"Abby,"
someone was saying.
In my
dream it was Luka, and he was telling me that he had baked me a chocolate cake
with coconut icing, my favorite, and that we were going to Florida to live
there, and that Maggie wasn't bipolar anymore. Then Luka stared straight at me, and his voice sounded a lot like Kerry
Weaver's.
"Abby,"
Luka said in Kerry's voice.
Then I
woke up and Kerry was standing in front of me. "Abby, are you all right?"
"How's Maggie?" I asked in
reply.
"She had
taken an overdose of Civilan," Kerry said, "and she was hypothermic. Her fever is down now, and we've started her
on antibiotics. She's also had
charcoal."
"Any
seizures?" I asked. Maggie seizes
occasionally, especially when her medication dosage is wrong.
"Two."
"How much
Ativan?"
"Eight
milligrams."
"Not bad."
"Abby, how
did she get an overdose of Civilan?" Kerry asked, fixing a cup of coffee.
"I don't know," I answered.
"Maggie and our son Daniel both take pills, but because Maggie has strange
tendencies towards medication, we lock them in a cabinet, and only Luka and I
have keys."
"Where do
you keep the keys?"
"I wear mine on a chain around
my neck, and Luka keeps his in an old cookie jar on top of the
refrigerator. Why all the questions?"
"She had 1200 milligrams in
her system, Abby," Kerry answered, handing me a cup of coffee.
"Thank
you," I said, gratefully accepting the coffee. "So, wait, that's forty-eight
pills."
"Exactly."
"And there
are only sixty in the bottle," I said. "And we've had that bottle for five
days."
"So that
means whoever did this left you seven pills," Kerry said, sitting down next to
me. "How nice."
Hannah,
one of the desk clerks, came in then. "Abby, your husband's on the phone."
I followed
Hannah out to the desk. "Hi, Luka, what's going on?"
"Olivia, Jacob, Daniel, and I
were just eating breakfast, and Olivia just confessed to giving Maggie the
Civilan overdose. That was what's wrong with her, right?"
"Partly," I said, and filled
him in on the rest of the details, including both seizures. "How did Livvy"
(our nickname for Olivia) "get the keys?"
"She said
she climbed up and took out all the papers and junk we had in there, and found
the key. Then she took out the Civilan,
counted out forty-eight pills, which she knew was an overdose, and dissolved
them in a glass of water. Later, while
taking the prescribed dose of Civilan, Maggie drank that water, and became
delusional and such. She went outside,
looking for Butterball, fell, and then became slightly manic. When she calmed down, she started singing,
hoping to wake somebody up."
"Olivia
watched the whole thing, and let her stay outside in her nightgown?" I was
growing angrier with Olivia. This
wasn't the first stunt she'd tried.
"Apparently so," Luka
answered. He was angry, too, I could
tell, but was trying to mask it.
"How did
Daniel take the news that Maggie was in the hospital again?"
"Not well. He started wheezing, and I think his
pleurisy is acting up again, so it took me twenty minutes to calm him
down. We're going to go to the sled run
today if I can get Jacob to stop practicing the piano for ten seconds."
Jacob, our
youngest, is a piano genius, and attends St. Ludvig's Music School. He's very talented, and loves to play. But that usually means that he doesn't like
to do much else.
"No, don't
take them to the sled run. I want to
talk to Olivia myself, and I want Daniel to see that Maggie is okay."
"She is
okay, right?" Luka questioned.
"I haven't
seen her yet myself, but I'm assuming that she is."
"Okay,
I'll let you got then," he said. "I have to separate Daniel and Olivia. They're fighting again."
I hung up
the phone, and then Malucci was standing there. "Abby, you can see Maggie now,
if you want."
"Okay,
that'd be great," I answered.
That was
when I noticed that a little boy was following Malucci around. I recognized him as Henry, Malucci and
Jing-Mei's son. He's ten now, in
between Jacob and Daniel, and they love to pal around. "Hi Henry," I said.
