David is not in his room. His nurse tells me he is in the dialysis unit and will be there for about two more hours. She also tells me that usually they don’t allow visitors while patients are having their treatments, but she said if he’s there by himself, she’s pretty sure they’ll bend the rules.
I go into the dialysis unit, which is behind two heavy, slate gray doors. It takes me a couple of seconds to push them open. I walk into a very long room. Along one wall there’s a row of blue lounge chairs, each one next to a large gray machine. The room is almost empty; all the lounge chairs are in upright positions except for one at the very far end of the room. David is reclining in his chair, hooked up to a large machine next to him. I start walking over to him. A short nurse in paisley pink-and-green scrubs runs interference and stops me in mid-step. She’s a short woman with a frizzy blond “throwback to the 80’s” perm.
“Excuse me, no visitors are allowed in this unit,” she says sternly. Before I can answer, her face changes dramatically. “Oh, you’re Daisy Lockwood! Oh my God. I’m a huge fan of the show. I’ve been watching since the very first episode.” She stops talking and smiles self-consciously.
She extends her hand. “I’m Molly.”
“It’s nice meeting you, Molly. I’m actually here to see David.” I point to the only patient in the room.
She glances over to the sleeping patient. A puzzled look comes over her face. “He has an open port where the dialysis machine is connected. We have to be careful of infection while the port is exposed.”
She sees that I am disappointed and continues, “But since he’s the only patient here, if you promise not to touch him, I don’t see any harm in letting you stay for a bit. He’s sleeping right now, but you can pull a chair over and sit next to him. He’ll probably wake up soon. I have to check his machine in a few minutes, and when I start fussing, the patients usually wake up.”
“Can you tell me what the machine actually does?” I ask, as we walk over to David.
“Well, the abbreviated version is that it actually does the same thing that our kidneys do.”
“And that is…?” I ask.
Molly’s voice takes on the tone of an instructor talking to an addle-brained student, which in all honesty, is quite fitting. “The kidneys are sophisticated reprocessing machines. Every day a person’s kidneys process about two hundred quarts of blood, sifting out about two quarts of waste products and extra water. The wastes and extra water become urine, which flows to the bladder, which stores it and then releases it through urination.”
When I was on the sitcom New to Jersey, the on-set tutor spent hours trying to drill into our heads the function of our organs. It was useless. The class consisted of two students: me and Benjamin, the actor who played my brother on the show, and the guy I had a huge, larger-than-life crush on. It was very hard to concentrate on anything. The only organ I kept thinking about belonged to Ben, and it certainly wasn’t inside his body.
“And so, the long and the short of it is, the machine mixes and monitors the dialysate. Dialysate is the fluid that helps remove waste products from the patient’s blood. It also helps get the electrolytes and minerals to their proper levels, and monitors the flow of the patient’s blood while it’s outside of the body.”
“Outside of the body?” I gasp.
“Yes.” She points to a tube and says, “This carries the blood from his access port to the dialyzer. The tubing is threaded through this blood pump.” She points to the middle of the machine. “You’ll see the pump turning in a circular motion. The pumping action pushes the blood through the dialyzer and back into the patient’s body.” I feel my own blood rush to my feet and the room spins. I sit down quickly in the seat next to David. I hope I’m not going to pull what is quickly becoming a daily ritual for me: swooning and fainting.
An alarm on the machine goes off, and Molly puts on her gloves and starts hitting buttons. “There, that’s better,” she says. The phone rings and she walks across the room to answer it.
David opens his eyes and looks over at me. I notice that his skin has a yellowish hue. He appears much older and weaker than the last time I saw him.
“Hey, you,” he says softly.
“Hey, yourself.” I give him my best smile.
“Lookin’ a little green around the gills, Miss Lily,” he teases.
“Yeah, well, it’s not every day I see my brother’s blood removed, cleaned, and put back into his body.”
“Brother,” he repeats, almost to himself.
“Don’t look so shocked. That’s who you are.” I immediately feel bad that I threw that out there so cavalierly. He never asked me to call him my brother. I start apologizing, but he stops me.
