I lay a palm of mine on top of hers, her dorsum’s temperature as if it sits on ice. I stand from the chair. I lean to gently press my lips onto her forehead, admiring her pure complexion. Her face still holds the same beauty I remember seeing when she welcomed me home hours ago. Her neckline hints lightly of the fragrance I can never seem to get enough of. I contemplate stepping out to gather myself from the looming wave of tears flooding from the bottom of my heart to the lacrimal glands of my eyes. I have a seat instead. I want to be there in case she flinches or wakes from the coma that keeps her from opening her lids to me.
I slouch back in the chair. I fasten my eyes shut for a quick nap. But before I am able to finish off a yawn, the door opens into the room – Dr. Jamison, the medical practitioner who led me from the lobby, stepping in to make the way around the foot of the bed to me. I stand from the chair until I am my six-foot-three height to inquire about the concern on her natural face.
“There something wrong?”
“The results for each of the tests we’ve run thus far appear to be normal: MRI, CAT. As I stated earlier, in the elevator, we’ll continue running tests through the following days to make certain we’re not overlooking anything – undiagnosed illnesses, growths, tumors – that may’ve been the cause of her severe seizure. It happens. Things slip through the cracks sometimes. We’re adamant about determining the cause of the status epilepticus attack she suffered.”
I draw my brows together in a pinch.
“Status epilepticus. Back-to-back seizures without sufficient recovery time in-between. It’s the most grave of the bunch. It’s not something that can be treated without immediate medical attention. If left untreated, it can cause permanent damage to the brain, and in severest cases, respiratory arrest and ultimately death. She’s not even epileptic.”
“In simplest form?” I speak up in need of clarification.
Dr. Jamison lets out an audible breath, giving a brief look at my girlfriend Jennifer. “Can’t seem to figure out what’s wrong with her. I can assure you we will, though, in time. But before we do, take any more steps, we need to verify by your healthcare provider. Paperwork.”
“No problem.” I retrieve the wallet from the rear pocket of my jeans. I hand her an insurance card for her to have run through the administration department. Insurance will be the very least of worries. We have the finest coverage available.
Dr. Jamison stepping out to conform to protocol, I lower myself back to being seated in the chair. I yawn. I slouch in the direction of an arm of the chair to relieve my strained eyes with a quick break. I then open them to pin my concentration on her. A nap needs not to be had; it will cause me to miss out on progressions I will not miss out on for anything. She needs me to be strong for the both of us. She needs me to have faith. She needs me to help encourage her in spirit. She needs me awake at her side to remind her of all the good times we’ve shared. Just as I need to be near her for peace of mind’s sake. I want to someday be able to look back and smile and share with a son or a daughter the meaning of love based on me nearly losing the person who makes life famous for me – their mother. I want my need to remain near her to be able to speak for itself, assuring her that no matter the situation I believe in her. As I always have. As I always will until she or I or us both breathe the final breath of this life.
Three
A gentle tap on glass rouses me from a sleep that shouldn’t have been. I open a rested set of eyes to discover it has carried me into the early morning of the following day. I raise a dorsum to wipe at the trace of saliva dribbling from the corner of my mouth and the back of my index and middle fingers to remove matter from my lacrimal ducts. I put attention on Jennifer – no indication of movement except stable rises and stable falls of her gowned chest. I scan the space surrounding me, wondering where the tap came from – only to notice Dr. Jamison, from her look-in through the vertical window built into the right side of the room door, hand-gesturing me into the hall. I lift my one hundred and eighty pounds from the chair to step out and have a word with her, easing the door shut behind me to look her in the face.
“Is everything alright? You seem a bit anxious.” I see the emotions on her sleeve.
“The administration department reached out to your healthcare provider numerous times yesterday evening and was unable to get a hold of someone who could confirm your coverage,” she says, drawing a contraction from my natural eyebrows. “Tried again this morning—”
“But. Visits, surgeries, therapies, overnights, annual checkups, everything, we’re covered. We’ve the best coverage a person can have. Seven hundred dollars a month.”
“There seems to be a problem.”
“Problem? Where?”
“I understand your frustration, Mr. Clevenger.”
“Gabriel.”
“My apologies, sir. Gabriel. You’ve every right to be frustrated. I’m not sure if this is where this is going, but just in case, taking your frustrations out on me isn’t the answer. I’m trying to help. I want to help. Came in to work an hour before the start of my shift to make sure your paperwork was handled, spent until eleven o’clock last night perusing data from tests and still am continuing to do so this morning after a district manager of theirs said they’re only liable for a day’s worth of life support costs.”
“You hear anything I said?”
She gives a nod.
“Suggest you go call ’em again because we’re covered. Me and the woman you see fighting for her life in that room are covered! Don’t know who you talked to or who said what, and I wouldn’t care if it was the founder of Blue Shield himself. Suggest you go get ’em back on the phone again, get the facts straight. It’s obvious you’ve no clue what you’re talking about because I just told you what my policy, what our policies, cover.”
