“Told me what?”
“See. Maybe you guys don’t know each other as well as you think.”
CHAPTER 20
Friday, June 9, 2017
THE PAST WEEK HAD BEEN A PRODUCTIVE ONE. HE LEARNED HOW TOcontrol the bed and lower it to the correct height so he could gingerly slide his leg over the side and touch the ground without too much pain. Then, with his foot flat on the floor and his ass on the edge of the mattress, he pressed the control again to raise the bed back up to its original height, effectively placing him in a standing position. From here, and with the use of crutches, he could make it to the bathroom. Of course, venturing off on his own was strictly prohibited this soon after surgery, so his stealth operations always took place in the middle of the night when his bladder woke him at 3:00 a.m.
Calling the nurses and playing the waiting game was no longer an option. And the tantrums he had staged for the past two weeks were quickly depleting his energy, which he needed for his physical therapy sessions. Having made it through the post-operative fog of narcotics and pain, he now had his eye on the end game: walking his ass out of this hellhole. With that goal in mind, he stopped fighting with thenurses. In fact, he stopped talking to them entirely. He made it through most days with grunts and head nods and waited for Friday afternoons when the weekend crew showed up. They were kinder and gentler than the Nazis that ran this place during the week. Riki, his overnight nurse, was his savior.
The middle-of-the-night mission to the Promised Land, which took the better part of an hour to complete, combined with a double physical therapy session on Friday afternoon, had left him depleted. He crashed as soon as they settled him in bed. When he opened his eyes Friday evening, for a moment he believed it was again the middle of the night. His bladder was screaming and he wasn’t sure he’d have the energy to get himself to the bathroom.
“Hey, there he is,” Riki said in her pleasant voice. “You’ve been sleeping ever since I clocked in. Howya feelin’? Jason told me you had a heck of a therapy session today.”
He nodded. “That kid’s the second coming of R. Lee Ermey.”
“Who?”
“Full Metal Jacket.You’ve never seen it?”
“No, what is it?”
“Never mind,” Gus said. “Listen, I’m very sorry to greet you like this, but I need to get to the bathroom right away or I’m going to make a damn mess of myself.”
“No problem. Do you need help with the urinal?” She held up the plastic bottle he loathed.
“That thing and I don’t get along. It steals my dignity, and I’ve barely got any left, as it is.”
Riki smiled. “Let’s get you out of bed, then.”
He closed his eyes.Thank God for Fridays.
“Crutches or walker? I can help you attach your prosthesis, but it’ll take a few minutes.”
“I don’t have a few minutes, and I haven’t put that thing on yet. Let’s go with the crutches.”
With Riki’s help, the round-trip from his bed to the bathroom and back again took nearly thirty minutes. But the layover, during which he stood and enjoyed the easily forgotten luxury of urinating while standing on his own, was worth the effort.
When he was settled back in bed, the nurse asked how his pain level was.
“Eight-ish.”
She scrolled through the computer at the side of his bed. “You haven’t had morphine today. Actually, you haven’t had it all week.”
“I’m trying to get away from it. It screws up my mind.”
“The pain will slow you down. I’m all for tapering off the pain meds, and there’s a plan in place for that. Cold turkey is too hard on your recovery. Let me give you a dose that will help you through the night.”
He shook his head. “I can’t think straight with that stuff. My body’s for shit, excuse my French. All I’ve got left is my mind, and when they dope me up with that stuff, my mind goes to shit as well. And between you and me, I think the weekday nurses are too liberal with the morphine and use it as a way to shut me up. The regular crew and I don’t . . . see eye-to-eye. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Fair enough. How about we go with half your typical dose. It’ll take the edge off. It’ll make you loopy just after the dose is administered, but you’ll come around faster. Sleeping will be easy tonight, and by morning, you and I will be having coffee together.”
“You buying?”
“No, sir. Coffee is on you, but I’ll deliver it.”
“Deal,” Gus said, grimacing at the burn in his hip.
