These characters and their setting are the property of J. Rowling and her associates and affiliates
CHAPTER 2: Miracle on the Hopeless Ward
Something unexpected had happened on Ward Four, and the entire nursing home was astir over it. Ward Four was often referred to as the Lost Ward, sometimes even as the Terminal Ward, and anyone who ended up there was either facing imminent death or in a state where they might as well be. This was the ward of the stroke victims and the paralyzed, the catatonic and vegetative. It was the place they wheeled you when Hospice took over-- the ward of no return. These patients were considered hopeless and many of them no longer had visitors. Some people even believed they should be helped to die. Yet one had suddenly recovered-- a young woman known in the home as "Emma."
The patient in question had been comatose for over two years, and by common wisdom, her condition was unlikely ever to change. She had been found unconscious by a roadside, battered and bloody, an obvious victim of a hit-and-run, but no further information about her was known. No identification had been found on her. No one stepped forward to claim her, and to all intents and purposes she was just a "Jane Doe."
Odd speculation had gone around about her when she had arrived. Because of her strange manner of dress it was thought she might be a member of some obscure religious cult. She had been found wearing a long, black gown and cloak-- the sort of garb worn by historical reenactors at Renaissance Fairs or Trick-or-Treaters on Halloween. But there had been no local historic fairs or conventions at the time she had been found. There hadn't even been any mascarade parties, and it was long past Halloween season. Further inquiries turned up no other cultic behavior in the area, and no one remembered seeing anyone like her. The poor girl was a complete mystery.
While doctors had worked to save her, inquiries of course were made. The police checked all their missing persons reports and a description of her was sent to all the local newspapers. No match for her had ever turned up. Detectives combed the area where she had been found, looking for anything- a handbag, a cell phone, any clue that might lead them to who she was, where she came from, or the identity of her would-be killer. But they found nothing. Beyond the fact that she was actually lying unresponsive in their hospital, there was no proof she had ever been in their region at all. She had left no trail behind her, no clue indicating the direction she had come. It was as though the young woman had simply dropped from the sky...
And her prognosis had not been good. It appeared she had suffered head trauma, the extent of which they could not ascertain, and that was the reason she remained unconscious. Authorities had contacted the hospital frequently at first, but as the days went by and she still had not awakened, they began to check less often. When there continued to still be no change in her condition, the doctors removed her respirator to allow nature to take its course, and when she lingered in spite the removal of life support, they had sent her to the county nursing home. Once there she was placed in Ward Four to languish, but she somehow didn't die.
Euthanasia was illegal, of course, in Britain, but due to the notoriety of the Bland case, there had been motions to seek the removal of her feeding tube. Thankfully, nothing had come of it. Despite the fact that her case was considered hopeless and that she was a complete ward of the state, no doctor would remove the tube without a court order-- no matter what his feelings on the subject. Because she had no relatives to petition the courts for such a decision, a legal guardian willing to do so would have to be assigned. It was a controversial decision, but preliminary attempts had been made.
Her escape had indeed been narrow, but only because so much had gone .mysteriously wrong. The official in charge of the paperwork had botched the job. Papers had been lost and records misfiled. The case had been temporarily forgotten, and then only sluggishly reopened. Medical workers lamented that they couldn't get the necessary authorization to put a suffering patient out of her misery, while administrators tutted over bureaucratic waste. But they knew the procedures. The proper orders had to come first, and while they waited for those orders the months dragged on. Then, inexplicably, she had opened her eyes...
Miss Emma's unexpected awakening gave everyone something to talk about. Staff discussed the case exhaustively. No one could understand how a comatose patient, one clearly in a vegetative state, could just "wake up" after two years time-- especially when brain scans had shown no activity at all-- but no one dared whisper the word "miracle." Anything controversial was best left unvoiced. The consensus was that she had been misdiagnosed and arguments issued over how it had been done and by whom.
Staff on both sides of the idealogical spectrum found endless grist for their mills. Euthanasia opponents used Emma's recovery as a case in point, and those in favor just sadly shook their heads. While they admitted that the girl's awakening was a wonderful thing, they regretted it was likely to set compassionate end of life care back for many years. The inmates simply rejoiced.
Life for the nursing home's perminant inhabitants was mostly rather dull. The only major happenings were usually negative, and patients were happy to have something positive to talk about. White heads bend together over the sides of wheelchairs. Games of checkers were interrupted. Walkers stumped with more energy and excitement as people hastened to discuss the particulars. There was an element of triumph too. No one looked forward to ending up in Ward Four and they regarded anyone who got out as having "beat the system." a system that was notoriously against them. Codgers and crones smiled and nodded sagely amongst each other. Conversations were of a typical note.
