*
*
Never really said too much
Afraid it wouldn’t be enough,
Just try to keep my spirits up
When there’s no point in grieving.
It’s been ten days since Jim last opened his eyes. Ten days since he last told me that he loved me. Ten long days of waiting, waiting, and waiting. Familiar faces poke through the haze of Jim’s hospital room, linger, and fade away. They peer down, ask me questions. They all ask questions. How’re you holding up? How’s Cece doing? I’m exhausted and emotionally fatigued. I want to tell them this but talking hurts.
There isn’t much hope, I’m told. They also tell me a full recovery isn’t very likely. The doctors talk hurriedly and use words I don’t understand. I think on day five they actually used the term ‘vegetable.’ But, there were some brainwaves on day six, so…no vegetable yet. They also said there were muscle movements on day seven, but were deemed involuntary reflexes on day eight.
Every story has an end, right?
Jim is immobile and, aside from the beeps of the various machines keeping him here, stillness lies over his white ICU room. I always pay close attention to the EKG monitor: the waves, the intervals, watching it every time it spikes up and down, up and down. I imagine his heart contracting and relaxing, blood pumping through his arteries and veins, carrying oxygen to his organs, his brain…fighting to keep everything nourished, fighting to keep him alive.
After the surgery, the doctor came out and told me the tumor was removed, but there were complications. Because of where the tumor was lodged, there was significant bleeding, but that was not his team’s major concern. He said there was a lot of fluid buildup, brain swelling, and it was putting pressure on Jim’s cranial walls.
At first, he said some swelling is expected. They induced a coma and waited for Jim’s intracranial pressure to drop. It never did. It increased. So they did a hemicraniectomy, and removed a part of his skull to allow his brain to expand beyond its confinement. It worked and the pressure dropped beautifully. Everyone was very hopeful then.
But Jim didn’t get better. On day six he entered a critical vegetative state. The doctor assumed he suffered brain damage following the surgery. “His brain was deprived of oxygen due to the extensive swelling,” he told me, visibly disconcerted. “The damage is greater than he can sustain.” I asked if there was any chance of him having a full recovery. He said, “Not likely,” like he was chewing on a rock.
I remember stepping into the small bathroom in Jim’s room and just wanting to scream. I imagined screaming until I thought my throat would rip and my chest exploded. I wanted relief from the agony I felt. Later, a nurse asked if I heard screaming coming from this end of the hallway.
On day nine, my mom said I should go home and stay there for a little while and clear my head. She said seeing Jim with all the tubes and wires wasn’t healthy. She also said I wouldn’t want that image of him engraved in my head. I kept fading in and out of our conversation, but anger awakened me when she told me to let go. I closed my eyes and my nose filled with the smell of rubbing alcohol and I just wanted to tear away from this place, this reality, and melt someplace far.
Now, it’s almost day eleven and I’m still here. Jim’s brothers have left and when Betsy left she began to say something, but her voice cracked. She closed her mouth, opened it, and closed it again. There were no words. The sun has set, and the sky swathes in smothers of purple and red. I’m ten times undone, and hope, and fear, and sorrow, and rage and love rise up at once. Every attempt to divert these emotions only aggravates them.
I’ve been insisting on bringing Cece here so he can hear her and touch her, but the ICU staff won’t allow it. They say it’s dangerous for the patients, especially Jim, since the smallest infection can be detrimental to his already delicate state. I comply, but I think if he just hears her, he will come back to us.
Out of pure exhaustion, I decide to head home for the night and perhaps take my mom’s advice and stay there. But I know when I get home I’ll see all the empty spaces Jim has left behind and the pain will be worse than seeing him at the hospital. I know I’ll wake up and reach for him at night.
When I arrive home, I find Penny rocking a screaming Cecelia in her arms. She’s been colicky for a few days now and the switch to formula (I’m not producing enough milk) hasn’t been easy on her. I lift my grief-stricken baby to me and Penny looks almost relieved.
“She was asleep and woke up crying and hasn’t stopped since.”
“It’s the formula.” I say, sitting on the couch. “I’m going to call Dr. Arsmani tomorrow.”
I lay Cecelia across my lap and rub circles on her back. Her little body contorts in pain and her screams pierce every corner of the house. Her face is cherry red and she kicks her little legs against my thighs incessantly. I keep thinking, Jim would know what to do.
I lie on the couch and move her to my chest and pull the throw over us.
“I know baby, I know…” I whisper.
She looks up at me with tears stuck to her eyelashes and at this moment she’s all Jim. I’ve been resisting tears and ‘behaving’ like the strong person I should be, for our family, for Cece. But then she looks at me like that and everything collapses. For the first time in ten days, I cry.
I wake up to daylight coming from the living room window. I’ve slept on the couch and Cece is still lying peacefully on my chest. We both had a tough night and I guess someone, somewhere thought we both needed a few extra minutes.
