“The damage is too severe,” the physician, Dr. Albert Morris, that had taken over Krisney’s case said. “Her liver function, as well as kidney function, are at less than fifteen percent at this point. It’s been less than eight hours. I expect, by this time tomorrow, all function will be non-existent.”
“So, what does that mean?” I asked.
I knew the basics, of course.
I’d become an MD, after all.
But I was hoping, despite knowing, that he’d have an alternative that I hadn’t thought of yet.
“She needs a new kidney, and a new liver,” he told me bluntly. “There is no other option for her at this point. With one, or the other, we could’ve worked with it. With both, as well as her weakness from the birth…well, her prognosis is not good.”
With that heartbreaking, final news, he patted me sharply on the shoulder and left the room, leaving me looking at the broken woman who had just had her life taken away from her.
***
I slammed through the last of the hospital doors and came face to face with my entire family.
They were all standing there, looking at me expectantly.
“She’s dying.”
“What?” That was Travis.
“Dying. They expect her liver and kidneys to fail by this time tomorrow, if not sooner,” I told them, feeling numb.
“There’s nothing they can do?” Dante asked.
I couldn’t even scrounge up enough happiness to see Dante there. He’d been practically non-existent in our lives since his family had died…and now I knew how he felt.
I closed my eyes as tears threatened to take over.
“She can get a new kidney, as well as a new liver,” I said. “But the donor registry won’t accept her at this moment in time. She’s too high risk. They have other, more healthy candidates that would have a much higher percentage of surviving at this point that they won’t even consider her.”
“Test us,” my brother said.
I looked over at Baylor.
I closed my eyes and dropped my head.
“It’s not that easy,” I said. “There has to be an exact match. Exact.”
“How will you know unless you try?”
That came from Hannah, Travis’s wife.
She was right.
“But y’all have kids,” I said. “Young babies…”
“Test us.”
That came from Evander.
I dropped my head even further into my hands. “I’m headed down there myself.”
***
What felt like days later, but was likely only hours, the nurse walked in with a giant smile on her face.
“You’re a perfect match,” she said, handing over the papers.
I took the papers and scanned over them, making sure that they weren’t fucking with me.
Not that I thought they would, but this was better than anything I could’ve ever hoped for.
“I’m a perfect match.” I handed the page to Dr. Morris.
The doctor looked over my test on his own this time and nodded his head.
“Perfect,” he agreed.
My eyes closed, as relief poured through me.
The last eight hours, as we all waited for the results of our tests, had been agonizing.
Each hour that passed, I watched Krisney deteriorate just a little bit more.
“Do it now.”
“No!”
I looked over at my mother, not feeling a thing.
“Yes.”
“No.” She stood up. “I’m not losing another one of my children!”
The room went absolutely quiet.
Anger poured over me, though.
“You can’t mean that.”
My mother crossed her arms over her chest.
“I’ve had two of my children die, Reed Hail. I’m not allowing you to do this,” she persisted. “You won’t understand…”
I stood up.
“I won’t understand?” I asked. “I have two children, right now, fighting for their lives. The woman I love, the woman I’ve loved since we were young, is now fighting for her life and likely won’t make it until tomorrow without me. I’m doing this, whether you like it or not.”
She turned her back on me. “Well, then I won’t be here when you do it.”
With that she left, leaving me to stare at her in disbelief that she said what she did.
“Thank fucking Christ you finally admitted it,” Travis muttered. “It’s about fucking time.”
I looked over at my brother, surprised to see not just him, but my entire fucking family, standing there.
“What?” he asked.
That was when Baylor, my other brother, entered the conversation.
“Takes her almost dying for you to say something,” Baylor muttered.
“Y’all…” Baylor’s new woman, Lark, said. “This is not the time.”
No, it wasn’t.
I turned toward the doc. “Tell me what we need to do.”
“Insurance…”
I waved that off. “I don’t care. I don’t care who gets billed for it. Yes, I have an emotional attachment to the patient. No, I don’t care if it’s going to be a problem. Just get it done.”
“Get ‘er dun!” Travis teased.
“Umm,” the transplant specialist said to the family members in the room. “Would you mind waiting outside? We have some things to discuss.”
I flipped Travis off discreetly as he left, no longer in the same state of mind that I’d been in earlier thanks to knowing that I wouldn’t have to watch the love of my life die.
He started to laugh and went back outside, waiting for me to come out and let everyone know what was going on.
“Tell me what I need to know.”
***
Krisney
"Don't do this."
My eyes fluttered open, and I struggled to keep them open as I looked around the room.
"Give me one good reason, Mom."
A flutter of happiness flitted through me.
That was Reed's voice. It didn't matter where I was, or what I was feeling. The man's voice always made me happy.
Always.