“Listen, Lily.” Tears are in his eyes. “All my life I’ve wanted to meet a blood relative. Someone I can look at and say we have the same eyes or the same smile, or the same anything. I could never do that. But now I have you and Daisy.”
“So how’re you feeling, David?” I ask, quickly trying to keep us both from falling apart thinking about our mother.
“A bit dizzy. This whole dialysis thing really makes me feel whacked. My legs get all crampy and my skin itches. I have to take a Xanax before I get dialyzed—the process makes me that crazy. I go through this whole anxiety thing. I guess it’s the fact that I’m tethered to this machine. That if I don’t get hooked up and have my blood sucked out, I die. Simple as that.”
I feel so bad for him, almost responsible for his condition. Guilt washes over me. Now why do I feel this way? His condition is not my fault. I wasn’t anywhere near the car. It becomes clear to me I feel guilty because the woman who gave birth to David and chose to give him away was the same woman who gave birth to me, raised me, and gave me a wonderful life. David didn’t have that. He didn’t have those amazing years being the child of such an extraordinary, funny, selfless woman.
“David, listen. There’s something really important I have to share with you. They’re going to take Daisy’s—I mean Mom’s—feeding tube out. They’re taking her off life support. She didn’t respond to any of the brain function tests. She has it in her living will that she doesn’t want to live that way.”
His head falls to his chest and he sobs. The nurse, who is behind the desk doing paperwork, quickly looks over at us to make sure everything is all right. I catch her eye and nod my head to let her know that things are ok.
After a few minutes, David looks at me. I didn’t realize until that moment that he has Daisy’s eyes. Why hadn’t I noticed this before?
“I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault, Lily. She was taking me back to the airport—if I hadn’t come to see her…” His words trail away and he looks tortured.
“David, stop it. Are you kidding me? I’m sure, knowing her, that she was thrilled she found you. This is not your fault; it’s just a horrible turn of events. You did not cause that accident. You are responsible for none of this.” He nods and closes his eyes.
“You have to listen to me, David.” He keeps his eyes closed. “Please look at me.” He opens them. I take a deep breath. “I found paperwork that Mom filled out saying that when she died, she wanted to donate her organs. So, if you and she are a match, I know she’d want you to have her kidney.”
He stares at me, like he can’t comprehend what I said. Then it sinks in. He shakes his head, covers his eyes with the arm that is not hooked up to the dialysis machine, and says over and over again, “Oh my God.”
I sit next to my mother for hours and watch her lying there. There is no light in her eyes, no movement at all. They are completely vacant. I sigh, knowing that I will never again see Daisy’s gorgeous, light-filled eyes as they once were. I am tired. Every muscle in my body screams for sleep. I look at the bed and want to crawl in next to my mother, as I have done hundreds of times over the years.
When I was young, I’d wake up on Sunday mornings and run into her room, where I’d do a perfect swan dive into her bed. I’d knock over books, crossword
puzzles, anything she happened to be working on at the time. My mother used to say that she got her best ideas lying in bed. Many a Daisy Lockwood bestseller started there. We would have the best conversations in that bed. We’d start talking first thing in the morning, and before we knew it, the whole day would be gone. That, too, was never going to happen again.
All those talks, all those hours. I wish she had told me about David. I wonder how many times she’d wanted to tell me, but couldn’t.
I think of David and of our earlier conversation. I felt a need to assure him that I knew donating her kidney was exactly what my mother would have wanted to do. We spoke to his doctor, and before we knew it, a flurry of activity ensued. When he finished his dialysis, the white coats swooped in, got him on a gurney, and wheeled him out of the room. We were told they would decide whether or not to go through with the transplant after doing a thorough physical examination. They need to make sure he is strong enough to undergo surgery. The tests will include a chest X-ray, an EKG, an abdominal ultrasound, and an echocardiogram. Bladder tests also have to be done to see how well David’s bladder is functioning. Tissue typing will tell us whether Daisy’s kidney is a match. They are calling a psychiatrist to assess David’s understanding of the benefits and risks of receiving a donated organ—and, as the doctor put it, the very “delicate situation” regarding the origin of the kidney.
