Read the full story, chapter by chapter here.
Some names and events have been changed to protect the identity of certain individuals.
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Chapter Nineteen
The Sound of a Heart Breaking
Chapter Nineteen
The Sound of a Heart Breaking
I burst through Grandma's bedroom door and she was on her knees crying, her good arm reaching around, holding her back in the same place as before. I couldn't imagine why her back hurt so bad. Had she fallen the day before? Maybe slipped in the shower?
I rushed to her side, adrenaline pumping through my body like I'd never before felt.
"Come on," I insisted. "Let's get you back into bed." I didn't want her to sleep now though. Now I knew this was different. This was an emergency. But I wanted her to at least be comfortable.
She hunched over, gasping as she still reached for her back.
And then it hit me. It wasn't the muscles in her back that were hurting. It was what was hidden deep beneath the muscles. The pain was coming from her heart.
"Kristine!" I screamed. "Call 911!"
Kristine darted down the hallway to wake up my uncle Fred, Paula having already left for work. Fred ran for the phone. Kristine looked too terrified to speak.
I helped Grandma up to her feet and she turned and smiled at me, pain still in her eyes as she clenched her teeth. Then, as if by some miracle she calmed down, relaxed and breathed a short sigh of what seemed to be momentary relief. I exhaled, almost ready to tell Fred not to worry about the ambulance. That she was okay now. But then her eyes rolled back into her head and her legs buckled to the floor.
She might have broken something, but I was close enough that I caught her midway. I screamed, "Grandma!" as I gently rested her head on the floor. Shouting loud enough hoping to wake her. She didn't move. "Grandma! No, no, no, no, no..." I gently tapped her face. "Wake up, wake up, wake up."
Her eyes opened for a split second, and I was given hope. But then, just like before, she faded away from me.
"Mom!!" I screamed.
No sign of life. I didn't think to check if she was breathing. I didn't check her pulse. I didn't know how. I was only fifteen years old. All I knew was that the closest thing I ever had to a real mother had possibly died in my arms. Died and I might have prevented it had I not shooed her back to bed hours earlier.
I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't hear Fred in the other room calling 911, telling them to hurry. I couldn't hear Kristine crying in the corner, gripping her hands around the door frame to keep them from shaking. The silence in my head was deafening.
I could feel the tears coming. Ready to burst through.
"Not yet." I said stubbornly. I pulled my hand back and slapped her across the face as hard as I could.
Her eyes opened immediately and she gasped one large breath.
"Grandma!?" I shrieked. She reached up, trying to hold onto me, but she was losing consciousness again - and fast.
"Stay here," I begged her. "Please, you have to stay." The tears finally came just as the paramedics crashed into the room and surrounded me. One helped me to stand and gently pushed me toward my sister, who dragged me out of the hallway in order to give them room to move.
When we arrived at the hospital, Paula was already there. Doctors danced around us as if we were inanimate objects in the room. Grandma regained consciousness, but whatever had happened had certainly taken something with it when it left. I sat by her side, her hand clenched tightly in my own. I was determined to keep her there with me, no matter what it took.
I wished Matt was there. I couldn't be strong forever, and when I eventually crumbled, I didn't think that anyone else could put me back together.
Paula took charge with the doctors, tossing out every bit of Grandma's medical history that she knew. Heart attack over ten years ago. Triple bypass, stroke, hernia, blood clots. She included all fifteen or so prescriptions she was currently taking. Pain killers, sleep aids, blood thinners.. the list went on.
"Aortic aneurysm." The young doctor diagnosed her. One of her medications had caused a problem. A medication that she shouldn't have been taking in the first place. She was supposed to have taken something else. Someone had made a mistake. Some pharmacy rep read a bottle incorrectly, and what was supposed to help her, ended up making everything worse.
"How can you fix it?" I asked, half unconscious.
"It's complicated. There's been a rupture." He said. Grandma's heart was leaking. That was all I heard. The natural plan would be surgery to repair it. But with the mixture of medications she had been on, blood thinners in particular, such action gave her very little chance of survival.
"How long?" I heard my aunt ask.
I didn't hear the answer, but Paula broke into Fred's arms and she made a sound I never want to hear again. The sound of a heart breaking. Of a piece of a soul dying. It was the sound of despair and emptiness.
"You can't go yet," Paula insisted as she walked back into the room, shutting the door behind her, leaving just the three of us there.
"Yeah, you once told me that you weren't gonna die until Debbie (my other living aunt) found happiness, Tiffany (my older sister) had babies, and I got married." I reminded her.
But Debbie had found happiness after she became a reborn Christian three years earlier.
And Tiffany had her first baby girl the summer before last.
Grandma turned and smiled at me, apologetically.
She wasn't going to be there when I got married. And she knew it.
1 comments:
Oh Jia, I can't even imagine. I know how hard it was when my Grandma died and she wasn't nearly the presence in my life that your Grandma was in yours.
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