by Camy Tang
Back in her recliner, she felt a little better, although her stomach still jiggled.
A nurse peeked in on the older woman sitting in the other recliner.
“You’ll be going into surgery in a few minutes, Mrs. Tyler.”
Lex couldn’t see her around the curtain, but she heard Mrs. Tyler’s quavering voice speaking to her husband. “Charles, look at me.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Turn off that TV. Look at me. This might be the last time I talk to you.”
“Now, don’t be scared, honey — ”
“Don’t be scared? How can you say that to me now?”
“It’s a simple procedure — ”
“I might never wake up.”
Lex’s chest squeezed tight.
“Charles, promise me you’ll give me a nice funeral.”
“Honey — ”
“And don’t invite your cousin. I can’t stand her. And promise me you’ll marry again. You need someone to take care of you.” Her voice ended on a sob.
“Honey, you’ll be fine.”
“I’ll miss you so much, Charles.” Sniff, sniff.
“I’ll miss you too — I mean, what are you talking about? You’ll be okay.”
“And don’t forget to water the gardenia plant.”
The nurse bustled in. “Mrs. Tyler, they’re ready for you.”
“Oh! Good-bye, Charles. Don’t ever forget me.”
A nurse wheeled the weeping woman out the door. As she passed Lex, she clutched her bad shoulder — marked with a “yes” — and her distraught husband trailed behind.
Lex and Venus stared at each other with wide eyes after she had left. Venus bit her lip. “You, um . . . want me to pray for you?”
“Yeah . . . yeah, I guess.”
“Dear God . . . Thanks for Lex. Thanks for her really skilled surgeon. And really good nurses. And really excellent surgery center. Please help her feel calm. And, uh . . . help her wake up afterward. Amen.”
“Gee, Venus, you pray so eloquently.”
“Hey, it’s a prayer.”
“True.”
A new patient strolled into the room, this time a college-aged, athletic redhead. “Hi.” She smiled at Lex and Venus.
Lex searched her joints for any swelling. “Are you sure you need surgery?” she asked the girl.
“Oh, sure.” She sat in the recliner and automatically held out her arm for the IV. She peeked at Lex around the curtain. “I re-tore my ACL a month ago, so the swelling’s gone down.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, this is my third ACL surgery.”
“Third? ”
“Uh huh. I keep snapping them like rubber bands. But Daddy’s an ex-football player, and he has great insurance. He coaches a college team now, but he’s loaded.”
Lex suddenly had visions of years of surgeries draining her pocketbook. “Venus, I need to go to the bathroom again.”
“What’s your problem?” Venus grabbed the IV bag.
“I have to go when I get scared.”
“Oh, great.”
Lex relieved herself — wow, she had a lot this time — and sat back down just in time for her anesthesiologist to arrive.
Dr. Frank looked like he’d sucked a lemon. He adjusted his glasses and glared at her over the rims. “Any allergies?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Any family history of heart disease, yadda, yadda, yadda?”
Did he just say, “Yadda, yadda, yadda”?
“Uh . . . no.”
He sighed and pursed his lips. “How’d you tear it?”
“Accident.”
He grunted. “Well, obviously. How?”
“Someone fell into me.”
“Hmph.” He scribbled in his chart. “Okay, that’s it. Oh, and I have to disclose that there’s a slight chance of complications, nothing is 100 percent guaranteed, yadda, yadda, yadda. Understand?”
He liked that “yadda” word. “I guess.”
“No questions?”
“Uh . . .”
“No.” Venus pinned him with a hard gaze. “Just make sure she wakes up again.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He left.
Lex’s legs quivered. Her mouth had become Death Valley. “Venus, I need to go again.”
Venus rolled her eyes but reached for the IV bag. She paused as she studied it. “Hey.”
“What?”
“It’s almost empty. It’s dripping awfully fast.”
Lex studied the drip-drip-drip. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Venus flagged down a nurse and pointed it out.
“Oh! Sorry about that. We forgot to slow it down after we got the antibiotics in you.” She changed the bag and slowed the drip.
