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Chapter 21- EPOV
My first full day on the medical floor was exhausting.
I was woken at five o'clock in the morning again by the nurse to take my blood pressure, oxygen saturation and blood sugar.
The advantage was I was no longer hooked up to the tele-monitor twenty-four/seven. The downfall was being woken up every two hours to have it checked.
I barely remember them doing it in the middle of the night, but now I lay here counting the seconds tick on the clock. I know in my usual routine, I'm usually up in the gym at this time before I have breakfast and drive to work, but now CF feels a million miles away.
There's no way I could work in my current condition. I could barely sit up much less try to think straight and organize the thousand employees that count on me daily.
A part of me was angry at myself for allowing my body to get to this point of dehydration and fatigue. Another part of me was angry at my family. Were the expectations that were set by Granddad unrealistic? Were Jasper and I too involved in our careers to realize this detriment to our bodies?
Maybe I wasn't right for him. Maybe he'd do better without me if I was going to cause this amount of damage to myself and those around me.
It was impossible to miss the dark circles under his eyes and the wear the past two weeks have taken on his soul. His shoulders sagged and his countenance was sad.
No other options seemed feasible to me the more I thought about how sad he seemed when he was near me.
I lifted my hands to my head and pulled against my hair.
The only tear the pain brought to my eye was the knowledge of how Jasper likes to tug against me when we're making love.
I tugged harder. Right now all I needed was the pain.
By the time the sun rose, I had managed to wipe the pain and fear away with the edge of my hospital gown.
Bella, Alice and Jasper entered the room first.
Alice curled up in the chair closest to mine and rested her head next to me as she would when we were kids and told each other our secrets.
Right now, my secrets were too much to bear and were too painful to express, instead I forced smiles and laughed at Bella's jokes to hide it.
I feared Jasper could see the true me lurking; he always did know me best.
There were more than a few times in the morning when I caught his blue eyes and they were filled with concern… and the same sadness I remembered from before.
The four of us were in the middle of joking about the time Bella, Jasper and I decided it would be a great idea to dye our hair green for the baseball game. Fortunately, it was able to wash out of mine and Bella's darker hair but Jasper had to hunt down the only hairdresser in Hanover that was open and willing to strip his beautiful blonde locks of the green dye.
Tears were running down my sister's face despite it was certainly not the first time she had heard the story as she laughed.
A team of pulmonologists entered the room, almost filling it to capacity with the four of us. They made me breathe into a plastic contraption and each of the doctors HAD to listen to my lungs as I took deep breaths over and over again.
They declared that I seemed to be improving and they hoped the chest tube could come out in another day or so.
Hallelujah for that. I couldn't turn or bend to my left without the damn thing stabbing me in the ribs. I couldn't wait for all of these tubes to be out of me.
The team of doctors all left as they came, in a massive herd.
Bella, Alice, Jasper and I had about twenty minutes of subdued silence before there was another knock at my door.
Bella and Alice stepped out as the urologist entered. Jasper whispered if I wanted him to go, but I needed him here with me. I needed as much time with him as I possibly could before the end came. And what this doctor was coming to look at wasn't any different than he had seen before.
Thank god, there was only one urologist and his test was fairly simple. He asked me some questions about my prior urinary continence, asked about my liquid intake since I was extubated and checked the bag that was connected to my foley catheter at the end of the bed.
In the end, he just nodded at me and promised to return tomorrow.
My new hospitalist was in immediately after and introduced herself as Dr. Birch. She completed a basic checks of the strength in my arms and legs as well as made a quick note of my lungs before sitting back and explaining to me what my new plan was for this floor.
She said she had placed a consult for the rehab team to evaluate me and that I may need rehab before I could go home.
It was not a surprise, but I certainly didn't like the news. I knew I couldn't stand much less walk and run in my current condition.
Dr. Birch also explained that for each day that I was unconscious and laid in the bed in the ICU, I lost half of my muscle and strength.
I thanked god that I was pretty fit to begin with, but she just reminded me that was more muscle to lose during that time.
Damn I was frustrated and it must have showed.
She asked if I had any pain and I refused.
The worst part of the day was when the physical therapists came. They gave me proof that I didn't need regarding how weak I really was.
I knew I was, but when I got to the point when I could barely hold myself up without falling over, I wanted to punch something or somebody.
One of the therapists I could swear was making eyes at my Jasper.
I felt all of my muscles clench in anger, but such stress on my muscles only made me more tired more quickly and it sent a shot of unadulterated pain down the left side of my body.
I managed to gasp out, "Pain!" but the team already seemed aware.
They asked me where and I told them what I felt in my back and chest and leg, but I couldn't tell how clear my words were.
I was blinded by the pain and felt my body being shifted.
