Chapter 4
Twenty minutes later, they were sitting on the bed in their small room eating turkey sandwiches and pretzels, watching CNN. "What did Leo have to say?"
"There was a school shooting in South Carolina. One student killed and one teacher wounded."
"Anything else?"
"He's worried about my mom."
"I know. He asked me about her a lot yesterday."
"Maybe we should get back down there."
"It's only been an hour, Josh. It doesn't do us any good to be down there when she's not," Dona said while yawning.
"You should get some sleep."
"I'm fine."
"You're yawning. You were awake all night."
"I slept some on the plane."
"Oh, an hour on a plane. I'm sure you're well rested," he said sarcastically.
"Two hours on a chair in the room. I'm sure you are too," she answered equally as sarcastic.
He smiled at her. It didn't matter the circumstances; Donna always made them better. "That's different."
"Why?"
"I'm a man."
"Yes, of course. That makes all the difference."
"You're going to tell CJ I said that, aren't you?"
"More than likely. Why don't you rest until you're mom gets back to her room," she said, getting off the bed and moving towards the chair in the corner.
"Me? What about you?"
"I'll be fine in the chair."
"Donna," he said as he lightly grabbed her wrist. He lay on the bed and pulled her towards it. "Let's just get a little rest."
She looked at him for several seconds and then crawled into the small bed next to him. She lay on her side, her back to him, and he lay directly behind her, but not touching her. She thought it should have felt weird, but it didn't, and before long she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Josh woke up to a soft knocking on the door. He opened his eyes and took a few seconds to figure out where he was. Yes, the hospital. His mother; a stroke. He looked at Donna for just a minute, who was sleeping on her stomach next to him, her arm draped across his chest, and then picked up her arm up and crawled out from underneath her. He went to the door and opened it to a nurse. Quickly, he walked into the hallway and closed the door behind him. "Is she back?"
"They're bringing her down now."
"What time is it?"
"One o'clock. It took a little longer than expected."
Josh began to panic. "Did something go wrong?"
"No sir," she said calmingly. "Everything went fine. Dr. Bomboy will be down to talk to you in an hour or so with the results."
"Ok. I'm going to head down there now," Josh said and started walking down the hallway.
"Mr. Lyman, you have to put on shoes," the nurse pointed out.
"Right. Sorry." He walked back towards the room.
"Do you need me to find Mrs. Lyman for you?"
He stared at the nurse for a minute and then shook his head. "No, she's sleeping. She was up all night. I'll come and get her before I talk to the doctor." He went back in the room and quietly grabbed his gym shoes and socks before walking back out and heading to the ICU.
Twenty minutes later, Josh's cell phone woke Donna. She sat up and looked around. Josh was gone, probably back to Elizabeth's room. She wondered what time it was and climbed out of the bed and went to the ringing phone. 1:25pm. Elizabeth was scheduled to be back from her tests about 12:30, she needed to hurry downstairs. She answered the phone as she slipped on some sandals. "Hello."
"Donna?"
"Dr. Bartlet, hello."
"I'm sorry, I was looking for Josh."
"Yes ma'am. I'm sure he's in his mother's room."
"You're in Florida?"
"Yes ma'am," she said as she grabbed her own phone, her notebook and walked out the door and towards the staircase.
"Of course, I'm sorry. I just wasn't expecting you to answer. How is his mother?"
"I'm not sure. They sent her for…hold on a second…I wrote it down." The first lady smiled. Donna was nothing if not efficient. "Here it is. They sent her for an EEG, an MRI and a cerebral angiography. That was at 10:30am. It was supposed to take two hours, but I fell asleep, so I don't know anything. I'm on my way there now."
"You sound tired, Donna."
"I'm fine, I'm just kind of out of it because the ringing phone woke me. Josh must've woken up earlier and left his phone in the room."
Abbey smiled. "So, you've had a chance to check into a hotel?" She asked. 'And the same room?' she thought but didn't voice.
"No, they gave us a room here, a family room. It's not much, but we don't want to leave the hospital. It has a bed and a shower, that's enough for now."
"That's convenient. I'm sure Josh wants to be close. I'll let you get down there Donna, but please call when you have news."
"Yes ma'am. Thank you for calling."
"Take care of him Donna."
"Yes ma'am, I will."
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
When Donna got to Elizabeth's room, the door was open. She peeked in, and Elizabeth looked exactly as she had before the tests. There were tubes in her mouth and nose, the left side of her face was still dramatically altered from the right, and she was still very pale. Josh was sitting in a chair next to the bed reading the paper to his mother.
"… been three years and although I'm sure he's interested, he never takes that next step. When is enough enough?" He paused and looked at his mom. "I can't believe you read Dear Abbey, Mom. This is so girly." Then he looked back at the paper. "Dear Waiting, It's time to move on, in fact you should have two years ago. Either you're reading his feelings wrong or this friend of yours has commitment problems. You're doing yourself a disservice by waiting on the love that's never going to happen. Go out, date, and find a new love." He paused. "That's pretty harsh Mom, don't you think? I mean, she hasn't heard his side of the story."
"Abbey's full of crap," Donna said quietly from the door. Josh looked up at her but didn't say anything. "If she loves him, she loves him, it doesn't matter if he feels the same way. She can go out with all the guys in the world, but she can't tell her heart what to feel, it doesn't work that way."
He smiled just a little. "So, she should wait?"
"No, she shouldn't. But she has to; her heart doesn't have an off switch. Anyway," she said, looking directly at him, "He should stop being such a coward."
