It Won't Be Long 'Til This Heart Stops Beating So Don't Let Me Bleed Out Here Alone (Blue October)
Everything can change in an instant. Or, more accurately in this case, over the course of just a few hours. One minute, Carlos was enjoying a movie with his boyfriend, who was laying against his shoulder as he picked popcorn out of the bowl on Carlos's lap. Carlos didn't know that, in less than a day, his entire world would be completely and utterly destroyed.
"Cecil? Are you alright?" Carlos asked worriedly when he felt his boyfriend suddenly wince violently against his shoulder in the middle of their movie. He felt Cecil pushing away from him into a sitting position and saw him lift his hand to press on his temple.
"I don't feel well," Cecil concluded. "I'm going to go lay down."
"What's wrong?" asked Carlos. Cecil shrugged and whispered, "Headache," whilst keeping his eyes shut tightly.
"Do you need me to do anything?" Carlos offered, but Cecil rejected him with a shake of his head and mumbled something about heading off to bed early.
"You finish the movie, though, and tell me how it is," Cecil said over his shoulder and then disappeared from the room. Carlos watched him go and debated following him for a second, but eventually turned back to the movie.
It wasn't long before Carlos fell asleep. He hadn't even finished the movie. When he did wake up, he realized that it had only been a couple of hours, even though it felt like an eternity. Not knowing or really caring what woke him up so suddenly, he stood up and stretched before heading off to the bedroom.
About halfway down the hallway, Carlos heard a thump. It sounded like something had fallen. He noticed that his heart was beating wildly and realized that it had come from the bedroom. Carlos bolted forward, threw open the door, and turned on the light all to find Cecil lying on the ground next to their bed. Next to him looked like a spot of vomit and he concluded that Cecil must have thrown up before collapsing.
Carlos jumped forward and knelt next to Cecil, grabbing his shoulder and carefully shaking him whilst calling his name. After a minute, Cecil stirred awake and Carlos let out a sigh of relief.
"C-Ca'los?" Cecil's voice was slurred and he sounded very confused. He just barely opened his eyes, but then shut them quickly from the bright light above him. "Wha happ'n? Where 'm I?"
"Cecil," Carlos said soothingly. "You fainted. You're in our bedroom right now."
Cecil tried to open his eyes again, but the same course repeated. "Carlos? Can you turn off the light please?"
Upon getting up to follow through on Cecil's request, Carlos noticed that, when he did open his eyes, one eyelid was drooping lower than the other. He knew that something was wrong.
"Cecil," Carlos started, not sure where to start with the questions. "Are you still having any pain?" When Cecil nodded his head, he quickly stopped and brought a hand to cradle the back of his neck.
Carlos noticed this and prodded him further. "Where, Cecil?"
After thinking for a moment, Cecil ground out, "My neck hurts. And I still have this terrible headache. It won't go away."
"Is it localized? In one spot?" Cecil tried to nod, but found that he couldn't, so he just said, "My temple."
"Okay, do you notice anything else out of the ordinary? Are you numb or really weak anywhere? Can you see alright? No blurry vision?"
Cecil pondered all of these questions before answering, "I have double vision."
Carlos took into account all of these and made a decision. "Alright, Ceec. Let's get you up. We're gonna take a quick drive to the hospital."
"No, 'm fine," Cecil tried to argue, but Carlos was persistent.
"No, come on, Ceec. Let's stand up," he kept urging him and eventually he came through. Although, as soon as Cecil tried to stand up, he collapsed again, causing Carlos to shout out, "Cecil!" in surprise.
Carefully, Carlos laid Cecil down and looked around for his cell phone. When he couldn't see it, he realized that he must have left in the living room, so he sprinted to find it and immediately dialed 911.
"911, what's your emergency?" Carlos heard from down the line as he went running back into the bedroom and kneeled next to Cecil again. He hadn't woken up again.
"Please, you have to help me. There's something wrong with my boyfriend," Carlos all but shouted, but tried to keep his voice level so as not to worsen Cecil's headache.
"Okay, sir, please calm down. What's wrong with him?"
"I don't know! He-he fainted earlier, um, after throwing up. And now he's got this insane headache, but only near his temple. And he says that he has double vision."
"Okay, sir. Where are you both right now?"
"We're in our apartment," and then Carlos rattled off the address.
"Okay, I've dispatched an ambulance. What is your name, sir?"
"I-I'm Carlos. My name is Carlos."
"And what is your boyfriend's name?"
"Cecil."
"Okay, Carlos. I'm going to help you and Cecil. Are you with him right now?"
"Yes, yes, I'm right next to him. He fainted right before I called, but he hasn't woken up yet."
"Is he lying down flat?"
"Yes."
"Okay, good. Is there anything around him, especially near his head? Anything that he could hit if he moved?"
"The bed is next to us, but it's a couple feet away. I don't think that he could hit it."
"Okay, good. You'll need to keep him away from anything. Now, you have to move Cecil onto his side carefully."
"Why?"
"Cecil may have a seizure and you have to be prepared. Have you moved him onto his side?"
"I am right now." And Carlos did as he was told. "Now what?"
"Have you ever seen anyone have a seizure before, Carlos?"
"No."
"Okay, it's going to look pretty scary and feel like it's not going to stop, but it will be okay. You cannot put anything into his mouth and you cannot try to hold him down, okay?"
