Chapter 147
The ambulance ride was a blur, but now Nick was fully awake, alert
and wide-eyed with fear. As soon as the
ambulance had pulled up to the Emergency Room doors at Tampa General, he’d been
whisked off to a large, brightly-lit room, where people bustled all around,
each performing their own specialized task.
They cut off his clothes and took off his prosthesis, and normally, he
would have been self-conscious, but he was too sick and too scared to care.
Sounds came from all around the room – the beeping of monitors as
they were hooked up to various parts of his body, this hiss of oxygen filling
the mask that had been strapped over his mouth and nose, making it easier to
breathe, and many voices that all seemed to blend together. It was hard to focus on just one – all around
him, doctors and nurses barked out commands and readings, while in one corner,
a woman was grilling Howie, who had been allowed to follow Nick into the room,
while the others waited outside.
“… Dr. Kingsbury – that’s his oncologist,” Howie was saying. Nick could hear the panic in his friend’s
unsteady voice as he shakily filled the nurse in on Nick’s medical history.
“I don’t know if she’s on call tonight or not, but I’ll have her
paged,” the nurse promised. Nick felt
the tiniest bit of relief wash over him at her words; it would be good to have
a familiar face there by his side. Dr.
Kingsbury would know what to do; she would be able to make him better. She always had before anyway…
But a part of him was afraid that this time, she wouldn’t be able
to. The sight of the blood on his hand
had burned a hole in his memory that would never be patched. Never before, not even when he’d been
hospitalized with pneumonia, had he coughed up blood. He knew it was a bad sign. Something was very, very wrong, and deep down
inside, he feared it was something even worse than pneumonia.
The staff working on him did little to ease his fears. In fact, the commands and readings that they
were constantly barking out scared him even more, for even though he had no clue
what most of it meant, none of it sounded particularly good.
“He’s tachycardic,” said a woman in a lab coat. “Heart rate’s 140. What are his sats?”
“Sating at 90 on 40% oxygen,” a man responded promptly.
Nick winced as the woman pressed an icy cold stethoscope to his
chest. “Decreased breath sounds on the
left,” he heard her say. What did that
mean? That he was having trouble
breathing? Well, duh – now why couldn’t
they do something about it? The oxygen
was helping, but barely – his chest felt as if a huge weight had been set upon
it, and it hurt like hell with every labored breath.
“Give him adenosine, 6 mgs IV push. And call radiology; he’ll need a chest x-ray
once we get him stabilized.”
Nick tried to block out these unfamiliar voices and their medical
gibberish, listening instead for Howie’s voice.
He couldn’t hear his friend talking anymore and felt a surge of
panic. Where did Howie go? He didn’t want to be left alone. “Howie?” he wheezed, his voice muffled by the
oxygen mask. He looked around, but he
could see nothing past the crowd of medical staff circling around him.
“Shh, don’t try to talk, hon,” a female nurse told him, patting
his shoulder. “Just try to relax. We’re taking good care of you.”
“But where’s-“
“Nicky? Nick, I’m right
here.” A warm hand grabbed his own, and
he looked over to see Howie’s face, just visible beyond the female nurse’s
shoulder. The nurse glanced back at
Howie and shook her head.
“I’m sorry, sir, but you’re going to need to wait outside
now. We need room to work. I promise you can come back as soon as Mr.
Carter is in stable condition.”
Howie nodded compliantly and gave Nick’s hand a squeeze. “I’ll be right outside with the guys, Nick,”
he said. “We’ll be back in to see you as
soon as they’ll let us.”
“But… wait-“ Nick’s mind
was bombarded with a million thoughts, a thousand “what if’s,” a hundred worst
case scenarios. What if he got worse;
what if he didn’t make it? What if he
died, there in that overly bright, sterile room, with no one he knew around
him? What if he never got to say
goodbye, or… or… “D!” he gasped.
Howie’s hand had started to pull away, but it was back now,
squeezing Nick’s tightly once again.
“I’m here, Nicky, what is it?”