I close my eyes again and when I wake up, Cece is wide awake, squirming her clenched fists over my shirt. I sit up because I know exactly what she wants. I undo the buttons on my blouse and she roots around and latches her mouth around my breast. I’ve missed this intimate moment between her and me. I run my hand over the whiff of hair atop her head and take her little hand in mine. Jim needs to see her.
“Oh, you’re awake,” Penny says from the living room’s threshold.
“Yeah,” I say looking down at Cecelia.
“I didn’t want to wake you. You looked so comfortable,” she says around a coffee mug. “And I wouldn’t dare move Cece.”
We chuckle a bit. Penny’s been my right arm through all of this.
She walks further into the living room and takes a seat next to me. “The doctor called this morning,” she says somberly.
I immediately pipe up, ignoring her solemn tone. “What did he say? Is Jim awake?”
“He wanted to tell you that…it’s okay to bring Cece in today.”
And just like that the waterworks begins because I know what that means.
Sometimes it feels like we’ve run out of luck
When the signal keeps on breaking up
When the wires cross in my brain
You’ll start my heart again
When I come along….
I bring Cece on days eleven through fifteen. The entire ICU staff falls in love with her. On day thirteen she is colicky and cries her little heart out. Jim’s EKG shows an accelerated heartbeat. The nurses joke, saying her cries can wake up the dead and perhaps it is true.
On day fourteen, Cece falls asleep after fussing over her bottle. She wants me, but I can’t give her what she wants. She has tired herself and tired me out. I feel guilt bubble inside and I cling to her. I hear a whimpering and realize it is mine; my lips become salty with tear trickling down my face. For so many reasons right now, I feel unfit to do… anything.
I reach for Jim’s limp hand and squeeze it. “I wish you would just wake up,” I plea around a teary sob.
And then it happens.
I feel it. It’s very subtle. But I know it’s there.
I wait for it again. Cece squirms in my arm, moaning in her sleep. I begin to sway on my feet.
Jim’s motionless.
I let go of his hand and wipe my nose on my sleeve. I pull the chair closer to the bed, sit, and intertwine my fingers with Jim’s once again.
“Can you hear me?” I venture. My heart will tear right out of my chest if it continues beating like this. “Babe? I’m—w-we’re here.”
I take a really long breath and release it slowly. I was certain I felt him squeeze my hand, but maybe I just wanted it so badly that as a consolation my mind played this cruel trick on me. I might be slowly going insane.
I wait.
But nothing.
On day fifteen I take my time before heading to the hospital. Cece finally got what she wanted yesterday and today. My breasts hurt from how much milk I’m producing. Overnight. Just like that. Needless to say, Cecelia Marie is in a swell mood today, laughing at the walls—as my mom would say.
When I arrive at the hospital, they tell me Jim’s made some progress overnight. They warn me it could mean nothing, but to me it’s everything. They say it could be a temporary symptom, but I’m too overjoyed and think of it more as a miracle. I ask what the “symptom” is and the doctor says with a grin, “Brainwaves.”
Suddenly I am hovering, looking down on myself from above. Faded jeans, pink sweater, glassy eyes, big unabashed smile, laughing at the plain white walls of the hospital.
On day sixteen Cece gets sick and I stay home with her. I hate not being able to bring her to see Jim, but she had a persistent fever the previous night and it has continued ‘till today. She’s very limp and congested and just wants to be held. I don’t mind her clinginess today. I just hope this cold will be out of here soon.
I don’t bring her to the hospital from days seventeen through nineteen. I leave her with Penny for a couple of hours so I can go see Jim. He has stabilized again and no more progress has been made. The doctor thinks if he comes out, he will probably have a brain lesion of some sort, but he changes his prognosis when Jim kicks both his legs and moves his fingers that night.
Now, the doctor tells me to wait.
I laugh.
What does he think I’ve doing?
The next day (day twenty) I receive a call from the hospital asking me to come right away. I throw on some clothes, grab Cece, toss a few essentials in a diaper bag, and I’m off. When I get there the nurses tell me Jim woke up during the night. They say he couldn’t speak because of the breathing tube, but that he tried to write something.
They hand me the sheet of paper.
They think it’s nothing.
There, I see two scribbled letters.
Two c’s.
Cece.
I think it’s everything.
Jim continues to slowly recover and bliss sneaks in and takes over our lives and everything is color and sound, everything is alive and good. I feel weightless and for the first time, it’s okay if I let go. This story will have a happy ending.
Jim starts to wiggle his fingers and toes, but has difficulty moving his arms and his legs. The one thing I want him to do, and it feels needy, perhaps selfish on my part, is talk. They haven’t removed his breathing tube—as a precaution. The doctor says his brain is like a child and needs all the assistance it can get, including some powerful drugs, which allows him to be awake only a few hours at a time.
On day…. I don’t even know on what day anymore, I bring Cece in with me and when I enter the room, Jim’s awake, staring at the television. He immediately sees us enter and smiles around the breathing tube—a lazy, sleepy grin.
“Look, Cee,” I say, turning her around. “It’s daddy.”
