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

Josh mumbled, “I wonder if Faith knows what’s happening.”

“I don’t think so. You said she wasn’t awake before she took her tube out. And you said the old medicines work a lot slower than the new ones. I bet she’s still asleep.”

“Please don’t die, Faith. Please don’t take Cori with you. Please don’t leave me.”

For a short burst, a heart rhythm appeared on the screen of the monitor, above the heads of the people working on her. Chest compressions stopped, and there was movement of people and equipment. Suction made its disgusting noise, someone talked about epinephrine, and then chest compressions began again.

Haley and Peggy were talking, with Ann listening. “It seemed like she was ready to come off the ventilator, and yesterday, she passed the test.” Haley was reciting. “She took her tube out, which we might have done anyway, just a little later in the day. So why didn’t she breathe?”

“There has to be something else,” Peggy said.

They became busy again with medicines, chest compressions, and ventilator settings.

Time dragged on, making Josh wonder if this was about to end and end badly. “Has this been going on a long time?” he asked Ricky.

“No, less than ten minutes.”

“That’s what I meant. Don’t we quit at thirty minutes?”

“If there is no response. But she had a rhythm there for a while and they stopped compressing. It looks like they sent off lab tests, ordered a chest x-ray, and tried to take a blood pressure.”

Josh spewed a flurry of unrelated stories on Ricky. “I talked to her family yesterday. They were all upbeat and excited that she was improving. Her sister Natalie is only fourteen, yet she understands so much in life. She has been good for me. Jim has a deep, comforting voice. Her mom, Marianne, hardly talks.”

“It sounds like you know them well.”

“I’ve been talking to them twice a day since Faith went on the ventilator. One of the anesthesiologists told me that some patients are aware even though they don’t respond and even though they don’t remember after they wake up. So, I have been talking to her, too.”

“I didn’t know some of them were aware,” Ricky said. “That’s amazing. I will have to remember that.”

“We have loved eating together in the evening. We do that in the cafeteria downstairs when one of us is on call. Sometimes we go to Padilla’s when we are both off. It’s amazing how many blue enchiladas that girl can eat.”

“That’s a good place.”

“Yes. And I like to cook for her. We are only off together the night after she is on call, so I try to have dinner ready when she gets home. It’s the only time we can talk.”

“Residency is hard,” Ricky said. “But then you get out of it what you put into it, so taking it easy is not in your best interest in the long run.”

“We both stay when there is something interesting going on.” Josh paused, leaned forward placing his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “My sister Marla, who’s an attorney in Santa Fe, helped her do the paperwork for her divorce from Brian. Faith was happy and relieved by that. But in the process, it was so hard for me to get her romantic attention. It’s like she doesn’t get the main idea sometimes. I didn’t get her attention until she had to move out of the apartment she had with Brian.”

“That’s when she moved in with you?”

“Yes. Her family came to help her move and I got to meet all of them in person. That was fun. I especially like her dad and her sister. It’s fun to torment her sister, she reacts so dramatically.”

“It’s good you have that kind of relationship with her family.”

“Then the night she found the positive pregnancy test, she was shocked. At first I thought she was down about it. But it turns out that Brian would have wanted her to have an abortion, which she didn’t want. Now we are both so excited, and we are so happy it’s a girl. We’ll call her Cori.” He paused. “This sounds like I am saying goodbye to her, doesn’t it?”

“No. You are just telling me about the happy parts of your relationship with her. You guys have such a warm relationship,” Ricky said, his voice cracking. “I hope you have it for a long time.”

“I do too,” he answered. “But it doesn’t look good, does it?” It was an excruciating question.

“Do you think Brian abused Faith?” Ricky asked.

“Um,” Josh said, “not physically, in that she told me he never hit her. But psychologically I think he did. She really was very subservient to him, always wanted to please him, and rarely succeeded. You can tell by all the times she asked whether Brian’s anger and his affair were because of her coming to Albuquerque, or because of her kicking him out. I think she is coming around, though, because I never do those things to her.”

“That’s good. You need to keep going on that.”

“I will. I want her to have control of her life, some control of our lives, and to be the mother she wants to be, not the one I want, her mother wants, or anybody else wants.”

“They’re talking about radiology,” Ricky said. “I think they’re talking about taking her to radiology! Can you believe that?”

“How do you do that when she’s coding? Keep pumping on her chest in an elevator?”

“Let me step over and see.” Ricky walked over, had a short exchange with Haley and came back. “Peggy thinks she has a big clot in her lung and that they may be able to get it out with a catheter in radiology.”

“Is she insane? Or do we not know what we are talking about?”

“I don’t know what I’m talking about, that’s for sure,” Ricky said. “I guess they move people who are coding in an ambulance, don’t they? I suppose you need to get the patient somewhere where survival is more likely.”

“I guess they do.”

Then Peggy’s voice came clearly, apparently having been challenged by someone in the room whom Ricky and Josh had not heard, “Yes, we don’t have any choices. If we don’t try to address the clot, we won’t have a patient. While moving her could kill her, staying here won’t end well.”

Ricky and Josh watched as the monitor was taken down off the shelf and placed on the foot of the bed, an oxygen tank was connected to an Ambu Bag, and IV lines were placed on a pole attached to the bed. The bed began a slow movement toward the door, which Ann opened and held out of the way. They watched the as the bed moved out the door, as the mass of people and equipment progressed down the hall, and as the elevator devoured the bed, patient, and caregivers. As the elevator door closed, chest compressions had started again.

Ricky said, “Let’s wander down in that direction to keep up on the news.”

“What?” Josh said.

“I know where they are going, and we can get there by the back stairs. That way we can keep up on the news.”

“This seems like a last-ditch effort,” Josh said. “What chance of success do you suppose it has?”

Ricky shrugged. “I don’t know. But doing nothing won’t help. We discussed that at Padilla’s the other night. If you don’t take action, you’re accepting failure.” By now, Ricky was marching at a brisk pace. Josh didn’t see the stairway before Josh ducked into it, making him spin to retrace a few steps to follow.

Ricky seemed to fly down the steps, two at a time. Josh would never have been able to select the correct door to exit the stairway since there were identical doors on every landing, and some had two. Ricky selected one of the least obvious and exited. After several hallway turns, Josh now completely lost, Ricky ushered him into a tiny waiting room that had only about six chairs.

“I wish I had dropped pebbles or crumbs,” Josh said. “There is no way I could be back to Labor and Delivery without help.”