Dancing with Death, Susan Engel [novels to read in english txt] 📗

The nausea was still present, but not as strong as the night before. The diffuse abdominal pain, rather than the nausea, had the majority of my attention now. I did, however, manage to scrounge up a few crackers and some water in the kitchen, force them down, and inched my way toward the living room couch.
I teetered and tottered about slowly, hunched over because standing up straight caused excruciating pain in my belly and back. I got winded easily, too, for some reason … Not good signs for an otherwise healthy 33 year-old woman. But I had stubbornly entrenched myself in denial about Death’s dance call. I sincerely did not want to die this time! So … I tried to brush off His advances by ignoring Him.
While lying on the couch that morning, watching TV and trying to force down a few more crackers, I dropped the TV remote on my stomach. Death then tried to shove His hand in mine to dance.
The pain was excruciating – like nothing I’d felt before (and I’ve had a number of surgeries in the past). My vision went pitch black except for some bolts of bright white, blue, green, and blue light which flashed before my narrowly-opened eyes. A four-letter word suddenly made its way to the back of my throat, but never materialized because I just as rapidly inhaled it back in at that moment. All went black.
Milliseconds (which felt like minutes) later, my living room slowly reappeared like a “fade-in” to a movie. What the hell was that?!? I thought. That annoying little gnatty voice grew a little louder, “This is bad, Sue. Very bad.” Okay – I got the hint. Time to get back to bed. All the way back to my bedroom, I tried to convince myself and that drat little voice that it really was just bad gas, or GI distress, or something …
It took me nearly 10 minutes to get back to my bed. I inched across the wall, slowly, hunched over like a 95 year-old lady whose head you can’t see as you walk behind her because her upper back was so contorted. One hand guarded my abdomen and the other hand alternately grasped at the wall, then the furniture, back to the wall, then the door frame, as I finally made my way back to the bedroom.
Some time had passed and I hoped that my husband would be home soon. Did I think to call him and tell him what happened to me on the couch? Or how winded and pain-wracked I was becoming? Oh, no. Of course not! It was just bad gas, after all. It couldn’t be … that. No way. You see? Still, there is no blood!
On one of my trips to the bathroom that morning, I lost my balance. I was getting out of bed and didn’t have my foot squarely underneath me. I remember slowly tipping backward, desperately trying to find my balance, but it was of no use – I went down.
The whole incident felt like it took hours, but surely it was a manner of seconds. It seems like reality tends to slow down when death is near. I don’t remember hitting the floor. All I recall was opening my eyes and wondering why on earth I was lying on the floor! I wasn’t drunk or high at the time. Nope – I’d been clean and sober for a solid 10 months by then. I was randomly drug-tested an average of twice per month in the recovery program I was in to prove it. So how on God’s earth did I end up on the floor?
That damn little gritty voice wasn’t so little now. “This is serious, Sue! You do not faint!” And that blasted little voice was right. I had never, ever fainted before. In the past, I’ve had my fair share of moments of “passing out” in some rather unflattering ways while under the influence, but I’d never truly fainted. I had seen some extremely gory things in the operating room in the past, but I’d never fainted. But strangely, at that moment I remember a fleeting sense of relief – the relief that came when I let my heavily-armored ego lay down her weapon. I finally acknowledged that I was in some serious trouble.
Shortly thereafter, I heard my husband bounce in from church, still high on the fellowship there. He looked dapper in his button-down, long-sleeve shirt and colorful tie. His face fell as he walked into the bedroom.
I confessed what had happened. I told him that I had fainted twice from abdominal pain while he was gone. In so doing, I relinquished my façade about the severity of the pain. I quietly but urgently said, “I need to go to the hospital now.”
My husband quickly picked up the bedside telephone and called the Ob/Gyn department at Kaiser hospital. I heard him talk, but didn’t hear what he said. After he hung up, I pleaded with him, “What?” I wanted to know what they said. I was in some serious trouble, dammit!
He looked at me briefly and hurriedly said, “They told me to call the Emergency Department.”
More dialing, more talking. I couldn’t make out either side of the conversation. Again, I pleaded, “What!?!”
He hung up the phone and said, “They want me to bring you to the ER at Kaiser.”
I put my pride aside and truthfully said, “I can’t walk to the car, hon. I need a chair or something. The rolling chair from the office …?” It was the next best thing to a wheelchair, I figured.
He rolled the chair from our office into our bedroom and set it at the foot of our bed. He left it at the footboard because there wasn’t enough room for the chair to get between the wall and the bed – the arms on the chair were too wide.
I saw that I was going to have to crawl to the end of the bed in order to get to the chair, so I began moving slowly toward the end of the bed when …all went black.
“Susan? Susan!” I heard an urgent voice – my husband’s – fading in. Everything was still black. At the same time that I heard my name, I felt my tongue maneuvering in my mouth, as if trying to spit something out … Blechhhhh!
The grainy bedroom floor faded into view. A small white trash can had been thrust in my face. I was lying on my side … on the wood floor.
“Susan?!”
I heard my husband’s voice again, more sternly this time. “Susan!!” he said with authority.
My eyes widened. I spit out a piece of … what? Chewed up cracker? … into the white trash can. Blechhhh!
There was his voice again. “Susan!! Can you hear me?” He had been holding the trash can in front of my face as I lay on the floor.
I whispered a reply as I did not have enough air to talk, “Call 911.” I didn’t know if he heard me.
The trash can was pulled away, and there was a washcloth dabbing at my mouth. Then I saw my husband’s hand and face. It all came into view as if I was in some surreal state. “Oh, shit!” I thought. This is bad! Help me! Somebody … help me! I cried silently and tearlessly.
Next I heard my husband’s voice – he was talking on the phone again. His voice held a tension that I had never heard before. “Call 911!” I cried out silently as I drifted in and out of consciousness. At that moment, I felt a strange yet comforting sense of release. The pain was still excruciating beyond description – it felt like my innards were being ripped out of me while I was still conscious. I felt Death’s determination to have its last dance with me.
But there was that peculiar sense of release in it all. That release in giving up the fight. Letting go of my obstinate, perverse desire for control. I closed my eyes.
My husband suddenly appeared at my feet, standing over me, holding the telephone.
“Who did you call?” I whispered.
He told me that he’d called the ER department at Kaiser and reported what had happened. “They told me to call 911,” he said as he began dialing.
“Yes! Yes!” I thought as I tried to stay in reality. “How come I’m down here?” I whispered to my husband. The last thing I remembered doing was crawling on my bed toward the office chair at the foot.
My husband said, “You passed out. As soon as you sat in the chair, you passed out and vomited. I got you to the floor.” There was that odd tension again in his voice.
“Oh …” I said. Actually, I don’t know if I actually uttered any sound – I didn’t seem to have a lot of energy to talk. At best, I could whisper.
The paramedics arrived faster than I thought. Within 5 minutes, I wagered. I heard that all-too-familiar wail coming up our street, then abruptly stop in front of my house. I lived a block and a half from the local university hospital and my street was one of the only direct paths to it, so the screaming of sirens at all hours was common. Normally, I would’ve been embarrassed if they had stopped in front of my house. But not today. Today, I had a new gratitude for that siren’s normally obnoxious blare.
Next, I heard clomping of heavy shoes on my wood floor. No one could sneak around in my house with its squeaky 1920’s wood flooring. Clomp, clomp, clomp.
Suddenly, my small bedroom was very busy. I heard several voices – a male and a female – perhaps 2 males and a female. I wasn’t sure because I never saw any distinct faces – I only heard terse exchanges of words.