Tony Scott - Along Came COVID - Love and Loss in the 2020 Pandemic

A nurse came to check on her, made a few notes about the pulse ox, heart rate, and temperature. Her fever was back. In a moment, the nurse pulled a foil wrapped suppository out of her pocket. Josh tipped Faith up, enabling the nurse to place the suppository, then gently let her back down, rearranging her into a comfortable position.

“You have to knock it off with this fever thing. You’ve been in the hospital long enough that you should be past that.”

He sat and looked at her. Suddenly, he thought about Natalie.

“Hi, Josh. I hope this is good news,” she said.

“It’s not.” Josh felt the tightness in his chest he had felt when Peggy put her to sleep. “We had to put her on a ventilator. She just couldn’t do it on her own.”

“Oh, Josh,” Natalie blubbered. “This is getting worse!”

“Sorry. I tried to tell her, but she didn’t listen.”

He could hear shuffling in the background. “Josh, this is Jim.”

“Hi, Jim. She’s getting worse.”

Marianna came on also. “What happened?”

“They intubated her, mom,” Natalie said.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“They put her on a ventilator, Mom,” Natalie said.

“Oh my gosh,” she said several times. “Josh, is she going to get well?”

“I hope so. Since I’m coronavirus positive, I’m allowed to sit with her, for which I am incredibly thankful. If I wasn’t positive, I wouldn’t even get to see her.”

“Can you send a picture?” Natalie asked.

After adjusting the sheet and blanket, and with the pillowcase over the tube, he took a picture. It looked like she was sleeping.

“Where is the tube?” Natalie asked.

“Under the corner of the pillowcase.”

“Can I see?”

This time he moved the pillowcase, revealing the tube, the right-angle joint, the tiny hose that measured pressure, and the tube in her mouth to get the air out of her stomach and through which they planned to feed her.

Natalie exploded. “Look at her! What are they doing to her?”

“I didn’t want to show you these, Nat,” Josh replied. “Delete it from your phone, and don’t show it to your mom!”

Too late. “EEK,” Josh heard in the background. “That’s my baby!”

“She’s OK,” he said, even though he didn’t believe it. “She’s comfortable, her oxygen is much better than at any time since she came in the hospital, and she has time to get well.” Josh used the Doppler so they could hear Cori’s heart.

There was a long period of silence.

“Natalie said you have the virus too,” Jim’s voice was even and calm. “Are you OK?”

“I’ve had a little fever, but a few aspirins have taken care of it. I’ve had no cough, muscle aches, or breathing trouble. If I hadn’t had the test, I wouldn’t know anything was amiss. I wouldn’t go to a doctor, and I probably wouldn’t stay home from work.”

“We’ve heard that on the television. They are talking about patients not even knowing they are sick.”

Natalie took up when Jim paused. “She looks like her color is better and she has a peaceful look on her face. I see she has earrings in, and her ponytail is pulled back.”

“Yes, Nat. I try to keep her presentable. I know she would want that.” Josh’s voice was tremulous.

Natalie responded to Josh’s pain. “Are you OK?”

“What? My coronavirus? Yes, fine. My mind? No, blown.” He considered confiding his fears, but she was fourteen.

“Thanks for calling us, Josh,” Jim said. “Keep calling us.”

“I will.”

“Put those pictures away, Nat!” Jim ordered her sternly. The call disconnected.

“Can you believe they want me to go in the hospital?” Brian blurted before the fellows’ closet door closed. He was well on his way to a rolling chair before the window rattled. “My Pain Management appointment was this morning, and the psychiatrist recommended that I spend two weeks in the hospital to get some intensive therapy and adjustment of medications. This is getting nasty, don’t you think? Two weeks!”

Peggy thought this was the most wonderful turn of events she had heard on Brian’s behalf. A real detoxification could happen, since Peggy doubted Brian had accurately reported his drug use. With addicts, the only way to know the truth is with blood test confirmation. As a captive, psychotherapy and behavioral therapy could happen more than once a day, with forced compliance on medicines, therapy sessions, and blocked street drug use. He could remain captive until some major improvement in his depression was evident, until side effects of aggressive medicines, many of which were combated with more medicines, had been controlled, and until the roller coaster of medicines and depression evened out. She couldn’t say any of that to Brian. Care was needed since Peggy did not know exactly what Brian’s caregivers were thinking.

“What did they tell you? Or, more exactly, what did you tell them that you don’t know you told them?”

“I told them I was having trouble concentrating, that I couldn’t get pain medicines off my mind, and that I didn’t want to use their sleeping pills very much.”

“Have you succumbed to some Percocet?”

“No,” Brian said, his face hinting otherwise.

“Congratulations. Have you thought about killing yourself?”

“Who could answer no to that question?”

Peggy thought that was an odd answer, but perhaps sharply truthful. “Have you thought about how you would kill yourself?”

“No.”

“Do they think you want to kill yourself or that you know how you would do it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Do you want to kill anybody else?”

“Josh Menkowicz,” Brian said without the briefest pause. The answer hit Peggy like a handgun slug, nearly knocking her off her chair.

“Truthfully? Or a metaphor?”

“Less than truthfully, more than a metaphor.”

Perhaps the caregivers were concerned about this also. Hospitalization is indicated when the patient is a danger to himself or others. Maybe his caregivers were more worried about him hurting someone else than about hurting himself. In looking back, Peggy could remember bits of conversations in which the wellbeing or feelings of someone else did not appear to matter to Brian. Were that true, it would make Brian sociopathic, something Peggy had not considered, and something that would make the prognosis abysmal. You can’t fix sociopathy.

“Did they talk about special medicines or treatments they want to try?”

“Yes. They want to switch my antidepressants around.”

“Did they tell you they can’t do that with you at home?”

“No.” Brian shifted the conversation. “They talked to Emily. I think they told her I should take a few weeks off work until I get a little better, and not treat patients in the meantime. I don’t like it that all these people are talking when I don’t know what they are saying.”

“How can they talk to Emily without your consent?”

“JD made me sign some forms so that he and Emily can be sure I go to my meetings, make my appointments, take my medicines, submit my medication logs, and do my physical therapy.”

“Physical therapy?”

“For my knee.”

“Is it working?”

“I don’t think so. It makes my knee sore.”

“Did you take anything for that?”

“Some aspirin. It works pretty well.”

“That’s a good sign.”

“Do you think I should go in the hospital?”

“Yes.” Peggy wanted to reinforce the idea. “JD has spent his whole life researching and writing about opiate addiction in the workplace, and he certainly knows as much about it as anyone. Apparently his unit has national notoriety. I would follow his advice.”