Always Look Both Ways

He felt as though he were swimming, upward, to the surface. His ears were ringing fiercely, but over the din, he heard voices, three or four voices, having conversations. No, not conversations, wait, a woman’s voice nearby was telling some story, very quickly, but she was saying numbers and letters and then some words he didn't understand.

"MS 5 during ... induck shum, intubated with... easy airway ... regular... propofol... 138 over 62, ... 110 minutes... 0.4, ... 33..."

He stopped trying to understand it. It made no sense. He was lying on his back and suddenly something started squeezing his right upper arm.

Hey, ouch, it's getting too tight, something's wrong with it. He started to call for help but the squeezing stopped and began relaxing its grip. Someone heard me, he thought, and immediately wondered how that could be.

He tried to speak but a hoarse croak came out. There was something in his mouth, he felt it on the back of his tongue. It was hard. Oh God, he was choking on something. What is it? He couldn't close his mouth, something was between his teeth. He tried to move but felt so weak. He shook his head to dislodge whatever he had in his mouth. It hurts.

"Whoa there, cowboy." It was another woman's voice, really close by. He was starting to raise his hands but they felt tangled in soft blankets or something. He gagged and started to sit up as someone snatched the thing out of his mouth, quickly.

He gasped for breath and fell back onto a pillow.

"That's better, huh?" She spoke again. She was very close. "Stay still for a minute. I'll be right back. Okay -- um-- "

"He goes by Aaron," the first woman's voice said. What was happening here?

"Aaron. I'll be right back, Aaron. Stay still, OK?" the second voice again. She sounded younger than the first voice.

He struggled to open his eyes, to see where he was. When they opened, at first everything was blurry and moving, and doubled. He opened his eyelids as wide as he could. It felt as though his eyeballs were about to pop out of his head. This wasn’t working. It was all confusing. He forced his left eye shut, hard, and things got a little better.

There were curtains around him on the sides. He was on a narrow bed with shiny steel side rails. He lifted his left arm to grab the rail and saw IV tubing and tape on the back of hand. The emergency room? Was that it? He was confused. Was it a head injury of some kind and he was in the ER? What had happened? Was he in a car wreck? Had he been shot? Thinking was very hard work.

The curtain parted and a young woman with dark hair tied back in a ponytail came in. He fixed his open right eye on her as she entered. She had no makeup on and she was wearing a greenish blue robe of some kind, open at the front, over a collarless scrub top. There was a stethoscope hanging around her neck and she had an ID badge and keys hanging loosely around her neck on an orange strap with writing on it. He couldn't read any of it.

"Hey there. Good morning, I'm Joanie and I'm your nurse. You're just waking up from surgery and you're in the Recovery Room. Are you having any pain?"

Wow! That was a lot. What did she say? Recovery Room? Surgery? He just kept looking at her with the one eye as he considered this. Finally, he decided.

"Hi," and he immediately regretted it. It came out as a croak and his throat hurt when he croaked it. Why was his mouth and throat so dry? Was he getting a cold too?

"Sorry. You might have a bit of a sore throat for a little while. That'll go away soon. I'll get some ice chips in a minute to help the dryness. Are you hurting?"

He made a quick internal check of his body, still with only his right eye open. Survey says; nope, nothing hurts.

He shook his head and as he was about to say so, but he noticed that he couldn't feel his right leg. He felt a moment of panic as he tried to move it. His left leg was there and moved fine, but the right, except for a dull ache way up in his thigh, he could feel nothing.

He tried to lift his head further to see if it was still there. Oh God, had he lost his leg in an accident? Oh, my God! What had happened to him?

"Settle back now. Everything's fine." She said in a calm voice. "Just take it easy. We'll get it all sorted out." She gently put her hand on his chest while she looked up at something on the wall above his head.

"You just got out of surgery and you're waking up. Everything's fine and it'll start becoming more clear very soon. I'll help you. You're OK." The way she said it made him feel better and safe for some reason. She seemed to know what was going on.