“With due respect, I can’t do that,” she says, affected by my knifing remark.
“Can’t as in you can’t, or can’t as in you won’t?”
“Can’t as in I can’t. He faxed documentation to our administration department, validating what I was told. Have a look.” She forks over a thin assemblage of stapled papers.
I skim the documents. An extreme level of exasperation ripples over me from the soles of my brand-name tennis shoes to the expression building on my face, and I rip the papers to shreds into her face. It offends her so deeply that she storms off to bend around the corner near the nurse station – to keep from letting her mounting tears fall in front of me. I slip back inside the hospital room. I step near the curtains, screening a broad opening in the wall. I pull back the hanging piece of upscale fabric, unveiling an overview of downtown, grabbing the smartphone from my jeans pocket. I get Blue Shield on the phone. Before the gentleman can greet me a good morning, I cut short his bogus address, seeking answers for what Dr. Jamison informed me about. I declare – nothing profane – that an end be put to the dilemma or whatever misunderstandings have caused the administration department frustration as he tries to speak over me with words backing the ones already communicated by Dr. Jamison. I feel horrible for speaking to her like that, now being informed she was truthful and not attempting to pull one over on us for the hospital’s sake.
It’s fraudulent how healthcare companies present you with this promise to honor their end of an arrangement of insurance, then shop for the minutest excuses when holders actually need to be covered. It’s fraud, charging half a thousand dollars for premiums – only to blindside the holder with stipulations that weren’t mentioned between their pitch and the time of purchase. I thought they were the most reputable healthcare provider in the country. I thought their mission was to honor policies during misfortunate times. I leaped ahead of myself and mistook them for honest people. Because of that I now face the decision of a lifetime – a decision I consider a no-brainer. I will let nothing keep me from doing all I can to see she has a chance to bring herself back to life. Whatever decision needs to be made, it’s done. Life without a partner somehow associated wi
th it means nothing. It’s incomplete. It’s desolate. Sharing your life – your goals, your dreams, and your spirit – with the One you are intended for proves to be one of the more gratifying experiences a heart can feel. I refuse to go the rest my life wishing I would’ve tried. I refuse not to be able to see her eyes again. I refuse not to be able to wake to the smell of her stale morning breath. I refuse to let that seizure be documented in my mind as the final of memories I remember of her.
I snatch the smartphone from the side of my face to launch it at the sleek floor. Its touch screen and thin glass form shattering on impact. Infuriated by how the district manager undermined me, I turn to put attention on my light, my mind in accordance with my heart.
Dr. Jamison slices through the unfastened doorway to me. She takes note of the smartphone fragments on the floor around me. In the wake of the asinine words I slandered her intelligence with, instead of dwelling on or rubbing in my face how thorny of an ass I was, she shows herself for her charitable character. Of all things she asks if I am alright when I should be the one asking about her after how I gave her my behind to kiss in the hall.
“Listen. About earlier. I owe you an apolo—”
“I understand.” Her interruption gestures empathy. “No need for that. I understand. Coping with the thought of the possibility, of losing a loved one, especially someone you’re in love with, can wreak havoc on the mind. Trust me. You put me in your shoes, and my better half someplace other than sound by my side with me, I would be shaken too. As would anyone.”
“Thank you.”
“That’s what I’m here for. I was somewhat of a counselor in another life, before my life as a doctor. So if there’s ever a time you need to vent, I take lunch normally around noon.”
“Actually, there is something.”
Her face perked up.
“There someplace we can go?”
“I know a place.”
She leads me out to the end of the hall to an exquisite conference room with a polished table and a plethora of seats to be had. She fastens the door behind me and joins me at the table – she lowers herself in the seat across the table from me.
“Earlier, you said, indirectly, I would be responsible for covering life support costs. Hypothetically speaking, let’s say I do come up with the money. How much we talking?”
“I know how much this means to you, so…I will forewarn you. As I’ve done with all who have thought about treading this route – in which there’s no guarantee she will recover – taking the recession into account, I suggest you rethink the decision you’re about to make. If you choose to take this dark and lonely route, and trust me, it is, because I’ve seen it be just that, you automatically waive your right to file any legal action whatsoever in the case of death by a medical mistake, which, in cases like these, falls someplace north of seventy-four percent. And significantly higher in some cases. You sure that’s a risk you’re willing to take? Questioning whether you made the right choice, backlash from relatives, seeing her like that, sterile, lifeless, limp, day in and day out. Are you sure?”
