The night she almost died

She could always hear a buzzing sound playing. Day and night, it would be echoing in her mind like an endless chorus. In her dreams she would see faces. Thousands of them. She couldn't describe them perfectly though. They were all a bit blurry. And in the end, they all looked the same. Their eyes were closed, their lips were blue, as were their extremities. Most of them had a breathing tube coming out of their mouth and taped to their chin. Others didn't have any tube and she assumed those had died before they could be helped.

Whenever she tried to sleep, the faces would come and wake her up. In her dreams, they were beginning to yell at her, to scream for help and would then beg her to not let them die alone. If by then she wasn't awoken, her heart pounding in her chest like it was about to come out of it, hands would chase her. She would run until she'd feel one, then two, then three, then all of them getting a hold of her and dragging her on the ground. Soon her entire body would be covered in those hands. She would try to scream, apologize for being helpless in saving them, but the hands would also cover her face. She could feel herself gasping for air and slowly running out of it until she'd black out, only to wake up finding herself trying to catch her breath, the bed sheets drenched in sweat and tears.

When COVID was at its worst, it seemed the pandemic was taking its toll on everybody at the hospital. No one had been spared and it was part of the job. She had signed up for that and she knew the strain it took on everybody would be over when COVID would end. Except it didn't.

The pandemic had come to an end, Emma had survived and soon it seemed everybody was resuming their lives as if nothing had happened. Audrey wondered if they had all forgotten the nightmare or if some people were still reliving it. Surely, she couldn't be the only one. People seemed to be coping so well though. As chief of surgery, she was supposed to set the example. She couldn't let it get to her and appear weak. She had to remain strong because it was what leaders were. Strong, calm and in control.

But as the weeks passed, nothing changed. In October, she had stopped counting the sleepless nights spent tossing and turning in her bed. At least when she wasn't asleep, she didn't have any nightmare. But she wasn't sure her hallucinations were a better trade-off. She found herself having conversations all night long with Neil, arguing with him over a case sometimes, reminiscing about their failed relationship other nights. She also had conversations with Linda (Emma's dead mother and her best friend at the time) when she would discuss their youth together or talk about Emma and what a pain in the ass she could sometimes be. Those hallucinations were pleasant. She enjoyed those conversations as she felt she wasn't alone anymore and as those allowed her to smile again and forget her pain for a while.

But some nights were darker. Some nights, the only one she would see was Emma. She'd be in a state where she'd experience something between a hallucination and a flashback. She would see Emma agonizing in her hospital bed, all alone, in a dark room, fighting for her life as she was drowning in her own secretions and fluids. Other times, Emma would be seated on a chair at the other end of Audrey's bedroom, smiling peacefully, looking at her tenderly, trying to talk to her. As long as Audrey was wide awake, Emma would never open her mouth. But as soon as she was drifting off, her voice would call "Hey Mom" and the sound echoed everywhere in the room, preventing Audrey from sleeping. "It's going to be okay Mom" she'd sometimes hear Emma say in a soothing voice. And when the sun would rise, Emma would disappear.

At the hospital, Audrey found herself losing her temper more and more. Even in the OR, which had always been her solace, other surgeons, nurses and staff avoided working with her. She couldn't bear it if something didn't go as planned. Her legendary nerves of steel were a now a mere souvenir. Her coffee consumption drastically increased, while her appetite grew smaller and smaller. She was having dizzy spells all day long but as the work load increased, she kept pushing her symptoms away. Everyone could tell – judging by her erratic behavior and the dark circles under her eyes – that something was off with the chief of surgery. She still kept it all to herself and let her pain eat her from within, still convinced that she would get over it sooner or later.

One couple of days had been particularly hard. The night before, she had had a phone call with Emma during which, they had talked about her health and recovery. With winter and humidity coming in Pennsylvania, Emma's last lung function tests had come back with some disappointing results. Emma sounded tired, defeated and had developed a loose cough. Audrey knew in the back of her head it was probably nothing she should be worried about but it had been bothering her all day long. On top of that, her budget meeting with Glassman was stressing her out and Shaun had decided he didn't want to teach the residents anymore. One more unexpected thing she had to deal with and wasn't sure she was well-equipped to do.

