As Millie took that walk from her son’s hospital room to the small conference area, the cold, unforgiving, light injected its numbing horror through her. She noticed that, somehow, any moisture she’d had in her throat a moment before had just been siphoned off, leaving her with a parched, painful swallow.
“Have a seat,” the doctor said, indicating the chair across from him. She sat in the hard vinyl chair, allowing only her bottom to hold her weight. She examined the large scratch on the wall at eye level as the doctor’s words began in the periphery. His words had a certain ebb and flow to them, stunning her into a motionless existence. She noticed the plaster hanging in bits around where the wallpaper had been savagely, ruthlessly violated as his words floated around her head in scathing reality. Chemo, port placement, white count, and so on. A dire alarm startled her, coming from somewhere down the hallway. She wanted to run but maintained her post against the concrete chair as the alarm stopped and quietness
invaded the little room once again. His fatherly voice continued with the explanation, the possibilities all being presented with the proper inflection and optimism. His touch to her knee was unexpected, as were the tears that began to fall into her lap. He went for Kleenex as she was left alone, the scratch mocking her. The room began to shrink and she with it until she was insignificant, an old, worn-out, limp piece of clothing someone had left behind.
After the onslaught, she dragged herself back to her son’s room and stood semi-conscious at the side of his hospital bed, her mind withering, her thoughts difficult to harness, as they emptied out like wet rubbish hurrying down a sewer drain.
“Mommy,” was all Ian said, opening his eyes quickly, but it awakened Millie from her thoughts and drew her into bed with him.
“Mommy,” Ian said again.
“Hi, Sweetie, Mommy’s here,” Millie responded, touching his face softly. He then reached out to her, placing his small soft hand on her cheek and they lay in bed face to face.
“You still my Ian Pooky Bear?” She asked him. Using his nickname brought a degree of comfort to her.
“Yes, Mommy. E-Pook-Bee,” was how he said it. Millie snuggled in the hospital bed next to her son with little Lambie in between them. She brushed the delicate almost-white hair across his brow as he shut his lovely long-lashed eyes. A sigh escaped his rounded pale lips as they worked slightly upon an invisible pacifier. She held his outstretched hand acutely and then drifted off to sleep next to him.
“Num, num,” he asked for food when Millie opened her eyes.
“Ok, baby,” she said happily. This was good, he’s hungry. Millie pushed the nurse's call bell.
“Can I help you?’ the box on the wall said.
“Could you bring some breakfast? Ian is hungry,” she asked nicely.
“I’ll check on that,” was the answer. Hopefully, it won’t take too long. Millie hopped up from bed, tidying the room a bit. Baggy sweats hung off her frame, giving her an indistinct look. She shoved her feet into worn suede clogs and ran her hands through her hair.
She had spent a fitful night in bed with her son dozing only just before the nurse came in or an IV pump awakened her with its insistent beeping. She heard nurses talking at the nurses’ station like gossip girls all night long, their scattered voices rising and falling suddenly, further jarring her sleep. This is a place one can only take in small increments. She sat down to think on the couch at Ian’s bedside, her loose-fitting pants allowing her to bring her legs into her arms’ embrace. She ran both hands through her brown hair until it stood on end, spiked around her face. Silver earrings had been thrown on the window sill the night before; she retrieved them as the nurse came in with Ian’s food tray.
“Good morning,” she said. “Why don’t you go down to the cafeteria and get something to eat? I can feed Ian.”
“I don’t want to leave him.”
“I know, but sometimes you need to. All the parents need a break, but they hate to take one. You have to keep up your strength. I have time to feed him his breakfast. Up to you, though.”
“I guess so,” was all Millie could whisper, looking at her son.
The morning air was cool and moist as it cascaded over and around her, a brisk sensation. Millie stood next to the front entrance and looked about as people hurried by her. Over to her left, several smokers were chatting. They seemed to be the only relaxed people around. Some were hospital employees, others probably patients and friends. There was even a woman in a wheelchair pulled up with them laughing and telling a story. She wondered if they’d share a cigarette with her. How could they be so happy at a hospital? She thought of joining them but instead, she just gathered her sleeve ends into her fists and folded her arms snugly across her chest as a shield against the penetrating air. The coldness anesthetized her and seeped into her skin, drying her bones and fixing her body next to the door like a sentinel. It felt good just to stand there, anonymous, a nobody, and watch others come and go around her. Her mind was working, though; the wheels, already rusty from their momentary lapse, started to crank and begin their course, synapses fired once again, and the initial resurge of thought transmission was as painful as a scalpel to her heart. The unspoken fear of all parents, the dreaded abyss that all humankind tries to avoid, thoughts she had tried to stave off when she first suspected something was wrong with Ian. Now all this was cold, desolate reality. Bitter and unfair.