He looked at her for several seconds and finally said, "I thought you'd sleep a little longer."
She walked to the chair next to him and sat down. The moment was over. "Dr. Bartlet called to check on your mom, the phone woke me. When did you wake-up?"
"About a half hour ago. A nurse came for me when they were bringing her back," he said, nodding at his mother.
"Any word?"
"Not yet. They said an hour."
"You could've woken me up, I would've come down here with you."
"I know, but you looked…comfortable. Anyway, you needed some sleep."
"Did you get any?"
"Yeah," he said and yawned. "About an hour and a half."
"I didn't hog the bed?"
He laughed a bit. "Yeah you did, but I didn't mind."
They sat quietly, both doing their own thing, for several minutes. Josh watched his mother's chest rise and fall, concentrating on her arm when the machine took her blood pressure. Donna watched her face mostly, glancing at her legs that twitched occasionally. "She's gonna be really glad that you came," Josh said quietly a few minutes later.
Donna looked over at Josh. "No, she's gonna be really glad that you came."
"Well, yeah, but…"
"What?"
"She's gonna be glad that you're here to take care of me."
Donna looked back at Elizabeth's face. "Well, that's my job."
"Donna," he said, rubbing his hand over his face and through his hair. "It goes well beyond your job description."
She smiled but kept her eyes on Elizabeth. "I wasn't talking about work." Neither of them said anything as her words sunk in.
"Mr. and Mrs. Lyman, hello," said Dr. Bomboy as she walked into the room. Donna looked at Josh, but he was standing up and hadn't seemed to notice.
"How's my mom?" he asked.
The woman looked at him and sighed. "I'm afraid the swelling has increased," she said simply.
"What? How?" Josh asked as tears sprung to his eyes.
"The medication isn't working as well as we'd hoped it would. Her body's not reacting to it. I'm ordering a different regiment, hopefully it will help."
Josh was visibly shaken by this news and was having a hard time standing. Donna took him by the elbow and sat him back in the chair. She softly put her hand in his hair while he put his head in his hands and propped his elbows on his knees. She spoke quietly to the doctor. "You don't sound sure."
"I'm not sure. There's simply no way to know what will work until we find something that… does."
"What does this mean as far as recovery?" she asked as she continued gently running her fingers through Josh's hair.
"Well, I don't expect her to wake-up with the swelling as bad as it currently is, and the longer she's in a comatose state, the greater the long term affects will be. Also, after today's test, I'm extremely worried about more strokes. There's major blockage in the neck veins. We're going to have to perform the carotid endarterectomy now. I wanted to wait until she was conscious, but we need to go ahead with it."
"You want to operate?" Josh asked as he stood up and took Donna's hand. "She isn't… can she… is she strong enough?"
"It's not an invasive surgery, Mr. Lyman. I was hoping she'd be stronger, but it's going to be fine. To be honest, it's the least of our worries at this point."
He closed his eyes. "When?"
"Tomorrow morning. I want to give her the rest of the day and tonight to make some progress on her own. We'll operate first thing tomorrow."
"It's ok to wait?" asked Donna.
"The body can heal itself amazingly well. I'd like to watch her for the night. See how she does on her own."
"And if she wakes up tonight?" he asked her.
"She'll still need the operation; but with the amount of swelling, I wouldn't expect her to wake-up tonight."
"Yeah," he whispered.
The doctor looked at Josh and Donna for a few moments. "I'll be back to check on her in a few hours. The nurses are here, if there's any change they'll let me know."
The doctor walked out of the room just as Josh began sobbing. Donna took him in her arms and held him for several minutes both of them crying, neither of them saying anything.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
They had gone most of the day without speaking or leaving the room, both feeling helpless. Finally, at about 9:00, Donna had gone to the cafeteria and brought back sandwiches and salad for dinner. Josh only picked at his food; he was exhausted both physically and emotionally, and didn't seem to have the strength to pick up his fork. Donna ate a bit more, but had only slept two hours in two days, and she too was feeling the effects of being awake for so long.
"I should go to her place and make sure it's locked, I guess," he said out of nowhere.
Donna was startled by his voice, as though she thought she had been alone, and looked up at him. "I called the retirement village yesterday afternoon after I dropped you off at the airport. They sent maintenance over to make sure everything was ok and to lock up."
"Ok." They continued to eat in silence for several minutes before he spoke again. "When I was a kid, we came to Florida once," he said not talking to anyone specific. "Joanie, Dad, Mom and me. We spent two days at the space station and then five days here at the beach."
"How old were you then?" she asked quietly.
"I don't know; five maybe. I was afraid of sharks; Joanie made fun of me. But then she got stung by a jellyfish and we had to take her to the hospital. I wonder if it was this one."
Donna closed her eyes for a moment. "I think Joanie and I would've gotten along well."
He tried to laugh, but couldn't. After a minute, he simply said, "I'm scared."
"I am too," she whispered.
"What if she wakes up and she's…" his voice trailed off. "She would hate that."
"I know."
"What if she doesn't… there might be some decisions I have to make in the next few weeks… days."
She nodded. "Yes, there might be."
"How can I…I don't think I can… What am I going to do?" he asked, wiping tears from his eyes before they could fall.
Donna got out of her chair and sat in Josh's lap, pulling him to her chest. "You're going to wait until the time comes, and then you're going to make the best decision you can. And I'm going to be right here with you the whole time," she whispered as she held him close and he cried on her shirt.