I heard the tall blonde who was assisting me sit, I forget his name, ask if I wanted medicine and I nodded frantically.
I didn't hear their next words, but suddenly I felt like I had a lot more room to breathe.
When I opened my eyes, a young woman was next to me, pushing something into my IV line.
She placed a hand on my shoulder and asked how bad the pain was on a scale of one to ten.
Now that I was laying still again, it had started to subside. "Seven," I whispered. She nodded and left the room.
It didn't take long to feel the pleasant numbness of the medicine begin to take its affect.
I stared up at my best friends. My chosen family and before I could whisper "I love you" I was asleep.
I don't know exactly how long I was out for. I guess it was about five or six hours. I could see red and orange shadows poke from behind the blinds that separated me from the rest of the world.
I turned my head slightly and saw Mom and Dad with Granddad and Mom-Mom huddled in the corner whispering to each other.
"Gonna let me in on your secret?" I asked in my hoarse voice while peering across at them in the dusk's light.
Mom was the first up out of her chair with her arms around me when I had just barely gotten the words past my lips.
"Edward, baby," she cried out into my arms.
Slowly, I reached up and placed my arm around her shoulders in a delicate hug.
"Hi, Mom," I responded.
She touched my cheek as she almost yelled, "Don't ever, ever, ever do that to me again. Do you hear me young man?"
"Yes, Mom," I smirked slightly in her direction, it was really Dad's smirk and she was always a sucker for it.
But this time she scolded me, "Do not give me that lip, Edward. I know where you got that lip and you may be grown and gone, but I can put that lip where it belongs."
I gave her the best sulking face that I could under the circumstances as Dad walked up behind her softly saying, "Dear, he doesn't even know what he's being yelled at for. Give the boy a break."
Instead of allowing Dad to pull her back from me, Mom stood her ground and said, "I heard Emmett talking to the others. You were riding motorcycles and ATVs on the mountain? Were you trying to kill yourself?"
My mouth popped open in shock.
I couldn't have been more than fourteen when the guys from the reservation offered to let us ride with them and who was I to say no.
That was back when I craved the excitement and adrenaline. Now I only craved it sitting behind my cherry desk in the office.
But now, more than ten years later Emmett blabs about us driving on the edge of the cliffs.
I glance up at Dad, he looks like he got off scot-free. I guess they didn't get to the part where I did a flip off the bike and landed hard on my left knee.
My pants were torn and my knee was skinned open and bleeding. Emmett panicked and loaded me on the back of his bike and blew through town to the local hospital where Dad fixed me up with thirteen stitches.
Thank goodness it was early fall so I could wear pants for the few weeks until it healed, but we never told Mom.
Dad said it could be our secret between us. When Mom went out to the store a week later, Dad dragged me back to the office and removed the stitches. I still swear he did it in the most painful way possible, but that could have also been because he was yelling at me that he would never lie to my mother again for us.
Of course that did stop us from our adventures, but we learned to keep them quiet.
God I'm going to kill Emmett. If he were here right now, I would have to have someone help me put my hands around his neck and squeeze, but it would be my hands.
Dad managed to pry Mom off of my head and led her out of the room saying, "Come, dear. Let's get you a cup of tea."
That left me alone with my grandparents who were still sitting across the room. I saw my familiar smirk settle across Mom-Mom's lips.
"How are you feeling, Edward dear," she asked.
"Better," I promised.
I could do nothing but watch as she moved closer to my bedside and Granddad pulled her chair closer to me. Touching my arm she asked me, "Have I ever told you the time your father decided it would be a good idea to jump off of the roof of the lake house into the water?"
I couldn't respond as my jaw just about hit the floor. She certainly had never told me this story.
Mom-Mom laughed as she took in my response and continued, "Ha! He must have been about eight or nine at the time. He had just met the family that moved in next door. There were two twin brothers a few years older than him and a pretty young girl a few months younger.
"He had taken a dare to take a nose dive off the house into the water. Let's just say he hit the water, but landed like a ton of bricks. The boys panicked and ran off. Your grandfather and I heard some commotion. Edward dove in clothes and all and pulled your father out. He just about caught hypothermia. He broke his wrist and needed surgery to remove his spleen."
"His spleen," I gasped, "He told us that he had his appendix out when he was young."
Mom-Mom just shook her head and laughed, "It took some time for him to regain full use of his hand after being in a splint. He wasn't allowed to swim for the rest of the summer because his stitches and he was grounded for months after that stunt, but look at your father now. He has become one of the best surgeons on the west coast.
"It took time and perseverance, but I have never been more proud of my son as I am now."
She leaned down and gave me a hug before leaving me in my first moment of silence since early this morning.
I leaned my head back into my pillows and counted the dots on the ceiling again while I pondered her words.
I knew my life was about to change, but I could not know the extent.