Ester made her way confidently through rush hour traffic on her way to see her great-grandson in the hospital. Drumming her fingers on the top of the steering wheel, with the gospel radio station playing quietly, she focused straight ahead, as was her typical manner. She was going to surprise little Ian and to see what all the fuss was about. Millie had been unable to explain herself clearly on the phone that previous evening. It was obvious that Millie really needed her to handle this situation, and she had absolutely no doubt that she must immediately take charge. Ester had been admired by many for years for her common sense, determination, and ability to get any job done. And at seventy-five, she seemed to show no signs of diminished capacity in any way. Others her age would have waited for rush hour traffic to subside, but Ester never let those petty things get in her way. As she turned into the hospital parking lot, she spotted a car about to vacate a place near the entrance. She turned her silver Lincoln smoothly into the parking space, aggravating another driver who had doubled back after driving around the lot for five whole minutes. Some people were luckier than others. She boldly entered the hospital looking straight ahead, elegant and well-turned out, complete with the predictable, matching purse hanging on her bent left arm, her right one swinging and propelling her forward with grace. Heads turned, as always, to pay a moment’s homage as she passed.
“Grandmother, please stop telling me what to do,” Millie said, stopping her ears like a child.
“Mildred, I’m not telling you what to do, I’m just making suggestions.”
“Of course, I’m going to let them treat him! How can you suggest otherwise?”
“There are alternatives, that’s all I’m saying.”
“I don’t know. I don’t have time to think about that. They said he needed to start chemo right away. I just want him to get better,” she said, now weeping.
“I know you do.”
They both stopped talking as their voices were quickly erased by the bleep-bleep of the heart monitor and the CNN news special update of the recent library shooting. Interviews with the survivors.
“Oh my God, please turn that off!” Millie said after hearing one woman say something about ‘not knowing what life will bring you’.
“If you’re going to be here for a while, I’m going to go get some fresh air,” Millie pulled on her oversized hoodie and wiped her tears with her bare hands.
“Go right ahead. I’m going to stay here and pray.”
“You do that.”
Down she went to smoke with the happy people, to hear something pleasant just for a few minutes. Breathe a little fresh air, well, sort of. As she stepped off the elevator, the empty place in her stomach started growing. First, it was a little tiny hollowness, but she could feel a cavern and all she could do was sink into it. Millie approached the lone smoker and asked for a cigarette.
“I’m going to buy my own and I’ll pay you back.” Geez, I sounded like a teenager.
“Ex-smoker, huh?” the lady smiled in reply. ‘Tech’ was on her badge. “Lots of people do that; I get it.”
“Yeah, my son is sick.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Thanks.”
Silence sat between them peacefully for a little while, along with the dancing breeze and chirping birds. Millie was dizzy from lack of oxygen, but it felt good. Numbness.
“I hope your son gets better,” the tech said as she extinguished her half-smoked cigarette in the grass at her feet. “Most of them do, ya know. That’s why I like working in Children’s Hospital.” Millie continued to sit when the tech left. She sat as still as possible hoping the birds would touch her, would sit on her, or think she was a lifeless statue. She even held her breath for a while. The birds came very close but never landed on her. She finally went inside when the air was beginning to warm.
“Where have you been?” her grandmother said frantically as she entered the room.
“I thought you were here to give me a break, is he okay?” Millie exclaimed.
“They want to give him a transfusion.”
Ian was sitting up now, propped in the bed, so pale, not saying a word, not normal for a two-year-old.
The terror started in her throat as a sudden pain, a choking, and then spilled down to her motionless feet, for what seemed like a suspension of time. The nausea started as she sailed to his bedside, her grandmother relaying the details that seemed to pound against her head incoherently. Yet grandma continued to talk, now pleasantly, as if telling a soothing bedtime story to the both of them, a pretense of normalcy, as Millie stroked her son’s weak body.
