This is, to me, a dark chapter. I have been through a very similar situation and it was difficult, yet therapeutic, to write. Since beginninng this story, almost two years time has elapsed in "Sara/Gil" life, I may go back and fill in some of that time (add as flashbacks) to help bring a little light to this story. Thanks for reading and reviewing. I know it is not the 'happy-go-lucky' story but sometimes it is okay to suffer a little in the midst of sunshine
Sara sat in the waiting room just outside of the Las Vegas Trauma Center, her hands clenched tightly in her lap. She had called 9-1-1 in a panic, trying desperately to remember her address or even the street that they lived on
She had woken from a deep sleep just after 3:00 AM to find Gil lying eerily still beside her, his cold skin a balmy white as his breathing came out in hallowed gasps
As she had reached for the phone next to their bed, she realized he had stopped breathing
The ambulance had arrived moments before Catherine pulled in the driveway and with a sick feeling Sara realized that Alex had been standing in his bedroom doorway, Mr. Biggles dangling in his small hand as he watched the paramedics rush into her bedroom and begin resuscitation on Gil's lifeless body.
Alex was crying, as if he knew already what was going on, even if he was far too small to understand it.
It took mere seconds for Catherine to grab him, scooping him up into her arms as she nodded at Sara before disappearing into Audrey's room.
To Sara, it seemed as though the entire night's events had played out in excruciatingly slow motion and she had felt completely surreal as she watched the paramedics load her husband into the back of a waiting ambulance, leaving her standing dumbstruck in their wake as she struggled to comprehend what had just happened. She had rushed into Audrey's room, soothing both of her children as they clung to Catherine, frightened by the men who had taken their father away
And now she sat, almost 45 minutes later, completely alone in a room that seemed far too cold and painfully quiet.
She heard the sound of the automated front door and looked up just as Nick came rushing through them, his eyes briefly scanning the expanse of the room before landing on her. He rushed over and she leapt out of the chair, grabbing him with such force that it nearly knocked him off balance. He held her tight, one hand on the back of her head as she began to sob "Hey…" he soothed, rubbing her back softly as he held her close "Shhhh…it's okay…Sare, it's okay…"
After a few moments she pulled away and wiped at her eyes with a trembling hand "Catherine called me" He told her "Greg is on his way in…he was clear on the other side of Henderson…"
"They won't let me see him" She said "I don't know what is going on"
He glanced around "No one has talked to you?"
She shook her head "They asked me questions…" she nodded as if in confirmation to herself "…his social security number, our insurance…if he had a DNR…" with that she began crying again and he reached over to take her hand, leading her back to the row of chairs as they sat down
He struggled to gain his own composure, looking around quickly before down at the floor "Does he?"
She looked at him "What?"
"If he…" he faltered, swallowing "…if something happens…"
"Does he want to be resuscitated? Is that what you're asking?" She was incredulous "….he's only 56, Nicky…"
He closed his eyes tightly, cursing himself for asking "I know…I know…" He looked at her, his eyes moist "Darlin', I am so sorry…"
They were quiet for what seemed like hours when the trauma unit doors opened and a blue clad doctor walked out to approach them "Mrs. Grissom?"
"My husband?" She whispered, her voice tinged with fear as she began to stand
"He is very ill" He told her in a softly firm tone "Please, stay seated…" He sat on the edge of the table in front of them "My name is Doctor Langor and I have been attending your husband since he came in this evening…as soon as he is stable enough he'll be transferred up to ICU…"
"Stable enough?"
"Mrs. Grissom," He cleared his throat "Your husband came in with a substantial amount of fluid in his lungs caused by septicaemia…we had to insert a chest tube to alleviate some of that fluid and he'll be on respiration therapy until he is able to breathe on his own without support…"
"Wait…" She stopped him, furrowing her eye brows "Without support? Are you telling me that Gil is on life support?"
