“Are you sure?” Dave’s face was overtaken by worry and fear.
I nodded, tears streaming down my face. It was debatably the scariest moment of my life.
“Okay,” he said calmly. He lifted me up like a baby and cradled me in his arms. As he descended the stairs, he called out to D.C. to wake up Heidi and that he was taking me to the hospital. He set me down gently in the passenger side of his car, and we took off at a speed that I’m sure was illegal.
I spent the car ride trying desperately to wiggle my toes. It was too dark for me to tell if it was working.
“Are you all right?” Dave asked, grabbing my hand.
“I’m scared,” my voice wavered as tears continued to fall down my cheeks.
“Me too,” he admitted. “We should have brought you to the hospital before. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. No one knew this was going to happen,” I said, wiping tears from my cheeks.
“Does it hurt?” he asked, squeezing my hand tighter.
“I don’t know,” I choked out, “I can’t feel anything.”
“Why did this happen?” he asked as he swung the car around a curve.
“The same thing happened that time I had to be on crutches.”
“Why?”
“I have low blood pressure and the blood can’t really get to my spine or some crazy sh*t like that,” I half-laughed.
“You’ll be okay,” he promised as he skidded to a halt in front of the hospital. He lifted me up and brought me into the waiting room.
The hospital people took me pretty quickly because they considered my issues pretty serious. That made me even more scared. They did all kinds of stuff, testing everything, pinching my legs, taking blood, putting in IVs, et cetera. I needed to get and MRI and this spinal x-ray type of thing called a myleogram to make sure there was nothing wrong with my spine. It was scary. I begged them to let Dave stay with me, but they wouldn’t. They tested me for hours, and then put me into a room. I was just about falling asleep when a doctor entered.
“Hi, Tayler, I’m Dr. Peabody,” she smiled.
“Hi.”
“We’ve contacted your mother in New Jersey,” she informed me. “Your friend Heidi in the waiting room gave us her number.”
“Heidi’s here?”
“Yes.”
“Is my mother coming?”
“Well, you have had a relapse of sorts of transverse myelitis due to poor blood flow in your spine. We’re concerned because myelitis usually does not relapse. Your previous case was very mild, however, and so that may explain why it’s happened again.”
“Is my mother coming?” I repeated.
“This time, there has been a considerable amount of nerve damage, and you will have to go to physical therapy again and be on crutches. To be safe, you will need to stay in bed for at least two weeks.”
“Two weeks!” I exclaimed.
“You are going to have to talk with a dietician and be on some medications for your blood pressure. If those things do not increase blood flow in the two weeks, we are going to have to try some more extreme methods.”
“Like what?!” I was still yelling.
“A wheelchair, surgery… There are a few options.”
I gasped. NO WAY!!! I was not going to be wheelchair bound. And there’s no way in hell I was going under the knife. “Is my mother coming?” I asked again.
“She has asked that before she leaves, you call her to discuss it. I have assured her that you can probably handle this by yourself.”
“I don’t want her to come,” I thought out loud. I knew she would only worry about me and miss a lot of days at work. She might even blame D.C. and Dave. “Am I going to have to stay here?” I asked.
“For the rest of today maybe, but if you promise to remain immobile, then there’s no real reason why you should have to stay in the hospital.”
“I’m hungry,” I said, tapping Dave’s shoulder.
“Can’t help ya there,” he laughed, but he handed me half of the sandwich he was eating.
“I need to take a shower,” I informed him.
“Now that I can help you with.”
I laughed. Maybe it wasn’t so bad being confined to the couch for two weeks… Every day Heidi and D.C. and of course Dave took turns serving me. It kind of sucked depending on them, though. They were great about it, of course, but I couldn’t even bathe without some help. My mother was coming on the weekend. I begged her not to, promising her that I was all right, but she insisted on at least coming for the weekend.
I was scared. I liked being able to do whatever I wanted. It was fun to have Dave sleep over and not have anyone say anything. I liked baby sitting Jeremiah without having to explain all about him. It was good to pretend like I wasn’t still all confused about Taylor and that I wasn’t bothered that they hadn’t called me. It was fun to live crazy to hide the fact that I felt like crying and I was scared and confused.