“I didn’t flush all the antibiotics out of me, did I?”
“No, don’t worry, dear.” The nurse bustled away.
After another trip to the bathroom, Lex sat with Venus, not saying anything, just watching a rerun of Oprah on TV. Finally, the nurse peeked in. “We’re almost ready for you. A few minutes.”
Lex’s fingers fidgeted on her lap until Venus slapped her hand down on them. “Stop that. You’re driving me nuts.”
“You’re nuts? Think about me.”
“You are so egocentric, you know that?”
“I’m about to go into surgery. I think I’m entitled.”
“You’re going to wake up, perfectly fine and as crabby as ever. So stop making my day worse than it already is.”
“Okay, Lex, they’re ready for you now.” The nurse walked over to Lex with a wheelchair.
Lex stood and moved into the chair, surprised her legs didn’t collapse under her. She grabbed Venus’s arm. “Take my mom’s diamond earrings. I want you to have them.”
“Oh, stop.”
“And that picture frame we fought over as kids? It’s in my closet.
You should have gotten it.”
“Will you shut up?”
“But make sure I get cremated with my ratty bunny. He’s on my bed.”
Venus shoved her face in close. “I’m going to deck you so you don’t need anesthesia.”
Lex swallowed. “I need to go again.”
Lex opened her eyes. Hey, she was in a different room. She could have sworn she’d been wide awake when she counted down to eight in the surgery room. Now she felt fuzzy and she couldn’t move her leg.
Oh, no! She was paralyzed!
She would panic after she threw up.
“How are you?” A smiling nurse who was way too cheerful nudged her bed and did something with her IV. She started raising Lex into a sitting position.
“I’m going to puke.” Her mouth had weeds growing in it.
“Not quite yet.” The nurse tugged at her IV and injected something.
Another ten minutes, and Lex realized her mouth had suddenly dried up. She tried to speak but couldn’t move her tongue. “Wa . . .wa . . .”
“Juice?” The nurse shoved a straw into her mouth.
“Nnn . . .”
“Drink up.”
Lex shook her head. The room spun.
“Rise and shine.” The nurse bounded over with Lex’s crutches. Where’s the fire, lady? Lex’s leg started to ache with fierce, bone-deep pain.
“Let’s get you to a chair.”
“Wha — ?” She could barely sit up.
“The anesthesia is still in your system. Move around and it’ll clear. Otherwise, you could sleep here all day.” She giggled. “And we’re not a hotel.”
Lex stumbled with her crutches as the room tilted around her. She could feel the fiery energy of the nurse as she practically carried her the few feet to a recliner, her IV bag trailing on a wheeled stand. A weird Igloo cooler was attached to her leg by a thick tube, making her leg freezing cold. The nurse carried that with Lex to the recliner.
She collapsed on the chair and just wanted to sleep some more.
“You’re almost ready to go home.”
Home? She
couldn’t even form coherent sentences yet. Where was Venus? Who was this Pollyanna-on-steroids nurse? How could she even walk to the car with her leg bigger than a slab of mutton and frozen solid?
“Hey, Lex.” Venus appeared.
Little Miss Sunshine hovered over her shoulder, driving a wheelchair like a race car. She unhooked the tube attached to the Igloo cooler. “Time to go.”
Lex eased herself into the wheelchair. She’d barely sat down before Miss Earnhardt took off, zooming down the hallway, out a side door. She skidded the chair down a ramp and nicked the curb as she turned toward Venus’s car.
It wasn’t a hard knock, but Lex’s bones jarred like she’d been sideswiped. “Ow!” She grabbed her knee but only felt thick layers of bandages.
The NASCAR nurse screeched to a halt beside Venus’s car. Lex paused to breathe.
“Come on. If you move, the fuzzies will go bye-bye.” The nurse jiggled the wheelchair.
Was this woman for real? Lex shot to her feet and swayed as the darkening sky rotated around her like a carousel. She grabbed at the passenger door.
