab a chair and sit and practice yoga breaths.  You call upon your lions of gratitude to tear through this sadness. You all made it there in one piece. That’s something.

There are tests and more tests and waiting of course, and you go home when he's admitted then go back and visit again. Also, you’re starting to carbo load because the race is less than twenty-four hours away and you haven’t been interested in eating much.

The night before the race he’s resting and comfortable and almost back to normal, except for the huge IV bag dripping ventricle-calming juices into black and blue arms that were pink just days ago.  You say you’ll try to stop by after the race tomorrow night. It’s out of state so you may be late.

“Nah, don’t bother stopping by. I’ll be fine. You enjoy your run.” He understands about your need for running. When you lean down to kiss him on his cool smooth forehead he says this: “You’re a good daughter.” At that moment, you feel so great you know you could rush out and leap a tall building in a single bound. Maybe even stop a steam engine with one hand. All he has to do is ask. You'd do anything for him.

You go to bed early because you have to be up at dawn to drive north to New Hampshire. The phone call comes at exactly 11:30. 

The doctor says he’s been moved to ICU, not because of overflow but because things haven’t been going as planned, though on the positive side his pacemaker is working beautifully. In fact, it worked beautifully four times in five minutes. 

“Thank God for technology,” you say. Your heart is beating so hard you barely hear your own words.

The next morning, the early alarm you’d set so you’d get to the race start on time goes off. You wake up surprised because you didn’t expect you’d ever be able to fall back asleep after that phone call. 

You dress in your favorite race shirt and some comfortable pants. You grab your bag, and make sure to put in a bottle of water and a banana. 

You drive south instead of north.  

You enter a quiet room with glass doors and one lone occupant. This is where you want to be. Nothing matters but this. This is your oxygen. This is your run. When he opens his eyes and smiles at you, you beam.