"Well Joe, here's one that's got away from 'em, and not a day too soon!" crowed Thadeus Carr to his checker buddy Joe Pines.
"Aye, but will they let her go without a fight, Taddy? They were all set to pull the plug on 'er! She's got a hard road ahead..."
Old Joe nodded in agreement. No one at Long Meadows Nursing Home believed the staff had their best interests at heart. A nursing home was the last stand. The patients were waiting to die, and all the workers were standing by waiting for signs of it. To fall and break a hip, for instance, was the kiss of death, since death usually followed swiftly. Of course why poor Emma had survived for so long was a mystery to them. The idea that it was all due to faulty paperwork was beyond their understanding.
None of the inmates had a problem believing in miracles. Lilly Jones was sure it was her prayers that had brought it about, though she was gently chided for trying to take all the credit. Gertrude Thackery, who fussed about the place trying to help (to the point where she seemed to feel she was part of the staff,) insisted it was the hours she had spent reading aloud in the Lost Ward that had actually done it.
"Read to them. Talk to them. They can all hear you, you know. I'm sure it did her good."
"So did my niece's prayer-shawl. I put it over her. She prayed every stitch."
"It wasn't her time to go. They won't take you if it isn't your time. The angels will send you back."
"There's work for her to do, you see. Something she has to accomplish."
"Could be she has family and they've been praying for her. Heaven hears the prayers of little children you know. I've always believed that. We don't know who she is, or who her people are. After all, her name isn't really Emma. She was someone else's before she was ours."
But no one knew whose she was, least of all "Emma" herself. She apparently didn't know who she was either...
In another part of the nursing home, thankfully no longer in Ward Four, a young woman lay in a hospital bed and gazed blankly about her. She didn't know she was the subject of endless patient gossip or ongoing, often heated, staff discussion. She had no idea her charts were being pored over with interest and that doctors from as far away as Australia and America were following her case with clinical fascination. This patient hadn't a clue as to what had happened to her or even how long she had been lying, near dead, in the nursing home. She certainly didn't realize she was a medical miracle.
The girl seemed ignorant of everything, having emerged from her coma in as fresh and unspoiled condition as if coming from a womb. Lying in her bed, she was first conscious only of the play of light flickering brightly upon the walls, the feel of crisp linen on the bed, the coolness of the soft breeze that played across her face, and the muffled whispers of voices somewhere outside her door. At first, such small things made up the boundaries of her world. They filled the void inside her with the beginnings of substance, fanning the sparking flames of her hunger for still more.
That there was more was something she knew instinctively, though cognitively she seemed to know nothing. She had no idea who she was or what she was-- let alone where she was or how in the world she got there. Carefully, scientifically, she tested the limits of her boundaries. Eyes scanned the room about her, fingers and limbs twitched tentatively to define movement. Tactile sensations, however minor and trivial, were examined and cataloged. A butterfly was emerging from a chrysalis.
For the moment, nothing beyond this seemed to concern her as her thoughts seemed as void as the empty place she had come from. But she knew it would concern her soon. Her mind was already considering, probing, and comparing. Questions, unformed except for the fact of their being, bubbled and seethed in the background of her consciousness. These questions were important. They were vital to her existence. The only problem was, she didn't yet know what they were...
Until the questions took form, she could do little but wait. She listened to the breeze and the sounds of life around her. She felt the boundaries of her own body and quested beyond her to the limits of her world. She knew there was something beyond her, something she really did have to understand, but for now, the miracle patient who had beat all odds was simply content to Be.
Author's Note: Please, please, please refrain from sending me flamers! I am NOT knocking the British medical system. I did do my research and I know that euthanasia is illegal in the UK. It is illegal in America too, but that doesn't mean feeding tubes don't get removed from comatose patients and well meaning doctors don't help things along-- with the dazed consent of the grieving families. I've seen it first hand-- on both sides of the family-- and the horrors are still fresh in my mind. I know that the idea of euthanasia-- in various forms-- is being hotly debated in both Britain and America. The Bland case I cited in the story was real. In America, we had Terry Schiavo... If I offend anyone by seeming preachy, I certainly didn't intend it. I can only tell you that watching someone you love die after having a feeding tube removed is an absolutely terrible thing.