"Hi,
Abby," he said in his lisping voice. "Maggie is sick again, huh?"
"Yes," I answered. "She is
kind of sick."
"Kiley was sick last week,"
Henry responded gravely, in his little-boy way. "She had the flu." Kiley is
Henry's older sister; she is fourteen and goes to a dancing school on the other
side of town.
"I'm sorry
to hear that," I said.
Malucci
showed me to Exam 2, and left me there. Henry followed after his father. I smiled, then pushed open the door. Maggie was the only patient in the room currently, and she was
sleeping. She had a tube under her
nose, helping her to breathe. I picked
up the chart at the foot of the bed and read it, slowly.
Patient's
Name: Magdalena "Maggie" Abigail Kovac
Age: 13
Address: 1513
Guinness Road, Chicago, 515-544-4356
Parents/
Guardians/Contact: Abby and Luka Kovac
Medical Concerns: Severely
bipolar
Current
Medications: Lithium, Dopikate, Civilan, Markan, Trilisan
Reason
for Visit: Hypothermia, spent approximately 4.5 hours outside in
insufficient clothing, also running a fever of 104.5, due to virus
Medications
/ Treatment: Due to
two seizures, was given 8 milligrams of Ativan, also was given 10 milligrams
Ancef and 16 milligrams Agema to combat virus; charcoal was administered at
24:06, as patient had 1200 milligrams of Civilan in system.
Follow-up: Patient
should see psychiatrist soon. Also keep
on 24 milligrams Agema daily, for ten days.
I skipped
the part about her vital signs, which was boring. By that time Maggie was coming around. "Daisies, fairies,
butterflies," she said, her eyes opening slowly.
"Hi,
Mags," I said. "How's it going?"
"Daisies, fairies,
butterflies," she replied.
I
recognized the line. It's part of a
song Luka sings to her occasionally, like when she has to have an injection,
which she hates.
Daisies, fairies, butterflies
Fly so high, up in the sky
Fly with me, we'll fly away from
here
From hate, from anger, from fear
Fly, fly, fly, butterfly child
Lift your wings and dance
Along the sun's horizon
Fly, fly, fly, butterfly girl
Spread your wings and lift
Way up in the sky
"Where's
Daddy?" she asked, her voice raspy. I
supposed that they'd intubated her at one point.
"Do you
remember anything about last night?"
"I was
outside," she said clearly. "I was looking for Butterball, but he's dead, so
that was stupid. Then I started singing
and you and Daddy heard."
"Right," I
answered. "What about your pills? Was
anything different?"
"No. Mom, is something wrong?"
"You had 1200 milligrams of
Civilan in your system." She paused, trying to do the math. "That's forty-eight
pills," I said for her.
"Oh."
"Olivia
did it."
"What?"
"Olivia
gave you the forty-eight pills," I said.
"No,"
Maggie said.
"Yes, she
did. Daddy just called me, and he said
that she told him about it."
"No,"
Maggie repeated, shaking her head. "No."
"Maggie,
listen to me! She did!"
"No."
The
"window of opportunity," one of the only times we can talk to Maggie, had been
closed. "No, no, no, no!" she shrieked, and lunged at me. The IV ripped from the back of her hand and
the tube came out from underneath her nose, but she didn't seem to notice.
"Malik,
Malucci!" I called.
Malik came
in, and held her back. "Maggie, Maggie, calm down," he said.
"No!" she
howled, like some kind of teenage banshee. "NO!"
Malucci
came in then. "Give her something to calm her down," he ordered to one of the
nurses, who nodded briskly.
"No!"
Maggie sobbed, and reached for me. "Mom! Mom!"
"Hold her
still," Malucci instructed Malik, as he attempted to restart Maggie's IV.
Malik
tried. Maggie was crying now, and
shaking, trying to grab at me. "Mom, Mom," she sobbed. "Mom, please." Tears
rolled down her face. "Mom, don't leave me!"
"Put her in a separate room for now," Malucci said coldly - he was getting fed up with Maggie -, "and call Psych. See if they have a bed available."