Dr. Langor shook his head "No" He assured her "Not entirely, Mrs. Grissom, but you must understand that your husband is very, very ill..." He glanced at Nick before looking back to Sara "His kidney and liver functions are very low and we've started him on IV therapy…we've ordered a CT Scan and we'll be repeating an X Ray to verify Dr. Brewer's findings…"
"What findings?" She was dubious, her eyes growing wide as she began to panic
He glanced at Nick again "Mrs. Grissom, we believe that your husband has cancer…"
A roar went through her head and she began to shake it slowly "No…."
"We need to do biopsies of his lungs and liver…we will need your consent for that…"
"Gil had pneumonia" she stated, growing angry "You can't keep poking holes in him! He was feeling better…he's getting better…"
"We're still running tests," He said softly as Nick squeezed her hand tightly "His X-Rays showed abnormal shadowing in the right lobe…"
"No!" She suddenly exploded, leaping from her chair with such force that it slammed into the wall behind her. The roaring in her head was becoming deafening and she thought she was going to be ill "No…you cannot tell me that you need to cut more holes in my husband!" Her voice cracked as her eyes misted over again "Gil has always been healthy…he's healthy…you just need to find a way to help him. Can't you just help him?"
"Sara…" Nick stood, reaching for her hand but she yanked it away from him
"No" She snapped again, firmly "He cannot stand here and tell me that Gil is going to die…" she began crying again, trying hard to keep from vomiting. "People with cancer die…" She looked back to the doctor "Can't you just help him? Please…can't you just fix him?"
With a deep breath, Dr. Langor stood up to face her "We're trying" He said with a nod "But to do that we have to run these biopsies. I'm very sorry, Mrs. Grissom, truly I am. And I wish I didn't have to tell you this news…but if there is any chance of helping your husband, we have to run more tests. And we cannot do that without your permission"
As she nodded her consent, Sara felt the room spinning around her. And as the doctor disappeared behind the doors that separated her from her husband, she felt the nausea she'd been fighting overcome her and she ran into the women's bathroom, collapsing to the floor as she covered her head and sobbed
Her husband was dying and she knew there was no way she could save him
Hello…
The voices around him were distant, far away and unrecognizable
Is there anybody in there?
He wanted Sara…strained to see her, to hear her
Just nod if you can hear me
He was trying to nod, trying to make his mouth move…to utter her name. He could barely hear them shouting, knew they were asking his name but he couldn't make out the words
Your lips move, but I can't hear what you're saying
He could remember fading in and out, the lights above him blurring in and out of focus. He saw a masked face above him, knew he was in some sort of trouble and all he could think about was Sara…and every time he felt he was coming to the surface, something would grasp onto his conscious and pull him back beneath the abyss and he struggled to keep his head above the ominous darkness that surrounded him
He wished that someone would turn off that damn music
The last thing he thought of as he slipped again was her eyes…
Sara's beautiful chocolate eyes and how much he was going to miss them when he was gone
By the time she had finally been escorted up to his room in the ICU unit, almost all of their friends sat with her in the waiting room, forming what she felt was a protective shroud around her. Brass continually paced, stopping every few minutes to glance through the windows that led to the trauma unit. Sara could tell that he was scared
Hell, she was terrified
He would stop every few passes, staring down at her as he struggled to speak, only to close his mouth and start the pacing all over again
Almost two hours had passed by the time Catherine had arrived, dropping the twins at her house with Lindsey before stopping by the lab to pick up Warrick. Greg had rushed in shortly after the doctor had delivered the news, sitting quietly as Nick told him what was happening
The doors to the trauma unit had opened once again just after six in the morning and Sara had been shown the route along the sterile white hallways and up an excruciatingly cold elevator to find herself face-to-face with a robust looking nurse who sat at the nurses' station of the ICU unit.
