Short Stories

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The ICU Experience

He saw me come in and tried to smile but couldn’t. He was in to much pain and medicated to the ninth degree allowing him to be intubated without fighting the tube in his throat helping him to breathe. He had tubes helping him to do everything. And monitors? They were everywhere, there was hardly any room to get near him but I managed.

“Hi Honey. I came as soon as I got word.” I told my loving husband of 40 some odd years, laying my cold hands on his. He tried again to smile but a tear crept down his cheek. That was one thing he could do by himself.

I looked about the room. My daughter had brought pictures from home to liven the austere environment. Bill and me barbequing in the backyard by our pool. Bill holding Marcy on his shoulders to see over the heads in front of us at some New Years parade down town. Pictures of us as a family years ago when we were complete. Completely happy. Before I’d come down with cancer and spent years in and out of this same ICU. Pictures of Bill, wearing his infamous Steson, dancing with Betsy. His bible was there also, opened up to Psalm 91. I didn’t have to read it, it was encrypted in my heart.

“You’re going to have surgery again, honey. Don’t worry, everything will turn out okay.” I told him. This wouldn’t be his first surgery since the accident last night.

Bill looked to my side and winced as Betsy came up behind me. Betsy was hisrecent girlfriend. She had been in the car with him when he was t-boned by a drunk driver, and we met for the first time hours ago but it seemed like only a blink of an eye ago. She was the one who came to my home and informed me of Bill’s condition. I was so grateful for her doing that.

My youngest, a daughter was coming down the hallway with the nurses who would be bringing Bill to surgery. Since Bill was practically unconscious, she had signed all the necessary papers and discussed everything with the surgeon. Poor girl, everything was on her back, since her brother was a missionary in China. She has been through so much, caring for her parents, us, over the years. We raised a good girl. God helped though, so I can’t take all the credit.

The room was suddenly a beehive. A nurse anesthetist started checking out tubes, I.V bags and getting a report from the trauma ICU nurse about his recent surgeries for broken bones and exploratory laparoscopy. A operating room nurse started checking out the chart for permission to operate. An orderly began unlocking the bed. Bill just lay there, the center of attention at the same time he was being ignored. As he was unable to communicate, no one spoke to him, just examined all central, arterial and Pic lines, EKG, urinary bag, and ventilator tubes and settings, (I told you, he was hooked up to technology!) Bill, my husband of 65 years, the father of my children, the deacon at our church, Betsy’s boyfriend, was now just an inanimate object lying on white sheets, (slightly blood stained from oozing wounds). His eyes kept meeting mine to soak in consolation and hope. Betsy stood at the end of the bed gently rubbing his feet .

I stood next to Marcy and put my arms around her, “Oh, mom!” she cried, reflexively putting her hand on the same spot of her shoulder that my hand rested.
“It’ll be alright honey, I promise!” I guaranteed her though she wasn‘t listening to me, she wasn‘t the least bit tuned in to me.
“Why did you leave us!” she moaned into her palms.
“I didn’t have a choice honey, some day you’ll understand.”
It was Betsy ‘s turn to put her arms around me. “She will understand someday.” Betsy’s perfume still clung to her skin and clothes.

In due course. the operating room nurse noticed the pictures of Bill and examined them carefully. Now she knew he was a real person, not just an accident victim with no past. She could tell he was somebody’s husband, father, boyfriend. She knew he had a reason to live, that he had had a life. She asked Marcy questions about the people in the photos. She genuinely seemed interested in Bill as a person. Then she noticed the bible lying next to the scenes from Bill’s years. The nurse read the psalm silently to herself, her lips moving. I could see the glow in her heart, the seal of God. I knew Bill would do fine in surgery, now I knew why. God had prepared Christians to work on him. Our God knows what he’s doing.

Betsy, Marcy and I stayed by Bill for days while he recovered. The moment came that the breathing tube and paralytic drugs (used to keep resistance from the tube in his throat) were slowly removed from his regimen, he was getting more alert, alert enough to realize what had happened to him and Betsy that horrible rainy night two weeks ago, now. He looked at Betsy and me with sad eyes, it calmed him to have us nearby, but I think he felt uncomfortable about Betsy. I took his hand in mine and reassured him I held no grudge, bad will or what ever against him, I swore I was glad he had met Betsy, she gave him what I had been unable to provide for some time; a warm body to spend time with. Betsy held his opposite hand and encouraged him to fight for his life, enlightening him she was very lucky to have known him and that she wished him well, that she had no regrets and was pain free. She insisted that what had happened to her wasn’t Bill’s fault, that he wasn’t God and shouldn’t feel responsible for her life. Really, he was only a man, God was the one with the “not so remote” controls. Bill’s vital signs started improving after this interaction. Marcy however wore a constant frown, worried about his continually murmuring into the space around him.

We watched Bill gain strength daily. The stronger he got, the further up from oblivion he rose, the more transparent we got. Then came our last day with him when we became mere wisps of air.

He reached out to grab hold of us, to try to keep us with him, but we slipped through his fingers, God had beamed us back up! “Diane! Betsy!” he cried out loud, waking Marcy from the nearby recliner she’d been sleeping in.

Marcy clutched her dad’s hand and held it to her cheek. “Dad, I have to tell you, Betsy-”

“Don’t tell me Betsy’s dead, I know different!” Bill interrupted her. Then, “Don’t look at me like that, I’m not delusional.”

Marcy’s eyes were brimming with tears. She had expected her dad to react poorly to the news of Betsy’s immediate death, dying quickly on impact with the windshield, and had dreaded telling him, but this she hadn’t expected. Then she smelled it. Where was it coming from? His hand! His hand had the scent of Betsy’s perfume! She looked back at the picture collection on the counter, mixed with dressings, antiseptic solutions, hygienic balloons with get well sentiments on them, cards and stuffed animals from church members and friends. Her mom and Betsy’s pictures were glowing and they slowly dimmed as the portrait subjects returned to their real home in the sky.

Duet. 5:26
Proverbs 17:6
Math. 15:3-6
Mark 12:24-2 7
2 Cor. 1:3-7
1 Tim 5:3-4
1 Thess. 15-18

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