Chapter 13: Am I Dead?

The sun shone through the window when I woke up, and I still felt a little buzzed. I made a trip to the bathroom, did my morning business, and on the way back to bed, I locked the bedroom door.

“Liz, are you awake?” I poked her in the back.

“Wake up, Sunshine, or I will give you a Wet Willy.” She growled and rolled over and bit me gently on the arm. “We need to get back home to pack for our vacation.”

“Hooray, road trip. Riding topless, getting drunk, and fucking in the back seat.”

“Now, Lizzy, we’re going to explore our country, like the couple in that ‘Simon and Garfunkel’ song.”

She threw the covers back and launched herself at me, almost knocking me over. I caught her, but the look on her face scared me; it was an evil look.

“NEVER, ever, call me that again. If you want to live a long life with me, never even say that name again. And I mean it!” She ripped herself away from me and stomped into the bathroom.

My right eye was throbbing, my mind went blank, and my hands and legs were numb. I stumbled out of the bedroom and somehow made it through the front door undetected and found myself on the sidewalk in front of the house, walking barefoot in my boxers and a t-shirt. I felt like I was floating above, watching my body stagger down the sidewalk. I didn’t stop walking until I came to the elementary school I once attended. The last thing I remembered was sitting on a swing.

I was dreaming; images of Liz and my family swirled in my mind, and I heard their voices mixed with strange ones. Then I walked with Liz beside me, and Ruth on my other side, each holding a hand, and Liz disappeared, and Ruth vanished a moment later, and I was in bed alone. Everything turned gray, I heard Liz say my name, and I reached for her, but she wasn’t there, and I heard rhythmic beeping that changed to a faster-paced tone. A hand pressed on my left wrist; then, someone squeezed my upper arm hard enough to hurt.

“Marty. Can you hear me?”

It was a woman’s voice, but I didn’t know her. I felt another presence near me, and the female voice whispered, “ ... level 97, pulse 48, ... over 70.”

I heard another voice, “Marty, are you awake?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m Doctor Montgomery, the neurosurgeon who operated on you.”

“Neuro who? What happened? I can’t see.”

“Marty, let me check you out, and I’ll answer all your questions.”

I felt him pressing something cold against my chest, a stethoscope?

“Take a deep breath.”

I did, and it hurt.

“Again.”

It hurt a little less.

Somebody lifted me into a sitting position, and the doctor repeated his deep breath command three times. The last deep breath barely hurt at all. Then I felt thumping on my back.

“Nurse? Could you turn out the lights and close the curtains?”

I heard a woman’s steps, a click, more steps, and a swoosh.

“Marty, Your eyes are covered because you were bleeding around the right optic nerve in your brain. So, keep them closed as I unwrap the bandages.”

I did, and when I felt something come off my eyelids, the doctor said, “Marty, when you open your eyes, don’t try to focus; relax and let them adjust to the light. Now open your eyes slowly.”

So, being a good patient and scared shitless, I followed directions. I saw the light covered by clouds that were slowly melting away. Liz’s face was the first thing I could identify; her mascara had run down her cheeks, her eyes were red, and she had snot dripping from her nose. With her lips quivering, she held herself to keep from shaking.

The doctor blocked my view, “Marty, I’m going to look in your eyes through this,” and he held up this black device he called some long name beginning with O and ending in scope.

He ran me through some eye drills; follow his finger left to right and up and down, then close one eye and look at the eye chart and a couple of others.

“Doc, my eyes are sore.”

“Close your eyes, Marty. I don’t want to give you a headache. Your eyes look good, the right eye looks normal, and I think your vision will make a full recovery. Now, as to your question, what happened? You had an aneurysm, a bulge in a vein in your brain, nine centimeters from your eye that ruptured. It bled into your brain and put pressure on the right optic nerve and the frontal lobe. Marty, you were very fortunate that your father and fiancée found you quickly and got you to the hospital. Your mother knew I was in town for a hospital benefit and called me, and the aneurysm was in a perfect spot to access and repair. Most neuro-surgeons can repair brain aneurysms, but the only other surgeon available within 50 miles was in an operating room in Columbia. Time was the critical element to save the vision in your right eye and possibly your life, and we had you in the CT scanner and on the operating table within ninety minutes of you being found, sitting on a swing.”

I was tired and didn’t understand everything, but I understood full recovery.

“This aneurysm has been in your brain for a long time, and you probably had a spike in your pulse and blood pressure that caused it to rupture when it did. Have you ever had headaches or severe pain in that area?”