“C-can you call Claire? Can
you… get her here?” More than anything,
he wanted to see Claire. He had to talk
to her, had to tell her… before it was too late.
“Of course we’ll call her.
She’ll get here; don’t worry.”
But he was worried. He was
terrified. He tried not to show it
though; he could tell Howie was already plenty upset, even though he was trying
to hide it himself. He gave Howie’s hand
a squeeze back, and then their hold on each other was broken, as the nurse led Howie
out of the room.
“How are his sats now?” one of the doctors asked.
“Getting better – up to 93.”
The doctor nodded. “Good,
good. Did someone call radiology?”
“Yes, it’ll be about half an hour before they can take him.”
“That’ll be fine. He’s
stabilizing now.” Patting Nick’s arm,
the doctor smiled down and said, “We’re going to take you for a chest x-ray in
about thirty minutes, Mr. Carter, and that should help us get to the bottom of
what’s going on with you.”
Nick nodded to show he understood, but he couldn’t help but
thinking maybe he would rather not get to the bottom of it. The chest x-ray would only bring bad news; he
was sure of it. Then again, he obviously
was not quite on top of things anymore either.
Might as well find out once and for all what was wrong and… hope for the
best.
***
“Hey Nicky, how are you feeling?”
That was the first question out of Howie’s mouth as he came into
the room, Brian following at his heels.
Nick smiled a little, relieved to see them both. “Better,” he replied honestly. Well, a little better anyway. After his chest x-ray half an hour ago, he
had been brought back to the ER, to a different room this time. Smaller, not as bright. The oxygen mask had been swapped for a nasal
canula that ran into his nostrils. It
tickled, but at least he could speak more easily. Breathing was coming more easily as well,
although his chest still hurt, and taking a deep breath was near impossible.
“Good,” Howie said, surveying him cautiously. He and Brian exchanged glances from across
the bed. Nick pretended not to notice.
“So, Nick, what’s going on?” Brian asked. “Have they told you anything yet? What kind of tests have they done?”
“Just a chest x-ray,” replied Nick. “They’ll probably want to do more later
though.” Brian and Howie both nodded,
and immediately, an uncomfortable silence settled over the room. “So,” Nick broke the silence, “where’s Kev
and J?”
“Outside,” Howie answered and then added, “We’re only supposed to
come two at a time,” just as Brian said, “They’re hiding out.”
Nick smirked, looking from one to the other. “So which is it?” he asked.
“What do you think?” asked Brian, as Howie bit his lip guiltily.
“So they’re hiding out,” Nick replied flatly. “They don’t want to come see me?”
“It’s not that, Nick, and you know it,” Brian hastened to
say. “It’s just… well, you know they are
– Kevin’s out there feeling guilty, beating himself up over what happened, and
AJ’s… well… you know…”
Nick nodded. He knew. AJ was afraid. He was afraid, and he didn’t know how to
handle it, so he was choosing to just avoid it instead. It was the same thing he’d done right before
the surgery to amputate Nick’s leg – hang back, make jokes, do anything to keep
himself from breaking down and showing his true emotions. That was just AJ.
And Kevin, out there feeling guilty… that was just Kevin. He was their big brother, almost a father
figure to Nick sometimes, and he took his role seriously, always wanting to
protect them. He liked to be in control,
and when something happened to one of them, even something that was
unpreventable, he blamed himself.
“Kevin shouldn’t feel guilty,” Nick said, knowing full well that
even if he told this to Kevin’s face, the man would still feel guilty anyway.
“He does though,” said Brian. “We all do, for letting you perform. We could all see that you weren’t well, and
we let you do that damn concert anyway.”
“That was my choice to make, not any of yours,” Nick retorted
stubbornly. “And I don’t regret it, not
at all. That concert was great.”
“Yeah… yeah, it was.”
Brian’s tone was wistful. Nick
understood. He was sure they all wished
they could be back on stage… or anywhere else.
Anywhere but here.