Sad, hungry. Dying.
It didn't matter. The man had a way about him.
"You could die," Reed's mother snapped.
Silence followed that proclamation.
"If I don't do this, she'll die.” He paused. "I don't think I could survive her death, Mom,” he growled in frustration. “I could die crossing the street on the way to get coffee in ten minutes. Tomorrow, I could not wake up, having passed away in my sleep. I know better than anyone that life isn’t always promised. I have to do it. I have to save her, even if that means giving her everything I have to give.”
Something terrible started to churn in my belly.
What were they talking about?
"A hepatectomy is a big deal, Reed. This isn't just a surgery that you get up and walk away from. And we aren’t even mentioning the probability of a kidney transplant, also.
“Not to mention the potential bleeding problems you could suffer once you've gone through with the surgery,” she continued. "And honestly, you have two children now. It's time to stop thinking with your heart and using your brain. They need you."
Children? What?
And then it all came back to me in one huge blow straight to my heart.
I'd gone into labor. But the labor hadn't been normal. Everything had been wrong. The doctors couldn't get my contractions to stop. My liver and kidneys were failing. And I'd had to deliver our babies eight weeks early.
Oh, and I was dying.
My head moved, and I found him.
Reed was sitting at the end of my bed, pouring through a chart. His eyes were scanning the pages like only a doctor would. A doctor that was trying desperately to save a patient. He was searching for something that he wasn't going to find.
"Mom..."
"You haven't even seen them!” He hadn't?
"You haven't gone to see them?"
Reed and his mother's heads snapped toward me.
Reed was on his feet moments later.
"I haven't."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want to see them without you. I want you with me when we see them for the first time. I don't want to experience that alone."
"Reed..."
"You're getting a new kidney, and part of a liver."
"Whose?"
If I remembered correctly, my prognosis wasn't good. And they wouldn't even put me on the donors list.
So, if I was getting a liver...it had to be from someone I knew.
Reed.
"Reed, no," I whispered. "You can't."
"It's not that I don't want you to live."
My eyes moved to his mother.
"What?"
"I have never blamed you."
Tears started to form in my eyes.
"I don't want him to do this, either." I swallowed. My voice sounded so weak, and it was scary.
"I love him more than life, but I would never be okay with this. And you're right. He has someone—two someones—to live for now."
She smiled at me sadly.
"You'll always come first to him.” She looked down at her hands. "He’ll do anything to make you happy. Even going to see his babies that he refused to see because he wanted to experience that with you."
I swallowed past the lump in my throat.
"I'm going to die."
Her eyes sliced to mine. "Then you'll take him with you."
I looked away. It was the hardest thing to do in my life.
"You never saw him like I saw him after he broke up with you. But he's never been the same since. He loves you. Has never stopped loving you." I heard the tears in her voice. "That day irrevocably changed so many lives. My daughter's. Your brother's. Yours. Reed's." She cleared her throat.
"Nobody more than yours and Reed's, though.” She exhaled. "I'm happy and sad to have him back. And the reason I have him back is because you're dying. I don't know what to say. What to feel."
Chapter 17
Shut up and take my kidney.
-Reed under the influence of anesthesia
Reed
Day 1
"Is she done?"
I didn't ask it to anyone in particular. My brothers. One of them. I was fairly sure my mother wasn't there. So, no need to ask her.
"No."
"Did it go all right?"
"Yours or hers?"
Why the hell would I care about mine?
"Hers."
"Still in surgery, bro." I think it was Baylor who said it. "I'll wake you when it's done."
***
Day 2
"Is she okay?"
I couldn't find the strength to open my eyes. I couldn't lift my hand, either.
"She's fine," a feminine voice said. "She made it through surgery. Hennessy is sitting with her right now. She hasn't woken though."
Hannah, Travis's wife.
"When she wakes, let me know," I ordered.
"What about her kidney function?"
Hannah's laughter followed me into sleep.
***
Day 3
My eyes opened, and for the first time I felt like keeping them open.
I looked around the room and found it empty.
My heart lurched.
I pressed the call button at my bedside, heart hammering, and waited.
It didn't take long for a nurse to arrive.
The minute she saw me, awake and alert, she smiled.
"Your family said if you woke up and they still weren't here, that I was to tell you she made it through surgery.
“She's not awake yet, but she's showing signs when stimulated. And both kidney and liver seem to be functioning correctly. As for you, you've been in and out. I think this is the most awake I've seen you."
I didn't care about me. I cared about her. And my babies.
Fuck.
"What about the babies?" I found myself asking cautiously.
"Both are fighting. That's where everyone is. It's visiting hours."
My belly seemed to warm from the inside out.
"Good."
I was glad they weren't alone.
"Have they gained any weight?"
What had it been now? One? Two days?