It took some painful hopping to turn herself around and sit in the seat. It took even more angling to get her straightened leg into Venus’s little car.
“Slide the seat back.”
“It’s already back all the way.”
Her leg hung over the edge of the bucket seat, but her heel didn’t quite touch the floor, making her knee throb. The nurse wheeled away.
Lex didn’t remember much about the long drive home from the surgery center, except for the pain that flashed through her leg every time the little sports car hit a bump in the road.
“Can’t you drive any smoother?”
“Pardon me, Your Highness.”
Venus finally eased into the carport at her apartment. Lex couldn’t open the door all the way because of the car next to her. As she angled herself out, she banged her foot against the door. “Oooh.”
Venus appeared with her crutches. Lex moved backward out of the carport, but then she discovered her mistake.
The ground sloped down from the carport, and Lex hadn’t braced herself for the change in grade. She started tipping backward.
“Venus!”
Splat. Lex landed hard on her backside. The impact sent a jolt through her leg. “Oh, my knee, my knee.”
Venus knelt at her side. “At least you landed on your butt. Lots of padding.”
“Speak for yourself, bubblebutt. My tailbone is throbbing.”
“Your Insult-o-meter spikes when you’re in pain, doesn’t it?”
“Wouldn’t yours?”
Venus hooked her arm around her waist. “Okay, one, two, three-eee. Oomph.”
Lex’s butt barely cleared the ground before it bounced right back down. “Yow!”
“Sorry.” Venus studied her. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough to raise you up.”
“Hand me my crutches.”
Even with Venus’s arm around her, even with the upper body weight training Lex had been doing for Wassamattayu tryouts, she heaved and strained to get upright again.
It was going to be a long night.
TWENTY-FOUR
She needed to go to the bathroom.
Lex stared at the ceiling, wide awake after sleeping for who knows how many hours on the surgery table. Venus’s soft snores from where she sprawled in a sleeping bag matched the rhythmic whirring of the CPM machine as it bent and straightened her leg.
Poor Venus. She had collapsed, exhausted after setting everything up for Lex, not even thinking to ask about the mouse (which still hadn’t reappeared). Lex couldn’t wake her now.
The machine bent her leg, and she bumped her head against the wall. Her stupid bed. She couldn’t have known it would be too short for her to lay full out with the machine, even diagonally. She couldn’t move the bed away from the wall because there wasn’t room, what with the box Venus had dragged to the foot of the bed. They’d needed to anchor the CPM machine so it wouldn’t slide off and take Lex’s leg with it. She waited for the machine to straighten her leg and then turned it off.
Lex unhooked the ice machine — one of the reasons Venus was so tired. After discovering Lex’s tiny fridge didn’t have an ice maker, she’d gone to the grocery store for a bag of ice, which now melted slowly in the large cooler Lex used for volleyball. Venus would need to get more ice tomorrow too.
Lex had to hop sideways to squeeze out from her bed — no mean feat while clutching her crutches. She almost tripped over the extension cord — the new one Venus had gone out (again) to buy because the only other one had been two feet too short.
The bathroom seemed an ocean away. And she had to go really badly.
She bumped and hobbled to the tiny bathroom, dropping onto the toilet. At least the Novocain hadn’t worn off yet, and her knee had only a dull ache.
She’d been so mean and crabby to Venus all day. She would be better tomorrow.
At least the worst was behind her.
“Novocain’s wearing off.” With a vengeance. The dull ache from last night had turned into a thousand needles in her joint.
Venus looked up from her Star magazine. “Ready for your Vicodin?”
Another bone-deep stab. “Yeah.”
Venus rummaged in her purse for the prescription she’d picked up for Lex. “Ever taken Vicodin before?”
“No.”
“It might give you constipation.”
“Is that all? Okay.”
“Venus, I’m going to be sick.” Lex twisted over the edge of the bed and stared at the floor.
“Wait!” Venus rushed — well, inched, past the boxes to her side with a plastic bag.
“Sorry.” Lex grabbed the side of the bed to try to make the room stop whirling and dipping.
