Through The Night

Smoke rolled from the corners of the room. Grey smoke circling like tubes of waves coming ashore, or like a rolling bank of fog moving across the horizon.

Maxwell, my black cat who had passed away the previous year, jumped onto the table beside me. He smiled at me and spoke in a clear male voice informing me that he and his brother in death, Nikki the dog, were both fine and happy. He recounted an amusing story of throwing the ball to Nikki and their daily games.

My husband was unaware. He sat in a chair beside my bed straining his neck to see the wall mounted TV that was too high to see from any vantage point other than mine- a hospital bed.

It was the third night of my stay. Three nights of morphine dripping through my IV as I tried to lay still with the burning agony of pain that stabbed my back and ran down my left leg.

Four days earlier I was unloading the dishwasher when my foot stuck to the kitchen floor and my body twisted into the blob of pain that I now endured.

The morphine drip was steadily pumping in my body and yet barely touching the pain. I pushed the button often. The way a morphine drip works is, an IV is placed in the arm of the patient attached to a morphine drip secreting a doze of 5 mg of morphine every two minutes. The patient also has a panic button to push for additional dosage. I pushed the button often.

My husband looks away from his TV show long enough to smile encouragingly at me. He pats my hand in assurance that it will get better.

The decision to operate has finally been made and I'm scheduled for tomorrow. Which means another night in this hospital bed connected to IV's pumping medicine into my body.

I know he will be leaving soon. He chats about his day and I watch his mouth forming words. His lips moving the mustache and beard with soothing familiar gestures as he speaks. His eyes are loving. He winks at me.

When he kisses me goodnight and leaves I beg him to leave the door open. I fear that they will forget me and the room gets hot with the door closed.

Across from my room is the nurses' break room. I hear that door all night -opening and closing. It is a loud clank sound every time it closes and a whoosh sound as it opens.

Throughout the night it becomes part of the hospital breathing. Whoosh, the door is pushed open and clang, the door closes.

Whoosh, clang, whoosh, clang, whoosh, whoosh, clang.

Down the hall I can hear someone moaning. Call lights from patient's room ding until answered.

Whoosh, clang. Whoosh, whoosh. Clang, moan, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Whoosh, ding, ding, ding, clang.

The hospital breathes at night.

I fall in and out of sleep. Moments seem minutes, and sometimes several minutes and sometimes longer until time passes lost in what time really is- nothing.

The pain still soars through my back and down my leg. I push the button. Whoosh, clang. How can the pain be so bad? I stare at the TV not really watching the program. My eyelids are so heavy, yet I don't allow myself to fall asleep.

As my anxiety grows, the delusions from my medication turn ugly. Shapes become dark, fearful objects darting around my room until the sleep finally takes me and the nightmares begin. The wall mounted TV had turned into an opening much like a door to an attic. The attic opening reveals a loft above my bed where monsters stand. Some are holding swords, and others -long bladed knifes. They growl at me like zombies. I'm not sure how much time passes but I wake startled. I pull out of the dream and the attic door becomes the TV again. The loft fades away replaced by the blue walls of my room. My heart is racing and I feel sweat on the back of my neck.

I have never used as much medication as my body is now trying to absorb. Besides the pain medication they are also pumping steroids for the swelling on my spine and antibiotics to keep away any infections.

I am one of those lucky people who have no conditions that require frequent medications. I do not have high blood pressure, or diabetes, or severe arthritis, or anything requiring prescriptions.

My husband on the other hand has many medical conditions. He has diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney transplant recipient, gout, and sleep apnea.

I know it is the medications and combination of medications that is contributing to my delusions, but that eases my fear only momentarily. I fear the lost of control over my surroundings as much as the long bladed knives of the monsters.

It is the first experience in my life where I have had to relinquish total control over myself to someone else. The nurses. They swish into my room from time to time, checking the tubes, squeezing the drip bag, and taking my vitals.

Whoosh, whoosh, clang. Ding, ding, whoosh, ding, ding, clang.

I am so alone.

I was always the one who gave the goodnight kiss and went home to my own bed while he lay in the hospital. I had no idea that it was like this. So isolated and lonely. Do they know I'm in here? Do they care?

Whoosh, clang.

Are there that many nurses here tonight, or do they take that many breaks?

I have to go to the bathroom. Oh God! As I roll from my back to my right side the pain sears down my leg. The half railing is up so I can grip for stability as I allow my legs to slide to the floor. Now I have to sit up. The pain nearly blacks me out, but I hold tight to the railing and sit for a long time.

I'll probably fall on the floor and no one will know it until tomorrow morning.

Whoosh, whoosh, clang.

I can hear them across the hallway. Their soft shoes thumping against the floor. They are not quiet creatures, these nurses. To them it's three o'clock in the afternoon not the morning. They are probably going into that break room to eat their lunch and talk about their life away from here.

Whoosh, whoosh, clang.

I can no longer sit on the side of the bed. My back feels like an expandable straw that is squished closed. I need to stand, even if I fall. I know I can do this. I can go to the bathroom on my own, damn it. I have only three steps to the door, but there's a problem. The IV stand is on the other side of the bed. I have to walk around the bottom of the bed to the other side and get the stand. I push it in front of me as I walk back around the bed. The triangle base gets stuck on the bed legs. I have to back up and try again. I make it to the bathroom.

Whoosh, whoosh, clang.

"Hey, where's the back patient?"

"She's in 704, isn't she?"

"I was just in there and I didn't see her."

"Check the bathroom?"

"With as much morphine as she's squeezing through the panic button, I doubt she'd be able to stand."

"Better check there anyway."

Whoosh, whoosh, clang.

I can't get up. I made it into the bathroom and I took care of business, but now I can't pull my body up off of this toilet seat. What do I do? What can I do? The energy spent on the excursion to the toilet quickly overcomes me and I fall asleep.

I find myself standing in the hallway. I watch as the nurses enter their break room. Each one smiles at me as they pass. I count and there are twenty that pass me, smiling. None come out, they just keep going in, one after the other until I can no longer keep track. Ding, ding. I turn my head in the direction of the sound. The light over the room four doors down is blinking and dinging at the same time.

When I turn my head back to the nurses, the break room door that once swished in a soothing sound now roared with the sound of demons. Fire leapt from the entrance as the door was pushed open and the nurses once smiling before they disappeared, now stared at me with an amusing, taunting glare. A nurse steps toward me, holding out her hand, inviting me into the fire. I withdraw quickly, wrenching my back in pain.

I wake still sitting on the toilet. I need help. I really can't do this all by myself. I am alone and I need help.

"Sara? Are you in there?"

"Yes. I can't get up." Did I sound like the little girl I feel I am?

The door opened and she smiled at me. It was warm, and sweet. There was no fire from her mouth, no horns on her head, and no fear in my heart. She gently helps me up and back into my bed. She positions the pillows around me to support my sides and make me feel that I won't fall out.

"I'm afraid to go to sleep."

"Why's that?"

"Nightmares."

"I can help you with that." She leaves the room and returns shortly. She brings me two small white tablets and a glass of water. She waits as I swallow. "Anything else?"

"I'm hungry." At home I would just go to the frig and make myself a snack. Here I am at the mercy of whatever they do about hunger at four in the morning.

She left the room again and when she came back she handed me a Jell-O pack.

I never knew Jell-O could taste that good.

She stayed with me until I fell asleep. She talked about her children, and her ex-husband- the no good louse that he is- and about how good it makes her feel to help others. It was a quiet sleep and a deep one. I had no nightmares. I'm not sure I even dreamt. I just remember feeling that I wasn't all alone anymore.

Whoosh, whoosh, clang.