She had had to treat a war veteran who suffered PTSD and for who she had felt an empathy she thought she'd never feel again. She had truly connected with him, the way she used to connect with her patients. But doing so had also stimulated the pain she was trying to run away from ever since Neil had died. And when Rose, the empath patient with Prinzmetal angina, had told her to stop running from her pain, it had been the straw that broke the camel's back. She left the hospital distraught and rode her bike alone in the dark and cold night. She felt like she was out of her body, no longer in control, and numbed. She needed to feel something so she sped. But even the adrenaline rush she usually felt when she hit the speed she was driving at, this time, she couldn't feel. And so, she decided to drive a bit faster. The streets were empty. There was no reason a cop would give her a ticket.

It happened very quickly. As she was nearing an intersection, a car came out of nowhere. It was too late when she saw it and as she put all of her body strength into trying to control the bike and make it turn sharply to avoid the car, she finally felt alive, the adrenaline rushing through her veins. For a short while, she was back into her own body. But as she was violently ejected from the bike, she felt numb again. Flying through the air, she wondered if she could have avoided the car, had she drove a little less fast. She hit the ground hard, the buzzing sound of the flatline and of the times of death making everything around her quiet. She thought she would have blacked out, but she was still fully conscious.

Audrey lied there, still, letting the cold wrap its arms around her and sleep finally welcoming her. She felt good here. She was probably dying. Rose was right. Her pain was killing her. She thought about finally letting go and stopping the fight. Rose would probably gloat if she saw her. She didn't care. She was too tired to care. At least she would be with Neil and Linda again. She didn't think of Emma. She could only focus on herself and on what she needed. Dying seemed a good option to finally stop feeling the pain. The sirens of the police and of the ambulance didn't disturb her at all. She had no idea how much time had passed when two EMTs picked her up and secured her on a stretcher, while she screamed in pain as they put their hands on her hypothermic body before finally passing out.

Audrey woke up in the ambulance, wrapped in a survival blanket, attached to the gurney and her neck blocked by a surgical collar. A drip was hanging above her and a heart monitor was beeping steadily next to her. One of the EMTs talked to her but she didn't pay attention to what she was saying. It didn't matter to her. She wanted to move her head to look around but couldn't and as she tried to turn herself to be in a more comfortable position, a sharp pain crossed her entire body. She had no idea where she was hurt and started to panic until she saw Emma staring at her. "It's going to be okay Mom" she said. "Just relax" she added and she stayed seated at the bottom of the stretcher during the entire ride.

Audrey smiled despite the pain and said in a muffled voice "I'm coming Neil" before drifting off again. The EMT couldn't understand what she had said. They rushed her into the ER at Saint Bonaventure. Audrey had hoped they would have taken her to SJ General but she was no longer in the position of making such decisions. Being seen in her most vulnerable state by her colleagues was the last thing she wanted. Yet she had no choice. She was trapped.

Everyone in the ER was shocked when she was rolled in. A nasty bruise had formed on her forehead and she was quickly diagnosed with hypothermia, a head trauma, a tension pneumo, two fractured ribs and a torn ACL. She briefly woke up again when they transferred her from the stretcher to a bed in the ER as being moved had awoken the pain in her leg. During that brief moment, she saw Neil busy working on her. And then her left side was numbed to insert a chest tube before she would stop breathing. Her chest was indeed feeling heavy and breathing was difficult. People were calling her name but she didn't feel like answering. She didn't care if it lowered her GCS. Other exams would show she wasn't brain dead yet, such as that nasty light they kept bothering her eyes with. She caught glimpses of what nurses and doctor were saying such as "O2 stat 85", "intubate" or "surgery". She couldn't figure out what her diagnosis was but she could feel it was pretty bad. The voices around her seemed so loud. She wanted them to stop yelling but couldn't muster the strength to open her mouth and use her voice to make them shut up. Next thing she knew, nurse Villanueva was taking the surgical collar off her neck and removing the pillow under her head to prep her for intubation. Her heart skipped a beat as fear crept into her. She knew what ventilators did to people and she had no wish to be put under one again. She tried to fight and protests but hands quickly grabbed her arms while a doctor spoke to her gently.

"Dr Lim" the voice said. "Dr Lim, don't fight this, we need to intubate you." The voice soon took the shape of Neil's face. She was hallucinating but seeing him, knowing he was close to her allowed her to calm down. She stopped resisting as the propofol and paralytics were injected in her veins. And after this moment of chaos, she couldn't remember anything.