I walk over to the window and see that the raging storm remains fierce. In fact, the wind seems to have picked up speed and is much stronger. The rain is battering everything and everyone in its path.
Drivers are pulling their cars over to the side of the road to wait for the relentless rain to subside enough for them to get on with their trip. How wonderful that must be. To have the luxury to stop what you’re doing and wait until the worst is over, before moving on. I look around the room—I look at my mother. That’s what I want to do. Pull over and wait for this nightmare to pass. Even better, if only I could press a pause button or hit a gigantic rewind button that would allow me to go back to a happier time? A time that didn’t include hospital beds, feeding tubes, or knowledge of what a dialysis machine does. Unfortunately, no such buttons exist. If I can get through the next couple of hours, I’ll be all right. I will think of the future only in two-hour intervals. That’s all I can endure. Just two hours at a time.
Suddenly, my heart starts to race. There is a pounding in my head. The walls are closing in on me. I can’t for the life of me take a breath. Not even a small breath of air. I am sweating and feeling cold at the same time. A flash of heat rushes from my neck to the top of my head. I am suffocating. A sharp stabbing in my chest nearly knocks me to the floor. Holy shit, I’m having a heart attack! I clutch my chest and run into the hallway, still trying desperately to breathe. I knock over two orderlies and almost take out a petite candy striper. The nurses come running over to me and I tell them what’s happening. One of them sits me down, holds a paper bag to my mouth, and orders me to breathe in and out. The symptoms that scared the shit out of me subside. The nurses tell me that I’m having a panic attack and that, given the stress I’m under, it is not at all surprising. They walk me into the family room and suggest I rest on the couch for a while, until I am feeling like myself again. Felling like myself again! I haven’t felt like myself since the knock on my dressing-room door started this whole nightmare.
I look around the family room, which is just a glorified waiting room. Here on the hospice floor, “waiting” is the operative word. Because all the families are doing the same thing: waiting for their loved one to die. It’s heartbreaking. Since I arrived earlier, at least three times the constant muffled hum of the hospice ward was shattered by a gut-wrenching outburst from a family whose wait was over. I covered my ears to try to shut out the sounds of their raw grief. I try to imagine what it will be like when my mother passes away. My heart starts pounding again, and I force myself to calm down, not to think about it.
Feeling better, I go back to my mother’s room and am surprised to see a woman sitting by her bedside, holding her hand and whispering softly to her. I take a step back, not wanting to intrude on what seems to be an intimate moment. The woman senses my presence, turns around, looks at me, and stands up. She looks flustered. She is an attractive woman, looks to be in her fifties. Her dark, shiny hair falls in soft layers and hits the top of her shoulders. She smiles at me and I am immediately struck by how beautiful and warm her smile is, and how it lights up her whole face.
She extends her hand and says in a soft Southern accent, “I’m Hannah Rosen, David’s mother. I am so very sorry, Lily.” Her chin starts to quiver. “Lily, I came up here to talk to your mother, to be able finally to thank her for giving me a family. You have no idea what a great and selfless act that is. Giving up a child when you know you can’t properly take care of him. Can you imagine that? It has to be one of the most heroic acts in life.” She wipes her eyes again and I swallow hard. I think about the child who is growing inside of me.
“Ever since I was a little girl,” she continues, “it was my dream to be a mother. And when my husband and I tried and we had miscarriage after mis-carriage”—her chin starts to quiver again—“I gave up all hope of ever fulfilling my dream. That’s when David came into our lives. He made us a family. And I have Daisy to thank for that miracle.” She is speaking to both of us, looking from my mother, back to me, back to my mother again.
Fifteen minutes earlier, I didn’t even know this woman, and now she and I are holding hands and crying together. She looks at me closely and says, “Darlin’, when was the last time you slept or had something to eat?”