Sara was shivering
The woman looked up at her, smiling kindly as she shuffled through some paperwork
"You must be Mrs. Grissom" the nurse said as Sara nodded numbly
"Sara…"
"Sara then" She smiled again, softly "I'm Rosa…." She stood up, her large arms reaching for a clip board "I know you want to see your husband, so if you come with me I'll show you to his room"
She made her way around the nurses' station, stopping in front of Sara. "Now, you have to remember that your husband is pretty sick, he has a blood infection and he can't be exposed to anything that might make him sicker, so if you have a cold or any kind of infection you can't go in his room" She began to walk and Sara, after a pause, followed "We got him all hooked up to a breathing machine and it looks pretty scary, but we have him sedated so he doesn't even know it is there" She stopped outside one of the rooms, the curtains drawn so that no one could see in. On the table next to the door were some robes and surgical masks. Rosa grabbed one of each and handed them to her "Each time you go in to see him, you have to put these on" She explained kindly "And you have to wash your hands over in that sink and put those gloves on"
Sara stood completely still, staring at the items in Rosa's hand. She made no move to take them, her eyes wide with fright as she glanced from the contents in the woman's hands to the light blue curtain across the door in front of her.
Rosa sighed knowingly "You're scared to death, aren't you?"
Sara nodded slowly, swallowing as she reached for the robe and mask. Rosa reached out, putting a hand on Sara's arm "You just go in there and talk to him" She said reassuringly "Chances are he can hear you, even if he can't see you"
Again Sara nodded and allowed Rosa to lead her to the sink, where she washed her hands before donning the rob, mask and a pair of sterile gloves. "You ready?" As Sara nodded once again, Rosa slid the curtain back and stepped aside and Sara felt her knees give out on her. If it hadn't been for Rosa's solid form next to her, she would have hit the floor
His eyes were taped closed, the tube that kept him breathing held in place by even more tape…he had wires and tubes attached to his body and she could see the tubing that drained the fluid from his lungs filling with the bright red color of blood. She fought the overwhelming urge to bolt from the room, knowing if she did she may not come back
There was no way in hell that the weak form in front of her was her husband
No way in hell
"Will you be alright, honey?" Rosa asked as Sara realized she'd backed almost all of the way out of the room
Sara looked at her "Yes" she lied "Thank you"
Again Rosa reached out and touched her arm "Remember, just talk to him…he's still your husband inside of all those hoses…he's just having a little difficulty doing all this living on his own right now"
Sara nodded numbly once again, walking slowly into the room. Behind her, she could hear the curtains closing and glanced back to see that Rosa was gone. As she turned back to Gil, she had to stifle the sob that came to her throat and stood for a few minutes before approaching his bed.
The respirator pumping oxygen into his lungs filled the room with an ominous dull roar and she stared at it for a long while before reaching for his hand, stopping mid air as she realized that his arms were strapped to the rails of the bed
It was then that she bolted from the room, running down the hallway and through the door that led to the stairwell, yanking the oxygen mask off of her face in angry protest; she stopped only when she had burst through the door leading to the outside 5 floors below. She bent, hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath, the sobs she had thought were stifled rising up in her again
She began to walk, angry strides that seemed to grow more intense as she put more distance between her and the pallor form they claimed was her husband. She wasn't aware of how far she had walked or how long it had taken her but as she sat on the grass of a carefully manicured lawn she realized she needed to go back
The man in the bed was still her husband, the man who had given her his life and two amazing children. He had always been the one shining star on her horizon; their life together was the only thing she felt that she had ever done right. Together they had faced struggles unimaginable to the outside world; written chapters of books without words and faced ghosts only they could see.
