Vanilla

Forty Nine

[Leroy]

"We're looking at the next ten hours in ICU... and depending on her condition within this period, psychological and physical assessments for post-coma treatment. Unfortunately, the heart attack caused a cardiogenic shock, then worsened into a cardiac arrest... we're in the middle of assessing any heart damage, but for now, her monitor is beeping."

The hospital was in the middle of a small town. It had been the only one I could afford. Monthly fees were basically ninety-percent of whatever it was my part-time job could cover. The emergency doctor on duty who'd come out to greet us, I'd recognized as the weekend doctor I would see making his rounds when I dropped by for Annie. In the end, I couldn't think of anything to say.

She'd pull through. She has to. I was left alone; she knows that. Permanent breathing and nutrient support had brought the numbers up to seven hundred a week but that was already hundreds less than half the price of the one closer to school and not once did I miss an opportunity to tell her 'wake the fuck up I want fried chicken.' She had to open her eyes eventually. She wasn't going to leave me behind.

"Is there anything else I can help you with?" The doctor was familiar and it made the whole process a lot more bearable. The real stranger was the one standing beside me. He asked if he could speak in private with the doctor, who turned my way.

"Yes but I think the patient's son has the right to hear everything. He's the one who has been picking up the patient's bill for the past year and visiting every week."

This had made the other parent pause—likely speechless—before going on to ask about the chances of Annie recovering completely and her being able to live as a normal person post-coma, during and after therapy.

The doctor explained. "Our nurses identified her as minimally conscious before the heart attack, which means that she wasn't in a vegetative state when she woke. Could speak, and move her fingers and eyelids. Whether or not she is capable of complete recovery would depend on the presence or absence of brain damage, and if positive, the extent of it. With the heart attack, like I said earlier, we're still in the middle of assessing the damage.

"If it's a concrete answer you want, it's... unlikely. Full recovery is unlikely. Judging from the immediate shock her body was in seconds after waking up, I'd say that her condition is generally unstable. As soon as things are looking on the brighter side, we will be doing the necessary assessments but... yes we're looking at months or even years of physiotherapy, occupational therapy and psychological assessment. The period of rehabilitation ranges from five months to the rest of the patient's lives."

"When's it gonna start?"

The doctor looked uneasy when I asked. He and the head nurse were the only ones aware of my problem with the bills. So they knew I wasn't going to be able to afford it. His smile was sorry.

"Leroy. I can't confirm if her condition will or will not destabilize. Her heart is weak and we're giving her all the support we can, but should her condition worsen, and further medical assistance be required... I might even have to advise transferring her to a bigger, better-equipped hospital." And we were to square one.

I thanked him as he left, starting to think about the numbers and summing without a calculator was honestly kind of hard so I mostly did them rounded up to as many zeroes as possible, avoiding headaches at seven in the morning. The worst part was trying to subtract that out of our savings before realizing that that the digits in the savings was overall two numbers less than the one on the imaginary bill and going into the negatives was just not helping.