Warning for graphic depictions of illness. But I promise this is the last of the super heavy stuff.
Chapter 4: Toxin
May's temperature skyrocketed to one hundred four degrees mere minutes after she complained of the pain in her stomach increasing to excruciating. She quivered from a combination of fever and anguish, while Peter quivered from a combination of despair and terror. The skin around her collarbones gained bright red spots indicating burst blood vessels beneath the skin. It turned out her intestines had perforated and she was nearly in shock, so they immediately rushed her off to an OR to fix it. She barely had the strength to whisper goodbye to Peter before they carted her off, and he couldn't even muster the words to say it back or even wave. He just stared and tried to stave off the tears.
While May was in surgery, one of the nurses took Peter for a walk. She asked him about school, what he liked to do, any basic conversation topics to distract him from everything going on. Peter did his best to keep up his end, but any enthusiasm he ever had for talking about things had evaporated. The nurse showed him to a room that must've been for the sick kids here in the hospital; toys littered the floor and art supplies littered the tables. She led him over to a locked drawer in the corner.
"This is our prize box," she explained.
"Why do you keep it locked?" Peter questioned.
"To keep the prize fairies out."
He stared at her with a disbelieving look on his face.
"You're old enough for me to tell you the truth," she admitted. "It's for dramatic effect, for the little ones. It seems more special when you need a special key to open it."
Peter almost laughed. She slid the key into the lock and it clicked open. Inside the massive drawer sat the most amazing collection of toys and prizes Peter had ever seen. "What's the prize box for?" he asked.
"It's for our younger patients, to reward them for being brave during a procedure."
"But I'm not a patient," Peter pointed out.
"I know that. But you don't have to be a patient to be brave, and I think you deserve something out of the prize box just as much. Go ahead."
Peter scanned her face for any indication she was kidding, but as far as he could tell she was genuine. He gazed into the drawer and his eyes instantly locked on a stuffed animal Chewbacca. No other prize held his attention like this one, so he picked it up and held it out in front of him with a hint of a smile ghosting his face.
"You want that one?"
"Yes." Peter hugged it to his chest and felt a miniscule amount of stress dissipate. He spent the next several hours sitting with the toy in his lap, holding its paw and mentally rehearsing every scene and piece of dialogue from Star Wars he could remember—which was practically all of them since he'd seen the movies dozens of times. It was the only thought process he could maintain without it spiraling into one related to "what if I lose May too?"
Whatever the surgeons did seemed to help. May woke up groggy, but in less pain than before. Her fever had dropped too, and the doctors were cautiously optimistic. Peter trusted them, having no other option at the moment. He showed his new stuffed animal to May.
"Is that a Chewie? Where'd you get him?"
"One of the nurses took me to the prize box they have for kids who are patients here."
"Oh, that was sweet of them. The pediatric ward here is pretty well-known, although the one at Gravesen is better. We've sent a few patients there," May explained.
"What makes it the best?"
"The nurses, obviously," she said with a smile. Peter had learned that nurses were always keen to point out that a patient's eye view of a hospital depended more on their quality of work than the doctors' or surgeons'. Nurses knew their patients as people, not just a condition with a name and insurance number tacked onto it. May often said that in some respects nurses were better at treating patients than doctors. "Disobeying a doctor's orders is called critical thinking," she often remarked.
"Not just that," she continued. "The collection of specialists there is more diverse than at most hospitals."
"Sounds like the place you want to be if you're sick," Peter commented. Later, he would wonder if Gravesen could have fixed things better. If they'd had access to that diverse collection of specialists, could they have done more, done something that actually worked?
~0~
Peter fell asleep curled up next to May in her hospital bed. He had no idea how much time had passed when he eventually woke up, but he was stiff from being wrapped so tightly around himself for so long. Upon opening his eyes, he saw May still rested peacefully, the angry red spots on her chest fading somewhat. He daydreamed about things going back to normal while he waited for her to awaken. Maybe an hour or so later, her eyes fluttered open. By then, Peter had relocated to the chair.
"Hey Peter," she greeted.
