Chapter 38: Many Visitors

Thursday, October 31, 1985

Some unknown amount of time later, consciousness returned. With it came annoyance at the bright lights I was staring directly into.

A quick check revealed that my muscles seemed to all be working. That was much better than the other time, where I’d suffered from some temporary paralysis. I didn’t feel any particular pain, though the tube in my throat sucked every bit as much as it did the first time.

A nurse smiled at me and said she would get Dr. Keller. I only belatedly noticed that she was quite pretty, which probably said something for how drugged I still was.

While I was waiting, I spotted a clock on the wall. Since it said five-fifteen, I took a guess and assumed this was now Thursday morning. That made sense. With everything that had gone on I wasn’t sure exactly when I had started surgery, but it seemed reasonable that this was the next morning.

Dr. Keller turned up a few minutes later. He told me the surgery had gone well and they’d gotten all of the appendix. It had leaked some fluid, so they had a drain set up and had me on intravenous antibiotics. That all sounded much more familiar than it should have, so I tried to look like this wasn’t something I’d done before.

The throat tube would fortunately go away within a few hours. I hadn’t been nearly as lucky in my first life.

He left, and I wound up falling asleep again. That was probably for the best, all things considered.

They roused me just after seven, according to the clock, and pulled the throat tube — not the most fun thing in the world! I wound up waiting for a while longer — something about there not being an open bed in the ICU — but it wasn’t more than a couple of hours before they moved me.

A new doctor, Dr. Wilson, was my first visitor. After saying hello, she checked my incision, then said, “I had to make sure Kevin didn’t butcher you too much.”

“Will I still get the girls?” I said.

She snorted loudly and said, “From the looks of the group you have waiting for you, that’s probably not going to be an issue.”

I shrugged and said, “Most of them are gay.”

She laughed again at that.

“I shouldn’t laugh, since you shouldn’t laugh either. As little stress on the abdomen as possible for a little while, please.”

“I’ll do my best,” I said.

“Speaking of which: it’ll be at least a few days before we try solid food. Bumping your colon is inevitable in a surgery like this, and colons tend to resent that and take it out on you by shutting down for a bit.”

“Not nice of them, but I’ll manage.”

She smiled, then said, “I think we’ll have you back in class within one to two weeks. Except for any P.E. classes. Those are out for the semester.”

“My martial arts instructor will be annoyed, but I’m sure she’ll understand.”

“She had better! That would be particularly out!”

“I figured as much,” I said.

“The big thing is making sure you don’t need the antibiotics. We won’t even try removing them for several days.”

“Again, I’ll manage.”

“We expect to move you to a normal room this afternoon. After that, we’re going to try to get you up and walking either late today or early tomorrow. Moving is important. Not falling is also important! Falling is on the list of no-nos.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“There are a lot of people waiting to talk to you,” she said. “They’ll probably take my head off if I don’t let them in. Anything you need before I turn you over to your fan club? Any pain that needs attention?”

I shrugged and said, “Really, I’m doing ... about as well as can be expected. Probably better. No real pain to speak of right now. If I think of anything, I’ll let someone know.”

“Please do!”

With that, she left.

Unsurprisingly, Mom and Dad were my first visitors, arriving just a couple of minutes later. When they came in, Mom was crying, and said, “Oh, Steve! We were so worried!”

“I’m fine, Mom,” I said.

“You nearly died!”

“Honestly ... the truck was probably closer, at least in theory,” I said.

That threw her for a loop, which was my goal. She fussed a bit about the truck, then said, “Well ... I see your point. Still, this one actually has you in the hospital for real!”

“Dr. Keller was clear that he got the whole thing out. I’ll need some rest and recovery, and antibiotics for a while, but it should be fine.”

Dad finally spoke, saying, “We were very worried, but Angie calmed us down.”

“Honestly, your drive up here might have been more dangerous than my surgery,” I said.

Dad chuckled and said, “I don’t think about it that way, usually, but you do have a point.”

“It’s good to see you,” I said. “We really didn’t want you to have a frantic drive up here...”

“Angie made that clear!” Mom said.

“ ... but ... well, normally we’ll try to meet under better circumstances.”

“You can say that again!” Dad said, but he was chuckling.

“At least this can’t go wrong again,” I said.

Dad’s face turned solemn.

“I had a customer, Marty Tucker, whose appendix ruptured. That was back in 1977. He ... died. Just ... they took him back to surgery, and they got it out, but ... he never regained consciousness, after. Too much infection, they said. It knocked him into a coma, and he passed away two days later.”

While I hadn’t known the name, I knew the story. Since I shouldn’t have known it, though, I nodded along and pretended it was all new to me.

“I kept thinking about Marty during the drive. I knew this wasn’t the same, but ... well. He was a great guy, and ... just gone.”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I said.

He shook his head.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. From what I hear, you did everything right, pretty much. It’s just ... sometimes life goes away suddenly, and you have so much to live for.”

“I plan on living a long and happy life, Dad,” I said. “Sometimes it seems like life wants me to have a few bumps along the way...”

Both of them smiled a bit at that.

“But I’ll get through them. I do have so much to live for, and I know it. I plan on being a model patient, getting better, and then getting back to my regularly scheduled life.”

Mom chuckled a bit at that.

“Good luck with that!” she said. “Life has a way of changing all of your plans.”

Don’t I know it, Mom. Don’t I know it so well!

We talked for a bit longer. Really, they just needed to be reassured that I was fine, and I was.

After perhaps fifteen minutes, Dad said, “You have a lot of other visitors waiting, so we’ll go back out to the waiting room. I’m sure we’ll see you later today, but I’ll let you know now that we’re staying in town tonight. Assuming everything is still looking good tomorrow, we’ll go back to Houston in the afternoon after we visit.”

“That sounds good,” I said.

We exchanged somewhat awkward hugs, with me not being able to move very much, and they headed out.

Jas was my next visitor. My hug with her was no less awkward, but the kiss was really fairly good.

“I was really worried!” she said.

“I’m sorry, honey,” I said.

She smiled.

“Not your fault! You did the best you could. It’s just ... you know...”

She paused, looked around, peeked outside the curtain that served as a door to my section of the ICU, and finally said, “Maybe ... well, maybe the universe decided your borrowed time was up or something.”

“I’ve thought that myself,” I said. “More than once. But ... I don’t know. I just ... well, that feels wrong.”

“It does to me, too. I just don’t want to be wrong about that.”

“Me neither. We have so many plans.”

“So many!” she said, smiling.

“We’ll talk more later, but ... this is maybe just reality catching up with me.”

She nodded.

“Angie said that, too, pretty much. Freaky, but ... yeah.”

“I love you,” I said.

She sniffled, then said, “I love you so much! That’s ... the whole thing. It’s scary because ... we have so much to lose.”

“And so much to gain.”

“So much!”

She hugged me, which was followed by an even better kiss.

After that, she said, “Oh! I should tell you. I talked to Amy and she’s fine. It was ... good. I like her. I mean ... I liked her before but I like her more now. She’s cool, and different, and ... well, I think you two dating is really good. Anyway, she’s going to come by, I think. She was a little noncommittal about when, but I think she’s going to.”

“Thanks, honey,” I said.

She grinned, then said, “Okay! I’d better let Angie talk to you. She’s ... I mean, she’s fine, but ... if anyone...”

She paused, then said, “Well ... you know.”

“I know,” I said, nodding.

“See you soon!”

“You, too!”

Angie came in, sighed, and said, “I knew you’d be fine, and I was still just so worried.”

“I had my moments,” I said, nodding.

“Stupid universe! I feel like it’s yanking your chain. Max, the car wreck, the truck, this...”