A Ticket Out of Life

Chapter Twenty-Five

The sound of rustling woke me from my sleep, and I looked sleepily over to my right and saw the nurse changing my fluids. She caught sight of me looking at her and she smiled down at me.

"Good morning," she says. "You were out all night. I was really surprised. I thought you would be up most of the night because of the pain. Looks like the medicine helped after all."

"What medicine?" I asked sleepily. I still felt like I could sleep some more and my head felt heavy.

"The one Dr. Wright gave you," she said smiling as she finished adjusting the IV. "It knocked you out and helped with the pain."

"He drugged me?" I muttered lazily and the nurse just laughed. She smiled kindly at me before clapping her hands together.

"Dr. Bryn is actually already here. I'll go fetch him for you while the medicine wears off." The nurse left and I kept blinking my eyes, trying to keep them from closing themselves. I finally gave up and closed my eyes again. They freaking drugged me, I thought. I heard the door open and I forced my eyes open to see Dr. Bryn walking over to me. He pulled up a chair and sat down by my bed side. I smiled at him; it was good to see a familiar face.

"How's my favorite patient?" Dr. Bryn asked.

"I'm drugged," I replied and he laughed.

"It'll wear off in a couple minutes. The pain will come back so you'll have to deal with it until he can give you another dose."

"I can deal with pain," I said sluggishly. If anything, pain is something I was used to tolerating.

"Ashley, what happened was no accident. What happened was that you coughed up part of your decaying kidney. It's time to remove the kidney."

"Is that's what's causing me so much pain?" I said as I tried to clear my senses.

"Yes it is. It started to decay rapidly," Dr. Bryn explained. "If you want the pain to go away, the kidney has to come out."

"Then take it out," I said as I started to regain my senses and I felt the pain slowly creeping up into my stomach again. My eyes widened as I realized what Dr. Bryn had said. "So the black thing I coughed up was my kidney!? That's nasty!"

"You are lucky you didn't choke on it," Dr. Bryn said eyeing me seriously. "Or cough up the entire kidney with it."

"Excuse me?" I said as I looked at him like he was insane.

"If part of the kidney came up, it means it was only a matter of time before the rest of it did. Your body was trying to get rid of the dying organ."

"Oh that's lovely," I said as I squeezed my eyes shut as the pain returned.

"I've set up the surgery for tomorrow morning. That gives you time to prepare, me time to file the paperwork, and make all the preparations. Can you hang on for another day?"

"Another day isn't going to hurt," I grumbled and Dr. Bryn just smiled at me.

"I'm proud of you for hanging on," he said quietly. "Margaret told me everything. Your family isn't taking this seriously."

"They never have, and they don't want too," I said as I looked down at the ground. Dr. Bryn patted my head and stood up.

"You have a visitor, so I'll send him in. I'll see you tomorrow morning." I smiled at Dr. Bryn as he left and I leaned back in the bed and closed my eyes. Why won't this pain leave me alone? I opened my eyes and gazed out the window into the busy city. A small smile spread across my lips as I thought about what Carrie and Lance might be doing. I looked down at the ground as terror formed in my stomach. If Lance hears about this, he'll explode. I sighed heavily. The door opened and I looked over and my heart dropped into my stomach. The universe really does love proving me wrong, I thought as I watched Lance run over to my bed. He gripped my arm and glared down at me.