"Hi. How are you?" he asked.
"A bit better, I think."
"Good."
"Are you doing okay?"
"I'm good," he insisted, though the truth was anything but. He hadn't been 'good' since Ben died.
"Are you sure? You haven't been yourself lately," she said, suddenly wistful.
"Understandably so," Peter remarked.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
They had talked about it many times since it happened, discussed every aspect of each other's grief to help each other through. All except one. Peter had yet to reveal the deep-seated phobia that had haunted him since the shooting, afraid that burdening Aunt May with one more issue would finally break her. But these past few days had proven she was built from stronger stuff than Peter. Maybe telling her would actually help the both of them.
"Everything is so scary since Uncle Ben died," he began. "I can't even look at food without feeling like I'm back in that store getting shot at."
"What do you mean? You eat dinner with me every night without a problem."
"That's prepared food. Anything that's still in its packaging just reminds me of those shelves, and the noise, and the blood." Even just talking about it had Peter shaking like a brittle leaf hanging onto its tree by barely a thread. "I can't even open the fridge without freaking out," he admitted, desperation making his voice climb two octaves. May's eyes widened and she reached out to wrap her arms around him, pulling him close. Peter knew she could feel the tremors wracking him, but he could do nothing to quell them.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she asked calmly.
"I—I didn't want you to have anything else to worry about," he cried, burrowing deeper into her embrace.
"Oh, Peter, I always worry about you. It's in my job description. And it's in yours to come to me when you need help."
"I thought about it a few times, but every time I did it aligned with you having a bad day and I decided not to. I just…I don't know how to fix it—how anyone could fix it because the memory is stuck in my head and it will be there forever and I—I don't know what to do besides be scared for the rest of my life. But—but I don't want to be scared for the rest of my life."
"You won't be," she assured, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. "Peter, you went through something traumatic at a very young age. I didn't expect you to bounce back to your old self, but I should've noticed that something was seriously wrong. I'm so sorry I didn't see it sooner."
"It's not your fault. I didn't want you to see it."
"But now that I have seen it we can get you some help."
"Do…do you really think someone will be able to fix it?"
"Yes, sweetheart. I do. It's not going to be easy, but," she paused mid-sentence to catch her breath, "But given time and the right kind of help, you can get better." She took another several seconds for her breathing to catch up. Peter could feel her chest heaving more than it should and he pulled away to look more closely at her face and found a hint of panic visible in her eyes. Alarms started to blare and Peter leapt out of the bed, calling for help. People flooded the room and crowded around May until Peter couldn't even see her anymore. He was left standing on the outskirts of the room clutching Chewie to his chest and trying futilely not to cry.
The swarm of people parted just long enough for Peter to see one pair of hands shove a tube down May's throat. He squeezed Chewie even tighter, until his muscles ached with the effort. They moved her into the intensive care unit, and Peter followed like a lost dog. Nobody stopped him. Voices started shouting things about kidney failure, plummeting platelet levels, and surging liver enzymes. More wires and tubes followed, and now Peter didn't even recognize his aunt. Looking at her reminded him all too much of looking at Uncle Ben collapsed in the aisle of that grocery store, blood staining his shirt.
Now, Peter couldn't even talk to May to ease his worries. One of the nurses offered to take a walk with him, but he adamantly refused to leave his post by her side. He was terrified that if he neglected her, she'd leave him, and then he'd be all alone. When his parents died, at least he'd still had May and Ben, and when Uncle Ben died, at least he'd still had May. But if May died, Peter would have no one. And if he had no one, what was even the point?
~0~
Things improved the next day. There was talk of weaning her off the ventilator. Peter sat in his chair, fist wrapped irreversibly around Chewie's paw, listening to them talk as they looked at charts and checked tubes and monitors. He took a deep breath and told himself that this might be the day she stopped declining and turned the corner back towards health. Though she remained asleep, Peter hoped that somehow May could hear him, so he started rambling like he used to when he was younger, sharing fun facts and asking hypothetical questions. Only this time, instead of for the pure joy of it, it was in the hopes that May would push through for an innocent little kid like him.
