Living Again

Living Again~ Thirty-Five

CHAPTER 35

I don't know how long I sat there against the door, hugging my knees to my chest, trying to ignore the pain. I just couldn't get myself to believe that my Grandma was dying. I should be prepared for this, I knew she was sick. But tears just kept pouring out uncontrollably. I was shaking. My entire body ached, I couldn't even get myself to stand up.

Time passed. Eventually I stopped crying, I just sat there staring into space, my face expressionless. I felt numb.

A knock on the door startled me back to life. I took a deep breath and stood up from my stiff position, I must have been sitting for a long time because my muscles ached when I tried to move. I opened the door to find Claire and Joe.

I don't know how bad my face looked right now, but I think it must look like Claire's. She had clearly been crying and her eyes were slightly swollen. Grandma is her mother after all. And I know how sad it is to lose your mother. I immediately went and hugged her, we both needed support right now. We just needed to hear that everything will be okay. More than that I wanted to go see her. I had to see her.

"Are we going to the hospital?" I asked them in a small voice.

Joe nodded, taking over the situation, I guess he had to keep it together for our sakes. We were both so messed up right now. He gestured for us to follow him and we went into the car, driving to the hospital in a rush.

My heart was beating so hard. Maybe it was because we were running towards the room we had been directed to. Maybe it was from the panic which had arisen within me. But when we reached the emergency room, I halted to catch my breath. She was in there. In the emeregency room. Surely this couldn't be good.

A nurse came out and told us to wait here, and that the doctor will see us shortly. I hate waiting. It makes me think of all the possibilities. And since I'm so pessimistic, all I could think was that she was going to die. I was going to lose her. It's like we just reunited and now she would leave me. Just like them.

We did as we were told, we waited. I leaned against the wall, trying to keep my body up, but eventually Joe insisted I sit down on one of the plastic chairs next to the door.

I kept fidgeting with my fingers, folding them, unfolding them. They had said 'shortly' the doctor would see us. But no one came for what felt like hours. My Gramma was just a few feet away from me, we were separated by the wall to the emergency room. Who knows what she was going through in there.

Finally the door opened and automatically our heads snapped towards it. A tired looking middle-aged man exited it and walked over to us saying, "You must be her family."

We all nodded eagerly. He sighed, "I'll need to talk to you in private."

He said this looking at the adults, ushering them to follow him, I went along too, no one tried to stop me.

The doctor entered a room which looked like his office, I was the last to go in so I closed the door behind us.

Aunt Marie and Claire sat down across the doctor while I stood behind them with Joe and Marie's husband. The doctor cleared his throat and began explaining Grandma's situation to us,

"We gave Ms. Peters an oxygen mask on the ambulance because her condition was pretty bad, when we got here we immediately started the thrombolysis treatment which helps to dissolve the clot that is blocking the artery."

Joe interrupted him impatiently, "but how is she now?"

"The operation was successful." Hearing those words I breathed out in relief, a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. But not for long because the doctor continued on to say, "however, I'm afraid there is some bad news too. Even though we managed to treat her in time, her body is extremely weak, she might only have a few days left. She's going to be admitted into the hospital for now, so we can run some tests and see if there's any improvement. But i'm not going to give you false hope, I'm sorry but I think you should go meet her and make the best if the time you have with her, her heart could stop beating any moment and our supplies will eventually stop working on her. I'm terribly sorry."