But wait, what about his right leg. It wasn't there now. Had it been cut off?

"My leg?" He reached a little with his right hand and the squeezing started again. Ah, it was a blood pressure cuff. That was it. He lowered his arm again.

"Right. Your Leg, right? It's fixed and in a cast. Is it hurting? I can get you something if it's hurting." She flipped a page on the clipboard that she was holding and wrote something. She looked back up at the wall.

"Is it OK? Is it still there? Not, um," he tried to get it out.

"Oh, right, no. It's there. You can't feel it? You had a nerve block and it's numb. That's good too. But you need to let me know if it hurts, OK? I can get you something."

"Nerve block?" He tried opening the left eye again and it was better now. He blinked a couple times and his vision cleared a bit.

"Right. Dr. Anderson, your anesthesiologist, injected some local anesthetic around the nerve so that it would go numb, like at the dentist. That way it wouldn't hurt for a while after surgery and it seems to be working really well. If your leg's not hurting." The nurse looked him over as she said this. He looked toward his feet and could see his right leg wrapped in a huge bundle and it was up on a ramp or something on the bed. The nurse shifted some blankets on his right leg and looked at different places on the leg.

"You got a lot of hardware in there. It looks like it's a good thing the block's working. It would really sting if it wasn't."

"What happened to me? What's wrong with my leg?"

"You don't remember anything? Huh?" She picked up his chart and flipped it open and started reading. "Give me a moment here."

He laid his head back down. He was feeling less out of it. He could see a clock on the wall past the foot of his bed. It said 3: 45. 3:45? Morning or afternoon? he wondered.

"Well, apparently you were out for a walk and got hit by a car. It says you were unconscious for a while at the scene but awake and groggy in the ER." She closed the chart and laid it down again.

"How are you feeling now? That's quite an evening you had." She seemed awfully perky for the situation, he thought. She listened to his chest with her stethoscope and then went to the foot of the bed and did something.

"I guess I'm a little confused. My head hurts a little. Is anything else broken?" She moved up to his side and opened her eyes very wide.

"Open your eyes, hon." As he did that, she waved a penlight across each eye and smiled. She put her hand on his neck and shined the light on it.

"Doesn't look like it. You want to try some ice chips? It'll help with the cotton-mouth." He hadn't heard the term "cotton-mouth" since college. She helped him raise his head and brought a Styrofoam cup to his lips and tipped it. Some crushed ice slid into his mouth and he laid his head back and just let the ice melt there. It was wonderful. He swished around for a bit before swallowing it. His throat hurt a little, but not bad.

"You got a couple bruises that you may feel later in the day. But you look intact for the most part." She said this in a breezy manner that made him feel better.

Suddenly, the curtains were pulled back and a fit man with an olive complexion in his early 30's swept into view, Joanie the nurse stepped back. The man was dressed in green scrubs and had an unshaved face.

"Hey there, um, Aaron. So you remember me? I'm Dr. Rajeesh, the orthopod. I fixed your leg. How you doing? Are you having any pain?" He smiled as he said all of this and simultaneously looked up at the wall over his head and opened the chart and scribbled something quickly.

"No. I'm OK. I don't remember you..." He spoke as quickly as he could but the surgeon was nodding and holding up his hand.

"Sure, sure. I understand. That happens a lot. Don't worry about it. You won't remember this either. I went out and talked to your wife, um, Beverly, nice lady. and told her you did fine. She's going home for now and will be back later. Don't worry about things, she's fine. I'll be back and talk to you later today when you're more with it. You just rest now. Everything went great! Your leg was really busted up, but we got it put back together. It's going to take a while to heal up. It's gonna be a lot of work. But, don't worry about it now. Everything went good. You do what Joanie says, OK? She's really good, she'll take good care of you. I'll talk to you later." He was already turning away as he said the last part.