I respect Dr. Jamison’s words and Dr. Jamison’s consideration. I do. But I am not about to give up on my girlfriend. She didn’t give up on me when I was told – during my senior year in high school – I’d never pitch an inning of college baseball due to a sporadic heart condition, which was later proven to be a misdiagnosis but not before the nineteen scholarships I had considered were snatched from the table in front of me. The plan was to first use free education to earn a degree in business management, network myself with aspiring businessmen who could be assets, and last but not least, far exceed hype from having been the top recruit in the nation. Nothing happened as imagined. Yet through the emptiness of my having to find myself without sports as a fraction of my life, she remained by my side, praying, hoping, encouraging, when she could have severed ties with me as supposed relatives and friends did upon noticing my diamond days were done.
I have a moment to take in the straight expression Dr. Jamison gives – as if she expects a sudden change of heart from me. I travel across the conference room with my eyes and just so happen to notice the gold band on the fourth finger of her left hand. “Married?”
“Next month’ll make ten years.”
“You love him?”
“What kind of question is that?”
Instead of giving a response, I let the question sink in.
“Of course I love him. He’s the reason I make the sacrifices I make. The reason I work ridiculously long hours – so we can retire and just enjoy each other without having to stress about how this bill’ll be paid, that bill, or the mortgage. Like our parents. It’s the reason he works as hard as he does, the reason we put so much emphasis on being there for each other. Standing true to our vows.” A light bulb in her mind sends her mouth agape. She lowers her face in the direction of the lap of her long white coat, coming to understand me through words spoken about her and her husband. She looks upward to prevent her tears from falling. “Eight thousand.”
“Beg your pardon.” I want to make sure I heard right.
“That’s how much it’ll cost.”
“Per month?”
“Day.”
“Two hundred and forty thousand per month, right?”
She gestures her head in agreement.
I whip out my checkbook to set it on the tabletop in front of me. I fetch a pen from a holder someplace random to compose a written order, directing my bank to release money to the billing department here. I tear the written order from the checkbook. I slide the method of payment across the table to her, returning the checkbook to the rear pocket of my jeans.
She loses her brows north over the written amount. “You can’t be serious.”
“As a heart attack.” I smile, now able to rest assured.
“Who writes a check for two hundred and forty thousand dollars?”
“A man who refuses to live in the dark, without his light.”
If there’s a chance at recovery, I must make sure to be doing everything I can to let it be so she can determine if making a return is best. Love is patient. Love is sacrificial. Love is declining to let anything whatsoever turn you against your heart. I admit it hasn’t been simple. I keep encouraging myself for the better because I cannot let there be a crevice in the back my mind for doubt to be able to skulk in. I remain optimistic. Surrendering face forward into sad parties is not an option. There’re persons out there bearing far worse than me – a la the gentleman medical practitioners forced from the room at the beginning of the hall. After Dr. Jamison and I removed ourselves from the elevator, I heard him have an outburst in hall, through a fastened door, about five minutes into making my entrance to visit with Jen for the first time. He was devastated. He was outraged. He was wrecked with emotions I hope never to experience.
*
Asleep on the long upholstered seat a small distance from the window I had disguised with curtains for a dark setting, I ease open my eyes to Dr. Jamison standing over me with a privacy clipboard in hand. I give a yawn and a stretch of my arms as I shift to sit on the inflexible cushion that I assumed would be incapable of the quintessential comfort required for sleep. But as soon as I had propped the Achilles tendons of my unshod feet on the far arm of the furniture with the nape below my buzzed head of hair relaxed on the near arm, I had fallen into a short, light sleep. The tension in my eyes alleviated – though it’s difficult to see a three-hour nap making much of a difference – the apprehension that was gunning me beforehand has eased an inch but the thicker fraction of what was battering my mind domineers me still.
“I think what you’re doing is amazing.” The thought seems to have touched her.
I flash a half-bittersweet smile.
“She’s lucky to have you in her life.”
“If you’d met her before this, her being like this, you’d know how lucky I am to have her in mine.” I take into mind the times she has remained near me to the ends of the
world and back.
“Not going to intrude on your privacy. Just wanted to let you know the check cleared. I came to hand to you your receipt.” She retrieves it from the clipboard to hand it over.
I take a gander at it to make sure the amount the billing department acquired matches the amount written by me – and it does.
Dr. Jamison possesses an unprecedented manner about her. I am certain Jennifer would agree if she were able. It refreshes me to experience a humane medical practitioner. There are a number who walk and speak and behave in the halls of hospitals as if they are better than the people who have financial burdens or illiteracy bearing against their necks. How I had insulted her swelters at my conscience because she in no way deserved to be treated like that – mistaking her for one of the many sharks who use medicine to defraud blue-collar people – when she charitably takes pride in differentiating herself from immoral manners. Her genuine concern far exceeds the norm. Her relentless work ethic deserves to be commended. Not many medical practitioners put in more labor than the medicinal duties that their salaries require. Shame on me for discriminating against her without letting there be a fair chance for her to prove herself and her way of doing a good job.
Dr. Jamison turns and looks at Jennifer while she rounds the foot of the bed for the door.
My Bridge To Forever Page 2