"Okay."
"The ambulance is almost there, Carlos. Is your apartment door unlocked?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Alright. Do you want me to stay on the line until you hear the ambulance?"
"Y-Yeah, please."
"Alright, Carlos. I'll stay. Has Cecil woken up or moved at all?"
"No, he hasn't. Oh, god. Is he going to be alright?"
"Everything will be fine, Carlos. You have to check his pulse. Do you know how to do that?"
"Y-Yes. I'll do that." Carlos placed two fingers on the side of Cecil's neck and let out a sigh of relief. "He has it. There's a pulse. He has a pulse."
"Okay, that's good. Is it strong or weak?"
"Um, I don't know. It's hard to feel, so . . . weak?"
Suddenly, Carlos heard sirens in the distance. He cut off whatever the operator was saying. "I hear them! The ambulance. It's almost here."
"Okay, Carlos. I'm going to go now so you can tell the paramedics everything that they ask."
"O-O-Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much."
They both hung up and Carlos threw his cell phone onto the bed. He heard the front door open and footsteps thundered down the hall. A man and a woman stopped outside the bedroom door before running in and kneeling beside Cecil, practically pushing Carlos out of the way.
"Sir, you have to keep back, okay? We're going to help your friend," one of them said as they both began pulling devices out of their bags. One of them put an oxygen mask and a neck brace on Cecil while the other checked his eyes with a penlight and checked his pulse on his wrist.
"He's my boyfriend. His name is Cecil," Carlos told them as he tried to watch the blur of activity, but he found that he couldn't keep up.
"Okay, sir, we're going to have to move him now," the woman said as they both pulled up a gurney and counted off their lift. The man told Carlos to follow them and began asking him questions like "Is he taking any medication?" and "Is he allergic to any medications?" and the scariest one: "What happened?"
Carlos attempted to explain everything as best he could. He followed them both onto the ambulance and watched as they began to hook Cecil up to various new machines inside. The woman was in the middle of reading his blood-oxygen levels when the man used his radio to call in to the hospital.
"Male. Early 30s. No allergies. Looks like a ruptured intracranial aneurysm. Unconscious. No seizure. No pupil dilation. BP—"
Carlos didn't hear the rest of the EMT's readings because Cecil appeared to start to wake up. He had opened his eyes and was trying to take in his surroundings.
"Cecil!" Carlos called, but the EMT had noticed that he was awake, so she jumped into asking him questions. She turned to Carlos and told him to keep him calm.
"Anything that you can do, do it, but make sure that he does not get riled up," she told him.
Carlos nodded and placed his hand on Cecil's arm. "Cecil, everything's okay. I'm right here."
"Carlos?" Cecil asked, though it was muffled underneath the oxygen mask. "Carlos, I can't see. Why can't I see?"
"Why can't he see anything?" Carlos asked with worry saturating his voice.
"The aneurysm may have bled into the optic nerve," she told him quickly as she kept fiddling with something that Carlos couldn't see. But he didn't care and turned back to Cecil.
"It's alright, Ceec," Carlos told him, hoping that he didn't just lie to his boyfriend. "Everything's okay. You're okay."
Carlos kept speaking to Cecil, even after Cecil stopped responding. Once they pulled into the ambulance parking at the hospital, the two EMTs ushered Carlos out and off to the side so they could bring Cecil into the hospital. They were met by a doctor and all three went through large double doors, leading into the hospital hallways. Carlos knew that he couldn't follow him, so he went to reception.
"Excuse me," Carlos got the receptionist's attention. "That was my boyfriend that just went back there. When can I see him?"
"I don't know, sir," the man said. "But if you sit over there, I will try to get information to you as soon as possible."
Carlos was momentarily dejected, but soon agreed and sat down. It couldn't have been more than a few hours before the doctor that had met EMS in the lobby came out and found Carlos sitting in a chair. He walked over to him, pulling his mask down onto neck. Carlos stood up and bombarded the doctor with questions.
"How's Cecil? Is he going to be okay? Can he see anything? He couldn't see in the ambulance."
The doctor—who Carlos recognized to be Teddy Williams—sighed and wrung his hands together.
"Carlos, Cecil had what we call a berry aneurysm," Dr. Williams told him. "The lining of his superficial temporal artery ballooned out, filling with blood. It must have ruptured when you were at your apartment and then blood quickly filled the space between the brain and the lining tissue, causing a subarachnoid hemorrhage. He bled out into his brain, and we couldn't fix the damage. I'm so sorry."
Carlos couldn't even think for a minute. Finally, he asked, "So Cecil's. . . . He's . . . dead?"
The doctor nodded sympathetically. "Yes. I am so sorry for your loss."
But Carlos didn't hear him. He didn't hear anything. Slowly, he lowered himself into the chair behind him and placed his head in his hands as he began to cry. He didn't notice when the doctor left and he didn't leave the chair in the Waiting Room of the hospital because that is where he fell asleep, not wanting to even breathe anymore.
Person A starts to feel sick and wants to lay down for a while, telling person B that it's nothing to worry about and that they will be better in a while. However a couple of hours later things have only got worse and person A is very sick. Person B goes into overprotective, worry mode and starts to mother person A. Person A doesn't get any better so person B takes them to hospital and it doesn't end well…