Chapter 4: Of Pain and Suffering

Rhabdomyolysis is a condition caused by damage to the skeletal muscles in the body after significant injury—in my case, prolonged exposure to an electrical current which caused the rapid degradation and breakdown of muscle fibers into toxic components such as excess potassium, phosphate, myoglobin, lactic and uric acids. When the kidneys cannot clear the toxins from your blood, they can build up and lead to even greater complications such as renal failure and sepsis.

I awoke lying in a hospital bed under subdued lighting. Simply put—I felt like double hammered dog-shit! My entire body hurt and I had a hard time clearing my mind to take stock of my situation. I was alive, however. I may have been wishing that weren’t the case at the moment, but I figured that was a mark in the ‘plus’ column.

I moved my head slightly to the left and right and was able to focus on my surroundings a bit. There was a big machine parked beside my bed, connected to several large tubes going into the right side of my neck. It had large clear bags of fluid hanging from it and made a constant whirring noise. Several IVs were hanging on a pole full of smaller boxes, each of them feeding into another IV in my left arm.

There was a small woman seated next to the whirring machine, typing into a tablet as she reviewed the dials and numbers displayed across it. She turned and smiled at me when she sensed my movement. “Well hello stranger,” she greeted pleasantly, “welcome back to the land of the living.”

What do you say to that? ‘Gee thanks, glad to be back.’ ‘Ugh please just put me in the ground and cover me back up.’ No profound words came to mind so instead, I went total Forest Gump.

“I really gotta pee!” My voice was harsh and my jaw hurt when I spoke.

“I’m sure dear heart,” she replied with a southern accent, “you have a catheter going into your bladder right now and all your urine is draining into a bag on the side of your bed.”

“What happened?” I tried to touch my face but she gently reached over and pulled my arm back down, “how long...”

“Try not to move this arm too much,” she said gently, “you are getting a lot of medications right now.” She patted my hand and then placed a moist washcloth over my face to gently rub my eyes and cheeks. God, that felt so good! “As for what happened, I don’t know the full story, but it’s a small hospital and people talk. I was in the ER when you were brought in by a small army of cops and firefighters.” She rinsed the washcloth then folded it and placed it across my brow. “You were in pretty bad shape. That was two days ago.”

Two days?

“Are you in pain hon?” she asked reaching for my call light to press the button. Moments later another cheery fresh nurse in dark red scrubs came into the room. She wore her hair up in a tight ponytail and stood over my bed like an angel.

“Well, hi there,” she said brightly, “I’m Janice your nurse. How are you feeling Mr. Davis?” Her voice was almost musical and belied her age.

“Just Carter,” I said swallowing painfully, “I can’t think of anything that doesn’t hurt.”

She reached up to one of the pumps below my IVs and pressed a few buttons before handing me a button. “This is your pain button,” she informed me as she pushed it. I could hear a quiet beep nearby. “When you are hurting, all you have to do is push it once and you will receive a dose of Dilaudid. It will only let you receive the drug every so often so mashing on it repeatedly won’t help any.”

I tried to concentrate on what she was saying but I was suddenly swept up in a warm fuzzy sense of ... oh this is good! Real good.

She must have recognized my blissful expression because she gave me a knowing grin and disappeared from my life before I could propose to her. I looked instead to the other lady who was monitoring the big whirring machine.

She glanced up at me and smiled, “Better now?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“Good. We are almost done here,” she added, “the doctors will be rounding soon and they can fill you in better on how you are doing.”

“Mmmhmm.” I agreed and faded back into oblivion.

When I awoke again, I found myself looking at the decidedly unpleasant expression on Kevin’s face as he glowered at me.

“Hey there Kev...”

“You stupid, dumb-ass, brain-dead, mother fucking idiot!” he snarled at me under his breath.

Well, that was rather harsh!

“Could you have tried any fucking harder to get yourself killed?”

I shrugged, at a loss for words under his verbal assault. “Well ... in retrospect...”

“I used to think you were one of the smartest people on the planet!” he snapped and began pacing beside my bed.

Wow, where did all those flowers come from? There were tables all about my room covered with vases, cards, and balloons.

“How could you be so goddamn stupid?” he continued, “Do you have any idea how close you came to fucking dying?”

“It was admittedly not one of my better plans,” I mumbled looking about for my little button of awesomeness.

Kevin snatched it out of my hand. “Uh huh!” he growled, “you can lay there and suffer. I’m not done telling you what a stupid ignorant, and complete Fuck-wit you are!” he waved it around menacingly. “And then I’m gonna let Rachel have at you! Do you have any idea how upset she is?”

I felt a chill at that. Was it too late to just die right here? “She, okay?”

“No, she’s not okay! She’s fucking pissed. You almost cost our baby its Godfather!” He suddenly deflated and collapsed into a chair beside my bed. He tossed the pain button onto my lap. “Jesus Carter! You have no idea how much your stupid little stunt fucked her up. I thought she might miscarry for a while.”

I swallowed and closed my eyes to hide the guilt that suddenly crept up to my face. ‘Way to go fool. You really fucked this one up. And you were warned.’

I heard him sigh quietly and I felt even worse when I saw the pain in his face. “I’m sorry.”

He met my gaze for a second and then just looked down resigned. “You got a couple packages from Sam,” he said quietly pointing to a bedside table on the left side of my bed. I saw a brand-new laptop computer and a slim cellphone, both plugged into chargers.

“They raided your place and took your old computer and several files. We recovered most of it but the computer mysteriously caught fire when they tried to force their way into it.” He snorted, “That is how we found you. It caused the building they were holding you in to go up, and they had police and fire units surrounding them before they knew it.”

“What happened to them?”

“Oh, we got every one of them,” he gloated, “even the undersheriff. He tried to bluster his way out of it saying he was investigating your involvement with the traffickers. When that failed, he started throwing his cohorts under the bus, suggesting he never authorized your arrest or the use of excessive force.” He had that gleam in his eye that I recognized whenever he had an open and shut case. “They have been moved to Halsy County detention since their arraignment,” the next county over, “and they are all being held without bail.”