“So,” said Nick, clearing his throat, “one of you should go out
there and tell Kev it’s not his fault.
This is stupid.”
“We tried,” Brian replied.
“But he needs to realize that for himself. Just give him some time; he just has to be
alone for awhile and think things over.
Sooner or later, he’ll realize it’s not his fault.”
“If anyone should feel guilty,” Howie spoke up, “it should be
me.” Two pairs of eyes shifted to look
at him, and he continued, “Nicky, I lived
with you. How could I not notice you
were this sick?”
“I hid it,” Nick replied flatly, remembering all the remedies he had
tried to keep his symptoms secret. “I
didn’t want you to notice.”
“Even the blood?” Brian gasped.
“Nick! H-how long had you been-“
“No, not that,” Nick said quickly.
“There was never blood before tonight.
I just hid the other stuff.”
Howie shook his head. “You
shouldn’t do that. You shouldn’t have to
hide anything from us; I thought you knew that.”
Nick only shrugged. He did
know that. And it wasn’t even about
them. In hiding it from them, he’d been
trying to hide it from himself too. If
he could get the coughing to stop, then he would forget, and that was what he
wanted to do. Forget. Go on with his life and all his plans and not
worry about what could possibly be wrong with him. The longer he hid it, the longer he could
keep doing that. The longer he hid it,
the longer he could keep himself away from this place, from the doctors and the
tests and the bad news. But he couldn’t
hide it long enough. He couldn’t hide it
forever. Deep down, he’d always known
that. Sooner or later, it would catch up
to him. Tonight, it had.
“I’m sorry, Nick,” Howie apologized. “Now isn’t the time to be talking about
this. What’s done is done, and we’re not
going to worry about that anymore. You
just need to focus on getting better.”
Yeah, as if he had any control over that. But he nodded anyway, glad they were going to
just drop the issue. Changing the
subject, he asked, “Did you call Claire?”
“I tried, but her cell phone was turned off,” replied Howie. “Hopefully that means she’s on a plane right
now.”
Nick nodded again, hoping to God she was on her way home. He had to see her. He just had to.
Please
come now I think I'm falling
I'm
holding to all I think is safe
It
seems I found the road to nowhere
And
I'm trying to escape
I
yelled back when I heard thunder
But
I'm down to one last breath
And
with it let me say
Let
me say
Hold
me now
I'm
six feet from the edge and I'm thinking
That
maybe six feet
Ain't
so far down
- “One Last
Breath” by Creed
***
Half an hour later, the doctor who had treated him earlier
returned, a large envelope in her hand.
“Good evening, Mr. Carter,” she said.
“I’m Dr. Sharon Keal – I don’t believe I had a chance to introduce
myself to you earlier. How are you
feeling?”
“Okay, I guess,” Nick replied with a shrug. “What’s that?
Those my x-rays?” He motioned to
the envelope in her hands.
“Yes.” Dr. Keal slid two
black x-ray films out of the envelope and hung them up on a light board mounted
to one wall. With the flip of a switch,
the board turned on, illuminating the x-rays.
Nick watched as the four guys (they had finally been joined by an
anxious Kevin and uneasy AJ) leaned forward, squinting at the films. He squinted himself, but he was not really
sure what he was supposed to be looking for.
The x-ray was nothing but a mass of black and white to him.
The doctor’s fingers circled a large patch of white on the right
side of one of the films. “This white
space here is fluid on your left lung,” she explained. “It’s called a pleural effusion – a buildup
of fluid between the membranes that surround your lungs.”
“’Kay…” Nick said slowly, not quite sure what to make of
that. It didn’t sound very good, but at
least she hadn’t said “pneumonia,” or worse, the c-word. “So, um… is that bad?”
“Well, it depends on what caused it. Which is what we don’t know yet,” said Dr.
Keal. “With the buildup of fluid, it’s
hard to read the x-ray thoroughly, so I’d like to do a CT scan. Have you had one of those before?”
