Chapter 34

We had two weeks of locations filming, the first was up in Whistler, where we filmed all the winter scenes, although a lot of the snow scenes were also being filmed by the second unit director in Chicago itself. But part of the week would be documenting a family skiing trip, including my character’s comical attempts at staying upright and part of it to film outdoor scenes in the snow. Either way, it made a pleasant change from the dull wet Vancouver winter. The second week was in a local school, Kitsilano Secondary School, which was undergoing some building works and it gave us a recently vacated building to use. We even used the students at the school in some of the shots. We younger cast members went without our Friday off during those two weeks, but we did get three days of education the following week. In my case, it was pretty much the tutors just checking through the work I’d done on my own and pointing out any errors, with tips on how to do it right.

Sandy continued to improve and the strength in her leg and arm muscles seemed to be coming back, her only problem seemed to be the occasional migraine. On those days, she stayed at home and I grabbed one of the production runners if I needed anything.

January became February and February became March and despite our rocky start, Brendan proved himself to be a decent director. We weren’t ever going to become friends, but we had a comfortable working relationship. It was March the twenty-eighth, a Wednesday. At breakfast, Sandy was complaining of a headache so I left her at home and got a taxi into the studio. I was doing a scene between my character and his grandparents which was actually much funnier when performed than it looked on paper. They had read a school report and thought it was mine when it was an old one of my Dad’s. Brendan had just called “Cut” when Jessica, the runner who was looking after me came running onto the set with my phone in her hand.

“David,” she said, “you must phone Maria, she says it’s urgent.”

I took the phone from her, stepped away from the rest of the crew and dialled the number of the house. There was no reply, so I tried Maria’s mobile number.

She answered almost before the first ring had finished.

“David,” she said, her voice shrill, “we’re at the hospital, you must come.”

“Maria, calm down,” I said, “which hospital? Kostas’s?”

“Yes,” she said, “he and his team are with her, you must come.”

I didn’t know what to say, I just blurted out, “OK, I’m on my way. But, what’s happened.”

“We were in the kitchen talking and she suddenly went quiet and then she fell onto the floor.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

We hung up and I went back to the rest of the crew.

“Sorry folks, there’s an emergency, Sandy’s been taken to hospital and I need to go,” I said.

“Where is she?” Brandon asked.

“Vancouver General,” I replied.

“I’ll take you,” Alison said, “I think my car’s nearest.”

“Thanks, Alison,” I replied and we headed for the exit.

“What’s happened?” she asked.

“I don’t really know, her Mum said she collapsed in the kitchen,” I replied.

We made it to the hospital quickly and as I got out she passed me a slip of paper.

“If you need a lift home later, call me,” she said, “and don’t let her mother drive. Call me.”

“Thank you, I will,” I said.

“No matter what time,” she said.

“I’ll let you know when I know something,” I said, “if I need to stay here, can you let Brendan know tomorrow?”

“Of course,” she said, “now go, you’re no use out here.”

“I’ll probably be no use in there,” I said.

“You’ll be there,” she said, “that will be enough.”

I turned and walked into the hospital where there was a reception desk. I asked the girl behind it where I would find Sandra Dunham.

“Are you a relative?” she asked.

“No,” I replied, “I’m her boyfriend.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t give you that information without the permission of her next of kin.”

I turned around, furious and then a thought struck me.

“Dr Kostas Papadopoulos,” I said, “could you get a message to him, tell him that David is here?”

“He’s probably with a patient,” she said.

“And don’t doctors here have pagers?” I asked.

“Yes, of course they do,” she replied.

“Then please page him, I’ll wait until he’s free.”

I walked across to the waiting area and took a seat. It was nearly half an hour, but both Kostas and Maria emerged from a doorway and walked over to me.

“How is she?” I asked Kostas.

“I’ll not lie to you David, not good. She’s in a coma and on a life-support machine,” he replied, “there’s little any of us can do but watch and wait.”

“Can I see her?” I asked.

“Soon,” he said, “we’re just moving her to intensive care, then you can go in.”

It was another twenty minutes after he left us before a nurse came out and led us to the Intensive care unit and to a room with a small figure in the middle of a hospital bed. She looked so small, so vulnerable, lying there unconscious, the only noise in the room the regular beep of the heart monitor and the swoosh of the ventilator, breathing for her.

I sat on the chair beside the bed and took her hand in mine, bringing it to my mouth and kissing it. Maria took the other chair on the other side of the bed and Kostas came in and stood at the foot of the bed.

“Isn’t there anything that can be done?” I asked him.

“We can only wait,” he said, “the machines are keeping her body alive, but, the biggest risk is that her brain will cease functioning. Only time will tell.”

“Well, thanks for not sugar coating the pill, Kostas,” I said, “I know you’ve all done your best and I.”

I couldn’t carry on. I stood up.

Then Kostas surprised me. He came round the bed and enveloped me in a hug.”We’ll do our best, David,” he said gently, “but you have to realise that sometimes
even that is not enough.”

“I know you will,” I replied, “I just hope you can pull off a miracle.”

“We’ll try,” he answered, “but, David, I hate to sound cold and clinical, but you have to prepare for the worst.”

“No, I don’t,” I spat back at him, “I have to hope for the best.”

“David,” he said, “I know exactly how you’re feeling right now.”