"Two days since your surgery. Three days since they were born." I must've voiced that last question aloud. Huh. "And they've both lost a little bit of weight, but they're not concerned about it yet."
That fucking sucked.
"Can I go see Kris?" I asked, feeling much more awake now.
The nurse smiled. "The doctor said you were going to ask that. And yes, as long as you don't overdo it, we can do that."
“What happened with me?” I asked as I slowly made to sit up.
The nurse came to my side and waited, allowing me to make the moves without help, and I appreciated it.
“You had a reaction to the anesthesia,” she answered, backing up when I finally swung my legs over the side of the bed. “They were a little worried at first due to your initial response but you seemed to rally well.”
“My initial response?”
She looked at me funny.
“They discussed this yesterday with you.” She paused. “Do you not remember?”
I shook my head, then took a deep breath and stood.
The pain was terrible.
In fact, on a scale of one to I’ve never felt this kind of pain before, I was at ‘I’m going to cry.’
But I stood up anyway and walked—more like shuffled—the two steps with her standing in front of me, ready to catch me if I fell.
I didn’t, thank fuck.
“Take a seat. I’ll grab your cath bag and your IV stand.”
I did, not thinking about my catheter, or anything else.
My anticipation of seeing Krisney was too strong, and overrode all my embarrassment at having to deal with the aftermath of a catheter.
“There we go,” she handed the bag to me. “As for your initial response to anesthesia—it’ll be in your chart from now on that you don’t respond well to it. You nearly died.”
I looked down, the doctor in me studying the color and amount of urine in the bag.
“Everything good with me now?”
“Urine output is perfect,” she answered. “Liver function, so far so good.”
I nodded, then hooked the bag on the arm rest and started to rearrange wires so we could move.
“I’m still in the ICU?”
She shook her head. “No. You’re a floor below.”
“Krisney?”
“Still in the ICU. If she keeps improving, and wakes up soon, though, they’ll move her,” she answered. I frowned at that, wondering how she knew all of this. “I just got off the phone with her doctor when you paged.”
I nodded, understanding her answer.
“Take me.”
She grinned.
“Two shakes,” she said. “I have to…there we go.”
She pushed the brakes off, and then swung me around, leading me at a fast pace out of my room and straight to the elevator.
I’d been in this wing before seeing a patient who’d had a stroke after she’d delivered, and it was completely different seeing it from a patient’s perspective rather than a doctor’s.
Two minutes later, but what felt like two hours, I was being pushed into a room that was similar to mine.
Only, this room had a glass wall that was so close to the nurses’ station that we might as well have been standing in it.
“I’ll leave you for a while,” the nurse said. “Twenty minutes. That’s it, okay?”
She likely shouldn’t even be doing that, but I was appreciative of her taking care of me,
and allowing me the time to see the woman that held a large portion of my heart.
The moment the glass door closed, I looked over at the deathly pale woman on the bed, and shivered.
“I’m so sorry.”
I reached for her hand, but it didn’t curl around mine.
I squeezed, but she didn’t squeeze back.
***
Day 4
I took my own catheter out.
That was likely not what should’ve been done, and I’d hear about it later, but I wasn’t in the mood to be tethered to it anymore.
I could measure my own urine output, thank you very much.
Once that was taken care of, I came out of the bathroom with just a single wire attached to me, and even that was coming out once I had the proper tools—IE a fucking Band-Aid—to take care of it.
Hannah was there, watching me, when I came out.
“You want some help?”
I offered her my hand.
I didn’t know my brothers’ wives all that well. With me living in Alabama when I was home, and being in the Army and then the Reserves, I hadn’t had much time to get to know them all.
Hannah, though, was one of my favorites.
Then again, they all were, really, in their own way.
My eyes skidded to a stop when I saw Hennessy standing in the doorway.
“She’s awake.”
I didn’t wait for the damn Band-Aid.
I shuffled out of my room, and down the hall, not giving one flying fuck that my ass was partially exposed, or that I was somewhat bleeding.
Hennessy stayed at my side.
“She’s mad at you.”
I grinned.
“Is she now?”
“Apparently, she figured out that you never went and saw the babies and is now demanding that you offer her compensation.”
I would’ve laughed had I not been worried about how badly it would hurt.
“A kidney and a half a liver aren’t enough?” I teased, pressing the button for the elevator.
The nurses I passed on their way to lunch just shook their heads, knowing that they couldn’t control me.
I waved, pressed the button for the floor above ours, and waited for the doors to close.
“She’s mad about that, too.” She paused. “I think she’s just mad in general at this point.”
I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. Not on the trip down the hallway. Not on the way into the room, and definitely not, when I saw Krisney’s angry eyes staring back at me.
The Hail You Say Page 14