When she felt she was drowning, Gil was the one who reached his hand below the surface and pulled her back to life
And as she began to run back in the direction she had fled, she realized it was her time to do the same for him
He spent over a week in ICU as infection after infection seemed to ravage his already weakened body. Sara spent almost every waking moment by his bed, holding his hand and reading to him out of a scientific journal or telling him, and Rosa when she was in the room, about the twins' antics
Alex had fallen down the stairs and scraped his chin, having to be rushed in himself for two very small stitches where the bottom stair had cracked the skin. Audrey had added three new beetles to her collection, looking in her little book of bugs to find exactly what they were. When Sara had tried to help her, the little girl had given her the same disdaining look that Gil had given her so many times when she had identified one of his findings incorrectly
The two of them, she said, were so very much alike that it was almost scary
Sara never told him how she didn't sleep at night or that she had failed a final exam and was behind on her dissertation, that she had missed over a week of classes and was dangerously close to being removed from the Doctorate program they had sacrificed so much for her to enroll in. She also did not tell him that Alex's doctor was concerned that his hearing was decreasing at a rapid rate, insisting that if they did not do the surgery soon it might be too late
On the morning of the sixth day, Sara sat alone in the small ICU waiting room as the doctor's performed the biopsies that would tell her Gil's fate
The news was devastating
And, of course, she never told him that either
Instead she had went for a jog through the local park, her ipod strapped to her head as she struggled to accept the inevitible
Gil had a rare form of lung cancer that was in the extensive stage and had spread, slowly, to his lymphatic system
His prognosis was uncertain
He would need to undergo aggressive radiation and chemotherapy, surgery being ruled out as a feasible option. She had called Catherine first, followed by Brass and eventually Nick gaining from them a unified decision to undergo treatment
It was the only chance she had of saving his life
But as Sara's feet pounded the dirt trail through the park, he would never get his life back
She didn't know what to tell Alex and Audrey. They asked about Gil constantly, being only momentarily placated by her excuse that he was out-of-town and would be home soon
Alex asked her if the men were going to keep him, his eyes full of accusation as he waited for Sara's reply.
She never knew what to tell him and would instead find anything she could to distract him from the truth
How did you tell a 4 year-old that his father was dying?
Audrey wrote him letters that only a 4 year-old could understand, drawing elaborate pictures of bugs and sunflowers. Sara would put them in an envelope and Audrey would scribble 'DAD' on the front in large oversized print, putting it into the mailbox in hopes that her Daddy would see it. Sara would always wait until they were asleep before removing the envelope from the mail box and placing it in her car to bring to Gil's room.
On the seventh night of ICU, Sara had come close to a break down, her nerves and emotions drained. Her doctor had given her explicit instructions to use a sedative to get at least one night's sleep and once she had insured that Catherine was on stand by in the event that something happened with Gil, she had conceded. Nick had agreed to stay at the house to insure the children were safe in the event that Sara could not wake up
He had watched a movie with the twins, helping them into their pajamas before sending them up to brush their teeth. Sara had herself been asleep for over two hours and he was hoping to crash on the couch himself, getting as many hours of sleep as possible before he would have to head into the lab. As he was picking up their toys scattered throughout the front room, he could hear them in the upstairs hallway and went up to check on them
He found them both sitting next to Sara as she slept, a book open between them
"Hey" He said quietly as he entered the room "You know your Momma's trying to sleep..why don't you guys come with me?"
Audrey looked up at him as Alex continued studying his book and Nick realized that the little boy did not hear him
"We're waiting for Daddy to read us a book" Audrey said, her tiny little foot bouncing as she talked
Nick sighed "Sweetheart, you know your daddy will be gone for a few days"
Audrey shrugged and that is when Alex looked up at him, his eyes full of the same contempt he had seen in Sara when she was angry. His little hands let go of the book as he signed something to Nick before saying "Daddy always reads to us"
"I know, Slugger" Nick said, coming in closer. He was trying to be quiet enough to not awaken Sara, yet loud enough for the 4 year-old to hear him "But Daddy's not here right now.." he looked to Audrey "How about if you and Alex come with me and I'll read the book to you?"
"No" She pouted "You're not Daddy"
"Audrey…"
She pulled her legs up, crawling over to Sara and sliding in under the blankets. Her thumb went in her mouth and she turned away from him, snuggling as close to Sara's body as she could to show him a form of dismissal
He looked to Alex who sat and glared at him. His little hands suddenly moved in a flurry and Nick found himself wishing, again, that he knew more than just a few simple signs "I'm waiting for Daddy" His tone was challenging, stubborn, and as soon as the words came out he looked back down at the book, his eyebrows furrowed as he tried to concentrate on the pictures.
Nick watched him for a moment, contemplating just picking him up and carrying him to his room but he knew that the act would elicit a raging temper tantrum that would wake Sara. With a sigh, he went over to pick up Mr Biggles who lay on the floor next to the bed. He handed it to Alex who yanked it out of his hand without looking up from the book
Even without words, Nick knew that if Gil never came home, it would be a long time before his son would forget it
To be continued...