“Yeah,” Nick said, groaning inwardly as he thought of the large,
loud tube thing he would have to lie inside for the scan.
“Good, then you know the drill.
A nurse will be in a few minutes to get you prepped for that, and you
should be able to have the scan done in about an hour and a half.”
“Oh boy,” Nick muttered under his breath, sighing. He was so tired. Tired physically, tired emotionally, and sick
and tired of all of this. This – trips to the hospital, test after
test, and bad news. Always bad news.
It shouldn’t have been like that.
He’d always know that after the amputation, he would never be the
same. He would never be normal.
But he had assumed, perhaps naively, that he would be well.
But he was obviously not well right now, and even though no one
was saying it, he knew it had to be on everyone’s mind – what if it was the
cancer? What if, after all of this, the
dreaded c-word had come back to upset the life he had so carefully
reconstructed following the amputation?
Could he handle another blow like that?
He wasn’t so sure.
So he tried not to think about it.
He was glad the guys were there; they helped to take his mind off of the
worst case scenario, especially AJ, who was back to handling uncomfortable
situations as he always did – by cracking jokes that made Kevin frown, by
denying the whole situation entirely.
Nick loved him for it.
But as promised, after an hour and a half of pretending he was
anywhere but laid up in the ER, reality returned in the form of a couple
orderlies, who pushed Nick on a gurney down to radiology for the aforementioned
CT scan.
He was moved onto a table in front of the large machine that stood
forebodingly in the center of the room, its tubular center just waiting to suck
him up and swallow him whole. A
technician positioned him correctly and then told him, “Try to relax and lie
still while you’re inside the machine.
I’ll be in the room next door, but I’ll be able to see you and speak to
you through an intercom. Listen for my
directions.”
Nick nodded. Like Dr. Keal
said, he knew the drill.
The tech disappeared, and a few minutes later, Nick heard a soft
whirring sound, and the table he was positioned on slowly rolled backward,
pulling him into the machine. He closed
his eyes, hated the feeling of having his upper body enclosed within its
tubular opening. He thought of the
ocean; it was the mental picture he always used when he was having these scans
done. The ocean – vast and wide, open on
all sides, the wind in his hair, fresh air in his lungs, and nothing but water
as far as the eye could see.
“Okay, Mr. Carter, I need you to take a deep breath and hold it
for about thirty seconds. Can you do
that for me?”
Could he? Normally, sure –
he’d always been a champion at holding his breath underwater. But now?
He wasn’t sure. But there had to
be a reason why he needed to hold his breath, so he compliantly answered, “Yes”
and figured he’d give it his best shot.
“Great,” said the tech. “On
the count of three then. One… two… three
– hold, please.”
Nick took as deep of a breath as his lungs would allow him, his
chest searing with the effort, and held it.
Keeping his eyes shut, he imagined he was swimming in the ocean, under
the water, holding his breath. His lungs
burned, but he kept the air in them, telling himself, Not yet, not yet, pretending he was far from reaching the surface
of the water. It had only been about ten
seconds, after all.
But the pain increased, and in his mind’s eye, he could see the
surface of the water getting farther and farther away; it was as if he were
being dragged down by invisible weights, dark water enveloping him, restraining
him, choking him. He gasped, a rush of
air escaping his lungs. His eyes flew
open; all he could see was metal, closing in on him from all sides. It was going to squeeze him; it was going to
crush him. His heart began to race. He couldn’t breathe.
“Mr. Carter? Are you all
right?”
“No!” he gasped, tears springing to his eyes. His chest hurt; God, it hurt. He couldn’t even breathe, and the tube just
kept getting narrower and narrower. His
heart pounded in his ears, faster and faster.
It was going to explode.
“Deep breaths, Mr. Carter; you’re hyperventilating. Hang on, I’m going to get you out of there.”
By the time the table was moved forward, and Nick was free of
machine, there were other people in the room.
Dr. Keal and another woman, a nurse – had she worked on him before too?
“He’s tachy at 120. Kathy,
get him on a mask.”