“I can’t remember if I even ate today,” I say, a bit pathetically.
“Well, that will not do. You must keep your strength up. You’re coming with me and we’re going to get something nutritious in your stomach!” she says adamantly.
“I really can’t go now,” I tell her. “I have to wait for my mother’s private nurse to arrive. She’s going to stay the night with her. This way, she’ll call me if anything…you know…if anything changes,” I say. We both know exactly what I mean.
She stands up, “Okay, darling, as soon as she comes on duty, we’ll get you something to eat.”
“We’ll see,” I say, not really wanting to leave my mother. My quota of emotion-filled conversations is way, way over the daily limit. It has been a long and draining day.
“Well, promise me when she comes on duty, you’ll think about it. Come downstairs, I’ll be in David’s room—I know he wants to talk to you.” She smiles, and again her face lights up.
“I promise.” We hug again. She leans over my mother’s bed, kisses her on the cheek, and whispers, “God bless you, Daisy.” She leaves. I realize I forgot to ask if they’d been able to determine if my mother’s kidney is a match for David.
Before the private nurse arrives on duty, Auntie D. and Ferny walk into my mother’s quiet room. They first go over to my mother and kiss her, then, they come to me. They both have tears in their eyes. Donna smiles and puts her arm around my shoulder, gives it a squeeze, and says, “Okay, cookie, next shift’s here. Go home and get some rest.”
“Okay.” I’m really looking forward to a nice long bath. “Shit, I forgot. My car is in the shop. I need to get a ride home.”
“Tommy’s going be here in a bit. I’m sure he’ll drive you home,” Ferny says.
“No, I’ll call a car service. I just have to stop by David’s room. I want to see if there’s a match.”
“A match? What’s this about?” Fernando looks surprised. Obviously Auntie D. hasn’t filled him in on the kidney donation.
“Nothing. I’ll talk to you about it later. No worries,” Auntie D. says dismissively. Ferny pouts. He hates not being in the loop. Auntie D. turns her attention back to me. “How’s it going here, honey?”
I shrug my shoulders. “About the same. This is like slow torture. Worse, maybe. It’s not like she’s intubated and they take her off and then with
in a few minutes, she stops breathing. Without a feeding tube, she’s starving to death, Auntie D.”
Fernando sits down hard on the chair next to my mother’s bed. He covers his mouth and starts to cry. Big, heaving, noisy sobs. Donna whips around and snaps, “For God’s sake, Ferny, control yourself. This is not doing our girl any good.
Fernando stops crying long enough to reply, “Well, not all of us are made of the same ice that you are, Missy.” He points dramatically to his heart. “Some of us feel things much deeper than others.”
She rolls her eyes, “How can you possibly know what I feel? Just because I don’t go around giving a heart-wrenching soliloquy about my dying friend to anyone who’ll listen, doesn’t mean that I don’t feel just as much—or more even.”
“What are you implying—what kind of soliloquy?” he asks defensively.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she replies. “How about the ones you delivered to the guy at the 7-11, the gas station attendant, and, oh yeah, the old man standing next to you in the elevator?”
“He had kind, understanding eyes.”
“For God’s sake, Fernando, the man was blind. He was holding on to his seeing eye dog.”
“Oh. I didn’t notice,” Fernando mutters.
“Okay, chill out, both of you,” I command. Were they for real? In all the years I’d known them, I’d never heard Fernando and Auntie D. exchange a harsh word.
Suddenly Auntie D. starts laughing, points to Ferny, and says, “I didn’t notice’…Ferny, the damn dog was the size of a small horse!” She is laughing uncontrollably, and it is contagious. Fernando starts laughing, and I follow suit. Before long, we are howling and can’t stop. Any gesture one of us makes to control ourselves sends the others into deeper fits of laughter. When Tommy walks into the room, he looks more than a little surprised to find three hysterical hyenas surrounding a dying Daisy.
The Seeds Of A Daisy: The Lily Lockwood Series: Book One (Women's Fiction) Page 22