"Did you know that part of the sound mix used for Chewbacca's voice is a camel grunt?" he asked, running a hand through the stuffed animal's fur. "I don't know what all the other noises are, but it sure sounds pretty cool. I think they did a similar mixing for the T-rex roar in Jurassic Park because scientists don't really have a way of figuring out what dinosaurs sounded like. I think they would sound more like birds cawing than lions roaring, but it's funny to imagine them sounding like little peeping songbirds or something. Maybe they had advanced language like people do.
"Speaking of language, almost all the dialects in Star Wars are based off real languages. The Ewok language is based on Tibetan and Nepalese. I think it's so cool that these people who create fictional worlds go so in depth. Some of the more popular languages like Elvish from Lord of the Rings of High Valyrian from Game of Thrones are even available to learn on DuoLingo like Spanish or French would be. If that doesn't prove how widespread nerd culture is, I don't know what does. Maybe I should learn to speak Ewok. That would be cool, wouldn't it? Not very practical, but cool.
"I wonder if new languages are going to exist in a thousand years or so. Maybe English will be a dead language like Latin far in the future, and people will study words like "meme" and "dumpsterfire" with the same high regard that people nowadays study Shakespeare. We had to read some of his poems in English class last year. They were pretty boring, and that iambic pentameter stuff is so hard. I can't believe he wrote entire plays like that.
"I've always wanted to go see a play. Not on Broadway, I know those tickets are crazy expensive even in the cheap seats, but in a smaller theater. Our teacher said Shakespeare was meant to be enjoyed on the stage and not on the page, and I think maybe I'd appreciate it more if I could see it acted out. Maybe I'll just watch the movie version. Movies have always been more my speed.
"I just want to say thank you for being willing to put up with my only wanting to watch the same movies over and over again. I know you didn't see the appeal, but I'm glad you stuck around anyway. I promise when you get better you can make me watch all the old classic movies you want. I did like Ferris Bueller when you showed it to me, although you did make me promise to never skip school just to go joyriding. I would never do that anyway. Going to school is joyriding, as far as I'm concerned, but I think I'm one of the only kids in the whole world who thinks that."
Peter stopped his rant when another alarm sounded. People flooded in and started looking over monitors with worried expressions on their faces. One of them shone a penlight in May's eyes and evidently didn't like what they saw, if their frown was anything to go by. "I think she's had a stroke," he remarked.
"What does that mean?" Peter asked.
"A blood clot in her brain." He looked at the monitors again and ordered more platelets. Another doctor came in within the next few minutes and agreed with everything the first had said.
"The toxin is destroying platelets faster than we can give them," she stated fearfully. Peter knew if the doctor sounded afraid, he should be too. He clutched Chewie in one hand and May's hand in the other, forcing himself not to hyperventilate. After that, things started to spiral. As soon as one alarm was silenced, another started screaming, indicating another organ failing to do its job properly. May was completely lost beneath a sea of medical equipment and staff, her hand in Peter's the only thing tying him to her.
He whispered a near-silent plea: "Please, Aunt May. I can't do this without you. You're the only family I have left, the only person in this world who really cares about me and loves me. Please don't go. Please don't go."
The heart monitor started skipping beats as deep purple patches of subcutaneous bleeding spread across May's skin, creating a horrific mosaic. Peter let go of her hand and retreated to his chair, drawing his knees up to his chest to sandwich Chewie against him. He wrapped his arms around his shins and buried his closed eyes into his kneecaps. "Please don't go, please don't go, please don't go," he repeated the mantra over and over again in his head, begging May to fight through this, begging the doctors to figure out how to fix it, begging the universe not to take his last relative away from him.
None of them answered his plea. Peter drowned out the shrill whine of the flatlining heart monitor with the agonized sound of his screams.
I promise this is the last of the heavy, tragic content. But now we get to explore Peter's mental state in the time following these events, and in some ways that might be worse. Also, I just want to point out that, "Disobeying a doctor's orders is called critical thinking," is something that my awesome nurse of a mother has said on multiple occasions.