An oxygen mask was slipped back over Nick’s mouth and nose, but it
seemed to suffocate him more than help.
He thrashed around, grabbing at the mask, trying to pull it off so that
he could breathe. A pair of hands took
his own, holding them down. “Just
breathe, Ni- Mr. Carter. Slow, deep breaths.”
He tried, but he still felt as if he were drowning. Blackness was closing in on him like stormy
waves as he struggled for air, and it was not long before his shuddering body
went limp, letting the black waves sweep him out to a sea of unconsciousness.
***
When he awoke, they were there.
They were all there. Brian,
Howie, Kevin, and AJ, sitting in chairs on both sides of his bed. His bed?
Nick blinked and looked around.
Where was he? Oh yeah, the
ER. Back in that room, no doubt. The second one – the not-so-big,
not-so-bright one.
“Hey, kiddo,” Kevin said, rubbing the back of Nick’s hand. “How do you feel?”
How many times was he going to get that question tonight? He groaned.
“Like shit.” It was true. He felt weak and light-headed, not to mention
completely exhausted. Apparently sleep
hadn’t done much for him. But wait… had
he been sleeping? “What happened to me?”
he murmured, confused.
“You passed out in radiology about half an hour ago,” replied
Kevin, his green eyes mirroring the fear Nick felt. “You were having trouble breathing
again. But they got you stabilized, and
now you’re back here.”
Nick became aware of the sounds around him… the steady “blip…
blip…” of the heart monitor, the soft hiss of the oxygen tank. He raised his hand to his face, feeling
around until his fingers touched the thin tubes that ran into his
nostrils. So the oxygen mask he’d been
trying to pull off earlier was gone again.
He shook his head slowly. “Half
an hour ago?” he repeated. “I was out
for that long?”
“Like a light,” chimed in AJ with a weak grin.
Nick did not smile. New
worries had come over him. “So… so d-do
they know anything yet?” He wasn’t sure
he wanted to hear the answer. He
definitely wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what they knew, if anything.
The four men shook their heads in unison. Nothing yet.
Nick let out a sigh. No news was
good news, as far as he was concerned.
Because eventually, he knew, there would
be news, and most likely, it would be bad.
Something was wrong. Twenty-four-year-old
men didn’t cough up blood, hyperventilate, and pass out for no reason.
Twenty-five, he
thought. I’m almost a twenty-five-year-old man.
Yeah, in like two months.
What if he didn’t make it that long?
What if he didn’t live to see his twenty-fifth birthday?
Stop it, he scolded
himself. It’s not like you’re dying. You
may be sick again, but you’re not dying.
But what if he was? He’d
coughed up blood. He couldn’t breathe. That was
serious. That was more than a few pains
in his leg, some unexplained weight loss, and all the other minor symptoms he’d
overlooked before his initial diagnosis.
What if it was back again?
What if, this time, there was nothing that could be done?
What if he really was dying?
“Nick, what’s wrong?” Brian’s
gentle voice interrupted his panicked thoughts.
“Are you in pain? You’re
frowning.”
“What? No,” Nick replied,
even though he was. “Nah, I’m just…
thinking.”
“Are you scared?”
Blue met blue as Nick raised his eyes to Brian’s. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely, his voice barely
above a whisper. “Wh-what if it’s
something really bad? What if… what if
it’s back?”
He didn’t have to clarify what “it” was; they already knew. And he could tell by the expressions on their
faces that it scared them just as much as it did him.
Kevin tried to be brave.
“We’ll cross that bridge when and if we come to it, Nick,” he said. “Try not to worry.”
Wrong thing to say. The
last time Nick had heard those words, there had been definite cause to
worry. “That bridge” had been the
realization that the radiation wasn’t working, and in crossing it, he’d made
the decision to have his leg amputated.
It was “a last resort,” as Dr. Kingsbury had called it. But if that had been the last resort, and the
cancer still came back… what was left?
Try not to worry? Yeah
right. He was more than worried.
He was petrified.
***