“Here.” Venus thrust the bag into her hands, just in time for another wave of nausea.
Lex started crying. “I feel so sick.”
“Shut up and concentrate on not throwing up.”
“I can’t.”
“And why not?” Venus thrust a paper towel into Lex’s plastic bag.
“Because I have to go.”
Venus’s eyes crackled with sparks. “Again? ”
Lex’s sobs renewed. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop crying.”
“I can’t. Nausea makes me weepy.” She burst into fresh tears.
Venus’s sighing breath tangled in Lex’s hair. “Come on.” She unhooked the ice machine, turned off the CPM, and stuck her arm under Lex’s ribs.
Upright was way worse than lying prone. Lex kept the plastic bag close to her face as her stomach clenched tight. Venus helped her stagger through the boxes and onto the toilet.
She couldn’t even sit up. Hot tears ran down her face as she sagged over, clamping her mouth shut to the tidal waves of nausea ebbing and flowing in her stomach. Venus leaned against the wall, sweating and panting from carrying her.
Back in bed, Lex turned her face to the wall while Venus re-hooked her ice machine. “I just want to die.”
“There is no way you’re going to die after putting me through all that.” Venus’s razor-sharp tone would have stopped Mel Gibson from dying in Braveheart.
“Why am I feeling so sick?”
“Have you ever taken any narcotic before? Codeine?”
“No.”
“How about your family?”
“Oh. Dad reacted badly to codeine when he got a bad cough, and the doctor prescribed him this strong syrup.”
Venus squeezed her forehead hard with her hand. “You’re kidding.”
“What?”
“Vicodin is related to codeine. If your dad reacts badly to codeine, you’ll most likely react the same way to Vicodin.”
Lex closed her eyes. “Oh.” She wished she’d known this sooner.
“I just want to diiiiiie.”
“I’m calling your surgeon.”
“It’s Saturday.”
Venus grabbed her cell phone. “
He has a pager.”
Lex listened carefully, but Venus remained polite while on the phone. She snapped it shut. “There’s nothing else you can take that won’t make you sick.”
“Nothing?”
“There’s other stuff not related to codeine, but if you’re supersensitive like this, the other medications might also make you dizzy.
The doctor said you can take Tylenol.”
“That’s it? ”
“Well, you’re already taking ibuprofen. It’ll work in tandem. He said it might be enough. Or you can continue to take the Vicodin.”
Rock and a hard place. Wonderful. “I’d rather be in pain than puking.”
Venus shrugged. “Your call.”
Lex stared at the wall clock for the next few hours while Venus read her bits from People magazine. After a while, she started to notice what felt like fiery-hot pins across the surface of her knee.
“Venus, something’s wrong.”
“In a lot of pain?”
“Not the same kind. It feels like . . . sunburn. With jeans on.”
Venus winced. So did Lex.
She felt it when she got up to use the restroom again. The room had stopped spinning, but as soon as she swung her leg off the CPM machine, fire ants crawled up her shin and bit her kneecap with relish.
“Ow ow ow!” Lex pressed a hand against the thick bandage.
“Do you want the Vicodin?”
“No.” Lex waited for the burning to subside. “It’s weird. It feels like really bad sunburn.”
“Well, your doctor’s appointment is Monday. You’ll have to last until then.”
Monday couldn’t come soon enough.
The bone-deep ache returned after the Vicodin wore off completely. It hadn’t been a good weekend.
Monday morning, Venus drove her to the doctor’s office. Lex eased down into the waiting room seat.
The woman sitting next to her had a horrified look as she stared at Lex’s face. After two days of biting her sheets and sweating into her pillow while her knee throbbed with each motion of the CPM machine, Lex knew she looked like death warmed up in the microwave.
“Lex Sakai? Come on in.”
She hobbled into an exam room. Another patient passed her — the young redhead who had been on her third knee surgery. She walked without bandages or crutches, just her leg brace. Her surgery knee looked a little pink, but swelled only slightly more than her good side, with three small round Band-Aids. She smiled and waved at Lex.