He wiggles his fingers and I squeeze his hand. There is nothing compared to what I’m feeling right now.
Cece is very used to coming here. The strange apparatuses, the beeping noises, and blinking lights don’t faze her one bit. She keeps her gaze on Jim, always.
I take her little hand and I touch his with hers, but Cece just wiggles around in my arms and her tiny hand goes bouncing in the air. Jim continues to smile, but his eyelids drift close. I think he kept himself awake long enough to see us. I’m thankful.
The day before his breathing tube is removed, I don’t sleep. Too much excitement. I can’t wait to hear his voice. I get to the hospital at least two hours before and wait with Cece, always with Cece. I go to his room and he’s awake, shifting all over the bed. He smiles when he sees us and stretches his arms out for a hug. I embrace him carefully, and plant a kiss on his forehead.
“It’s today,” I say.
He nods. He can’t wait to get that thing out of his throat. He reaches for Cece and I sit her next to him, nestled in the crook of his arms. She lays there and he runs his hand over the whiff of hair on her head. It’s getting curly. He smiles—I told you so.
When they finally pull the tube out, Jim coughs his lungs out. So much so that he throws up. But it’s out and we’re happy and he’s talking, hoarsely, but talking.
“H-hi,” he says. I can barely hear him.
I realize I still haven’t breathed out. I exhale, slowly, quietly. “Hey,” I reply. Happy tears roll down my cheeks.
A week later, the doctor tells us Jim is not out of the woods, and isn’t anywhere near where he needs to be physically, but he can go home and continue as an outpatient. We throw a welcome back party. Everyone comes. It’s a good day. Jim’s finally home.
Physical therapy begins and I’m warned that it could be hard and even discouraging for someone like him, who’s always been active. But when he pulls himself up between the two metal bars for the first time and his legs betray him, he isn’t fazed. Cece, however, finds it funny and gurgles as if Jim had just done the most comical thing.
“Don’t laugh young lady,” He says, pulling himself up. “This will be you in a couple of months.”
In two short weeks, to everyone’s amazement, Jim’s back on his feet. He is wobbly and unsteady at times, but he’s walking.
That same week, while I’m cooking dinner, Jim calls me very excitedly from somewhere down the hall. He’s been trying to help Cece roll over. She wants to do it, but hasn’t gotten it figured out yet. She’ll contort from side to side, waving her little hands and legs in the air, but won’t move. It’s pretty funny. She gets very worked up and begins cooing like crazy.
“Pam! You need to see this.”
I wipe my hand on my pants and go find them. When I get to the living room, my little babe is rolling around. She finally did it!
“Cece, look at you!” I exclaim.
“Pretty cool, huh?”
“How did you get her to do that?” I ask as Jim lays Cece on her back and she rolls over again to her tummy. I can’t believe it! I know all parents think this, but I know this little one will be amazing someday, and Jim got to be part of this, albeit small, milestone in Cece’s life.
“I don’t know, I just showed her the ball and she turned to it,” he says smiling. “She just needed the incentive, I guess.”
I stand there and just look at her go. The lasagna burns and we go out to dinner to celebrate.
When Jim is deemed well enough, the doctor schedules another radiation session. He says it will be the last one and then….we’re done? It’s almost impossible to believe. And as usual, when it begins, it’s a horrible two weeks of nausea, dizziness, and vomiting. We are better prepared this time around and we endure it like we always have. Every day seems closer to that day—when we’re finally free.
On his final evaluation after the two weeks finally end, the doctor takes us to his small, white office, with blank walls and says, “You’re tumor free. Now get your head in the game, get it?”
It’s the first time both of us laugh at his remarks, which always seem ill-timed. But today, we laugh our heads off because it’s gotta be the best thing we’ve heard in what seems like ages. Just eight months before we sat here, me with Cece in my belly, hearing that everything we planned for could be lost, shattered, gone. But now we sit here, looking ahead because the possibilities are endless.
“Thank you, doctor,” Jim says and extends his hand.
I’ve been trying my best not to break. But, as I sit here, I sob. But these are different tears from when I previously shed them months back. They’re tears of relief, happiness. Tears I’ve been yearning to release, tears that have waited so long to be released.
Jim looks down at me and extends his hand and says, “Let’s go?”
I nod.
In the car, David Cook sings through the speakers.
Try to leave a light on when I’m gone
Something I rely on to get home
One I can feel at night
A naked light, a fire to keep me warm
Try to leave a light on when I’m gone
Even in the daylight, shine on
And when it’s late at night you can look inside
You won’t feel so alone
“Thanks for leaving the light on,” Jim says.
I look at him and smile.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Hey everyone, thanks so much much for the lovely reviews. I know I said I would reply to your comments but life got the best of me and I haven't had time to stop and respond. But here is the latest installment of this fic. Only and epilogue left. luvs...
EmilyHalpert and Vampiric Blood were my awesome Betas.
What do I own? Nothing. Damn you Ricky Gervais and your funny, addictive show!
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks for reading. Epilogue will follow.