"He looks comfortable. The block's working?" the doctor said, glancing at Joanie, the nurse.

"Yeah!" She looked down at Aaron and winked. "He's doing great. I'll send him to the floor in a little while."

"Super!" said the doctor. "Keep an eye on the drainage and called Jeff if it gets any worse." He was walking away as he said this.

"Yep," said Joanie to the empty space where the surgeon had been and then started typing something into the keyboard by the bed.

"I didn't get most of that. Who was that again?" Aaron shook his head.

"Yeah, it flies by, doesn't it? Don't worry about it. That was Dr. Rajeesh, he was the orthopedic surgeon that fixed your leg. Don't try too hard to remember things right now. It's the drugs. Your mind on drugs. You know how they say? It'll clear more with a little time. Would you like your head up a little?"

"If it's OK, I'd love it. It feels like I'm in a hole." he said.

"Sure thing." She turned something at the foot of the bed and the head rose a few inches.

"How's that?" She stopped what she was doing and looked up at him, while still bent over.

"Great. Much better." He said. "What now?"

"Take a little nap if you want. I want to keep you here for another 20 minutes or so just to watch things and then we'll get you up to your room on the floor. I’m right here if you need anything, OK?" Joanie went about her chores.

Aaron thought to himself, fat chance he could nap. After waking up to all of this he needed to think about things. But he closed his eyes for just a second and he felt a pair of hands moving his right arm.

He opened his eyes, it was Joanie, disconnecting his blood pressure cuff.

"OK. Time to head upstairs." She reached under his gown on his chest and deftly disconnected wires from his EKG stickers.

He looked down past his feet at the clock on the wall. It said 4:40. Wow, he had napped. He felt better than he had before.

Joanie put her hand on his arm. "This is Daniel. He’s going to take you to your room. Your nurse upstairs is named Donna and she's really good. I just spoke with her on the phone and filled her in on everything. Of course, she'll ask everything again," she laughed here, "That's the way it works here. It was a pleasure taking care of you, Aaron. I hope things go well. You're doing great!" She gave him a warm smile and turned to head somewhere else.

"Thanks, for taking care of me, um, Joanie. I appreciate it," and now he was looking up into the face of a young man in his early 20's.

"Hey. I'm Dan and I'm going to take you upstairs to your room. Let me just check that we have your bag of belongings." The young man bent over and looked at something beneath his bed.

"Thanks, Dan. It's almost five in the morning, right?" Aaron was starting to put things together.

"Correctamundo! Coming up on the end of the shift, for me." Daniel stood back up and placed Aaron's chart on the bed near his feet.

"Looks like we're good to go. I'll take it easy on the corners." Daniel said from the foot of the bed as he reached with his foot, and the bed clicked and shuddered.

The young man expertly pulled the bed away from the wall slowly, while looking to make sure all the connections had been released and turned the foot end toward what must have been the exit from the room. Then they were rolling.

Aaron looked to the sides to see where he'd been and saw Joanie standing next to the desk with the phone to her ear. She waved at him, and winked with a big smile on her face.

He managed a feeble wave in return as she passed from view.

He laid his head back and looked at the ceiling panels and lights going by overhead. They turned two more corners and then stopped. He turned to see Daniel push the “Up” button on the elevator panel.

"Shouldn't take long. It's the quiet time of day. Very little traffic." Daniel said as he leaned back against the wall. "Course, they're not the fastest elevators in the world.”

There was a ding and the doors slid open to reveal an empty elevator. Daniel expertly backed into the cabin and set the floor lock on the cart, then moved to the foot and pushed the button for "11."

The doors slowly shut and in a moment they were moving. Aaron looked down and saw Daniel looking through his chart then close the chart and put it back down.

They rode in silence for a few seconds and Daniel said, "You mind if I ask you something, sir?"

Aaron glanced at him. "No, go ahead."

"You and your wife, were you arguing or something? Was she pissed off?"

Aaron thought, what an odd question.

* * *