“Something’s not right!” She interrupted. “Go get the nurse, Grandma, he is just too weak.”
The glass door slid on its trajectory and white shoes entered first followed by a new nurse around the curtain like a performer appearing on the stage.
“We’ve been looking for you, Mom,” she addressed Millie. “We need to give Ian some blood. His counts are low.”
“He looks so pale! I’ve never seen him this weak before.”
“The blood will help. He’ll be much stronger.” The nurse spoke emphatically, looking directly into Millie’s eyes to be sure she was hearing. She explained how they wanted to “beef” him up. What a word! Then start the chemotherapy. Sure, sure. Absolutely. She’ll agree to all of it. Just fix her son! It’s as if they had stepped in a sinkhole, a mire, and were stuck, going down fast, she with her poor sick baby. Yes, please rescue us!
Then, the nurse and grandma chatted, and both agreed on how positive things were. This could, in fact, be a “blessing-in-disguise”, Grandma said. She wanted to scream at them, yet she knew they were just trying to help, so she sat paralyzed, staring at Ian like a mute. One more word from them and she might lose it. And it could go either way. Maybe she understood the library shooter. The nurse explained on and on as Millie grew edgy and nervous. Just get on with it, already! But when the nurse came over and touched her softly on her shoulder, she perceived something gentle and kind and the dam broke; her throat released itself and she covered her face with her hands and sobbed. And suddenly, she felt so very thankful for the words of hope for her son.
On her umpteenth walk down the hallway, she almost passed the conference room where the doctor had given her the bad news the day before, but she decided to duck inside, just for a moment to think. Maybe she could capture just a few sane thoughts as if sitting for five minutes could grant her the full use of her mind. She leaned back into the same vinyl chair and rested all her weight against it. Eyes closed. Just breathe. In and out, in and out. When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to notice the horrible scratch had been fixed. Almost. The plaster was fixed and painted. She touched the paint and it was still wet. When she withdrew her finger, it had a little white circle of paint on it. Some things can become fresh, glossed over so one can hardly tell there was a flaw there just yesterday. Who knew paint and plaster could render such corruption unstained? Amazing, really. Resting, breathing, feeling lucid, and holding her finger to dry, Mille looked long at the spot where the scratch had been and slowly began to pray.
If it wasn’t for the knowledge of why they were there, the serenity of holding her son for hours at a time, resting quietly as both of them gathered up their strength, it might feel like a dreamy experience. The waiting was already beginning. That’s what everyone has said that one must do. Wait. It felt like they were curled together in a small boat gently rocking on tranquil waters, waiting, waiting for the next ship to hail them with new information. Two nurses came in with a bag of dark red blood. They checked everything on him and listened to his breathing before starting the life-saving drip that flowed into the pumping machine. The rhythmic sound seemed to accelerate as Millie watched the drops of crimson splash into the drip chamber, swirling and mixing with the fluid awaiting transport down the tube to be next in the queue and absorbed into her son. It reminded her of science class, learning the blood flow through the human heart. ‘Trace a drop of blood through the cardiovascular system’ was the assignment. The ventricles, powerful, muscular chambers expelled the newly oxygenated blood forcefully to the entire body. And how long are all the vessels lined up? A football field?
Watching and expecting Ian to come back around after his transfusion, Millie fell asleep next to him as they both rode the rhythmic cadence of sounds and nurses entering in a phantasm of non-reality. The next person to enter the scene, for they had become the audience, was the kind doctor who’d explained everything the day before. He again spoke of Ian’s condition, a type of leukemia, the “good” kind, and reminded Millie of the treatment because he knew she ‘probably couldn’t remember everything from the day before’. The human brain is a mighty organism, capable of processing….. Although unwanted and intrusive, unhappy words have a way of searing themselves in one’s memory.
But Millie asked questions today, having the freedom of thought and maturity that one-day-lived-in-these-shoes can bring. She drew from her memory and logic units of information that gathered themselves into very coherent and reasonable questions. Now at the onset of treatment, she rallied to help rescue her son. And one question, from somewhere else in her brain, somewhere intangible, escaped her mouth, and she asked it at the end of the conversation, not filtered by her fear.
And the good doctor answered with sincere conviction, “Oh, yes, his chances are much better than fifty-fifty!”