“No you don’t,” I said sharply, “all of you doctors always say that, you have no idea.”

“David,” Maria said from across the bed, “Kostas had exactly the same decision four years ago when his wife was ill.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said, “I’m sorry. How did you handle it?”

“Badly,” he replied, “despite what I do for a living, my first thought was no, I want to keep her with me. Then I realised that what was most important was my wife and what sort of a life would she have if by some miracle she came back from the dead. And make no mistake, David, she was dead. Her brain had stopped functioning completely. Now, Sandy isn’t at that stage, but she may get there. To be brutally honest it’s virtually certain that she will and within the next few days. What you and Maria have to do and David it really is both of you, although the law says we can only accept instructions from Maria in this case.”

“Then in that case, what’s the point of my being involved?” I asked, “If I decide one way and Maria decides the other, what I think doesn’t matter anyway does it?”

“Of course it matters David, it’s a decision that we’ll make together,” she replied, “and under the circumstances, I think it would be appropriate for you to have the casting vote.”

I looked at her, saw the hurt and worry on her face and took a deep breath.

“How long do we have to make a decision?” I asked.

“All the time that you need,” he replied, “if we reach the point of no return, then we can keep her body alive indefinitely to give you the time.”

“I think it’s time we went home, David,” Maria said, “we need to talk. And you need to eat and shower.”

“I want to stay here,” I said, “to be with Sandy.”

“David,” Maria said, “starving yourself and stinking like a tramp won’t do anything for Sandy, the only ones that can do anything for her now are the doctors and.”

She stopped and turned her face upwards.

“and I’m no longer certain about the second,” she finished, “and we need to talk, but not here, not in this room not in this place, at home.”

“I don’t want to leave her,” I said, “what if?”

Kostas cut me off.

“David,” he asked, “in what way will you neglecting yourself, not eating, not bathing, just aimlessly sitting here for days on end, help Sandy?”

“It won’t,” I admitted, “but it will help me. I’ll feel like I’m doing something, even if it’s only being here and holding her hand.”

“David,” Kostas said, as gently as he could, “you may have a much more important function in the coming days.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“You may find that, even as you suffer your own grief and sense of loss, someone is going to have to be there for Maria,” he said, “and I’m afraid that while I’ll do everything I can, that is going to have to be you.”

I had no counterargument.

“I understand Kostas,” I said, “I just don’t understand why.”

“Nobody does, son,” he said, as he put a hand on my shoulder, “least of all us doctors. In my career I’ve had dozens of cases of patients coming in with serious problems, we bring them around, they seem to be on the mend and then bam, they’re gone, no warning.”

He clicked his fingers to emphasize the ‘bam’.

“It just seems so, so unfair,” I said, tears welling in my eyes.

“It is, David,” he said, “not much in this life is fair when you analyse it.”

“So what can we do?” I asked.

“Wait, hope, pray,” he replied.

I waited. For three days I sat at the side of that bed, only leaving to go to the toilet or shower. The staff were brilliant, every mealtime someone would bring me something up from the staff restaurant, Maria came in every morning and brought me fresh clothes, stayed for the day and left at night. We had visits from people from the show and the studio. They were filming all the scenes that I didn’t appear in or using a double to film scenes from the back of ‘me’.

During that time I held Sandy’s limp hand in mine, unwilling and unable to let go, willing her back to me.

On the third day, the EEG technician came in as usual around five pm, said hello and went about his business. He was there for about twenty minutes and I used it to go and get myself a take-away coffee from the coffee shop.

He was just packing up when I arrived back and Maria arrived just after me, bearing my dinner on a tray.

“You’re getting to be a legend around here,” she said as she put the tray down on the table by the window.

“Eat,” she commanded.

“What do you mean a legend?” I asked.

“The gossip in the cafeteria is all about the boy in room 217B and his dedication to his girlfriend. All the nurses are wishing they had a boyfriend like that.”

“I’d swap any of them for Sandy right now,” I said, “them in here, her out there gossiping.”

“No you wouldn’t,” she said, “think David, what you’re going through right now. Think about what I am. You wouldn’t wish that on another girl’s boyfriend, another girl’s mother would you?”

I looked at her. My heart was screaming yes I would, but my mind said no. I wouldn’t want anybody to suffer this anguish. That was when the tears started to flow.

And Maria held me in her arms and let them.

When the tears stopped flowing and the sobs stopped racking my body.

“David,” she said, almost in a whisper, “you’re worn out. You’re not sleeping properly; you’re not eating properly and you’re definitely not washing properly. Tonight, you’re going home, you’re going to get a proper dinner, not that muck on the plate there and you’re going to sleep. And you’re not to set an alarm.”

“But,” I began.

“No buts,” she said, “when you came over to do this your parents gave me a letter authorising me to act in loco parentis. I’m invoking that letter now. You will go home. Or I will call your mother.”

“All right,” I said, weariness overcoming me, “I’ll go, but I don’t think I’ll sleep.”

“Good,” she said, “just try.”

Then she took out her phone.

“I’m doing as you say, there’s no need to ring my Mum,” I protested.

“I’m not,” she said, “I’m calling Theo. He’s off shift in half an hour. He’ll come and pick you up, take you out and get you a proper meal then take you home. You’ll have to take a cab in tomorrow.”