While You Were Out

Dear Larry,

Several months ago, we were having a conversation about why J.K. Rowling had changed the title of her first book from "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" to "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." I think we decided that her decision had something to do with the American audience that would be targeted with the revision. Whatever her reasoning, or whatever the title was, we both decided that it was the start of a fantastic series.

You mentioned that you had a headache, and said that you'd like to take something for the pain.

Possibly four minutes later, you were lying on your back and told us to call 911.

You described your symptoms to me while Mom dialed. I wrote everything down. She went to the front of the building to meet the paramedics when they arrived.

"We need emergency response here, now!" you said urgently to me.

So I dialed a second time, and while I spoke with the 911 operator, you twisted in agony. You continued to speak a steady stream of what you were experiencing, and when the operator asked me how old you were, I drew a complete blank. Fifty-seven? Sixty something?

"Forty," you mumbled in answer.

This was the first time the fear hit me - you were losing it. You continued to mumble and slur your words while reaching for your head. By the time my call was over, you were nearly silent. I stood by you and held your hand and rubbed it. I assured you that you'd be fine, they'd be here soon. I noticed a clear goopy-ness in your left eye when the first paramedic entered the room.

Nearly an hour later, I had navigated streets I didn't know, in a car that I had never driven. I arrived at the hospital that the aid car had sped to, with lights flashing and siren blaring.

I was greeted with the information that you needed emergency brain surgery, and that you likely would have a 50/50 chance of surviving.

They gave us our own waiting room, Mom and me. I was taken to see you, lying on the stretcher in the emergency room while they prepped you for OR. I saw your jaw make a movement against the tube that was in it, and felt the thrill of hope pulse through me. "Oh! He moved! That's good, right?" The chaplain told me those movements were probably reflexes. I stood there for a moment longer, wondering what to say, but knowing full well that it would come out in sobs. I didn't think that you'd be able to hear me, but I didn't want you to hear me cry. I didn't want my emotion to reveal how bad it was.

That's how I found myself sitting in a waiting room holding a "Patient's Belongings" bag containing your pants, while bowing my head in prayer to a god I had just cursed at earlier that evening. The same god that I don't believe in.

The surgery took an hour, I think, although it felt like 7. We sat and sipped seven-up and alternated trips to the bathroom as our bodies, reeling from shock, continued to shiver and shake. Shock had become a familiar enemy to me, returning to remind me of the last time it had visited.

When the doctor finally emerged, he sat across from us, and we searched his smooth face for any hints of hope, though it was in vain. He told us that the surgery had gone as best as could be expected, and that we now needed to wait 5 - 7 days for you to wake up to find out what level of recovery you might have. If, after seven days, you hadn't woken up, we would be having conversation about letting you go.

I retreated to the bathroom and watched snot and tears drop onto the mauve tile under my feet. I felt nauseous, and wrapped my own arms around my body, trying to be warm. My mind continued to imagine how different my life would be without you here. The impacts it would have on my mother to lose her husband, my daughter to lose her grandfather, and for me, to lose a dad I was just getting to know. I considered how impossible it would be for me to enjoy the release of the final Harry Potter book, if you couldn't be there with me.

We made it through a miserable night, alternating between crying, dozing, and lying still, mind racing. Every time I felt myself get upset about what might happen, I would get angry, forcing positive thinking into the place where the fear multiplied.

Imagine our surprise when we called the hospital to find out that you had woken up, after only seven hours. We raced to your room in ICU to find you in a bed with what seemed like hundreds of tubes and cords attached to your body, hooked up to refrigerator-sized machines with blinking lights and numbers, and making steady, rhythmic sounds.

Each day, you continued to make progress, and only two weeks later, you got on a plane and flew home.

And today, one would never know that you came a milimeter away from dying on May 11th. The scar that runs from your forehead to your left ear is hardly visible.

I understand why you don't remember any of this.
I'm so glad, however, that I can tell you the story today.

love,
Tiffany Jane