Listening Through the Noise

My hair stood out around my head like a halo of stress. My eyes were shadowed with sleep-worn bruises. Creases across my forehead announced my headache like a clarion trumpet. My nose, chapped and angry, pulsed in fear as I brought another tissue close. Hunger tightened my lips even as a cough exploded. My arms were dragged down by the dead weight of my exhaustion.

I hid my weakness with makeup and medication.

My heels clicked on the hospital tile, a rapid staccato of determination and strength. I would make my patient work for me, and I would be praised for it. My bland encouraging smile stuck to my face like honey. I strangled a cough in my throat. I had left my weakness outside the hospital. My white coat blazed forth, the pockets heavy with my knowledge.

A fan was blowing on an empty bed. I stood in its breeze for a moment as if by accident. The room was cool. The usual fence of machines and poles were absent. Nothing indicated that a patient actually occupied the room. It was a place for no one. I did not find her until she moved. Like a child, her feet did not touch the floor. She puddled into the chair, filling and overflowing. I pulled a seat close, glad of the support. I did my duty. I introduced her to my team, to me. I leaned forward. I asked her my opening question like pulling the string on a wind up toy. Her story spun out with skips and stops like knots on the string.

She had come by ambulance from her hometown. Her grandmother made her visit the doctor there and he put her in an ambulance. She had coughed up pink foam. It was the flu, but it didn’t go away. Over the counter medications weren’t working. At least a month, well she had quit her job a month ago. It had started before then, but she didn’t know when. A daycare worker; she couldn’t keep up with the kids. Not much since, just lay on the couch…all month. Grandma made her go; she was the only one that could. The doctors gave her medicine and she felt better now. It was her heart. She couldn’t wait to see her kids again at work; it had been a whole month. Nothing like this had happened before. She had high blood pressure when she was sixteen. Twenty-two now. No, no problems since. At least, not that she knew of. The doctors just gave her a special diet to follow. She had to do it. She would do it because she had to.

My chest ached with suppressed coughs. My nose tingled with a desperate desire to sneeze. My eyes gazed blindly, blearily, and the chair clung hotly to the backs of my legs. A fugitive hair tickled my neck like a thought.

“Deirdre,” my voice was soft and strained. I focused on her. The back of her neck was like black velvet. Her ears curled like spring’s first petals. Her smile: soft and sweet and pleading. Her feet fumbled and tumbled in the air. Her name on my lips. We looked, one at the other. “Why did you wait a month?” A sniffle escaped me.

Her smile faltered for a moment. “I don’t have a doctor. My job doesn’t provide insurance and I don’t make enough to pay.” She pleaded. I understood.