Howie awoke in a cold sweat. Where was he? He looked around, but he couldn’t see a sign of the guys anywhere. It had to have been a hospital room that he was in. What was so wrong with them that he had to be rushed to the hospital?
The searing pain he had felt earlier was gone. But now he was feeling incredibly tired and slightly nauseous. He felt his salivary glands produce more saliva to aid the vomit that was creeping up his esophagus. The urge to upchuck the contents of his stomach was tempting because his body wanted him to do so, but he suppressed the urge.
“Am I dead?” he asked to no one in particular. He knew for sure that he wasn’t dead, but that was just his way of making conversation in a hospital. It seemed like the only appropriate question to ask.
Howie heard a quick shuffle of feet move towards his direction. Someone was approaching him to perhaps answer the question. That someone was Brian and he was now poking his head into the curtain.
“D! You’re awake!” He seemed oblivious to Howie’s question, but Howie didn’t seem to care because he really didn’t need to know in the first place.
“Where did you come from?”
“Oh, we were just sitting over on the other side of the room by the window. Nick brought some comic books for you to read, but we ended up reading them ourselves,” he grinned sheepishly, “well you’ll be in and out of here in no time anyway, so you won’t have time to read them!”
“So what’s so wrong with me now? Lay it on me gently.”
“Well,” Brian paused for effect and for the sake of suspense, “you’ve got appendicitis! I can’t believe this happened to us twice! First Kevvy Kev now you! When’s our luck going to change?”
“When’s my appendectomy?” Brian shrugged his shoulders in response.
Just then the curtain opened again and Nick trudged in with a box of comics, as promised. He looked shocked to see Howie awake and acknowledged his presence.
“Welcome back to the real world, D! I brought you some of my comics, but if you ruin them I’ll have to put you in the hospital again.” His tone was serious, but his expression was playful.
“No fooling, Nick was the most scared of all of us. He was looking at his water gun like it was a real gun or something!”
“Oh yeah? Well at least I wasn’t trying to be superman. First you rush over like you’re something else and then you almost fall on poor D here!”
“Well…well…we should really cut out the water guns they’re kind of dangerous aren’t they? How many times have we fallen on this…”
“You’re not very good at verbal fights are you?”
“Nope.” The response was rewarded with a swift punch in the shoulder.
“Ow, what was that for?” Brian asked, rubbing his sore shoulder.
“I don’t remember.” Brian looked strangely at him for a moment and they both froze. Then, simultaneously, they both begin to rummage through the box of magazines.
“Wow, it’s nice to know you two care about me so much, even though none of you are willing to admit it!”
“Of course we care! We all care. I nearly killed myself running to you, Nick almost pissed his pants, Kevin called 911, and AJ calmed down the audience. It’s a system of care. By the way, where are Kevin and AJ?”
“Last time I saw them they were down at the ICU, trying to schedule the surgery for today. Wonder what’s taking them so long?” Nick wondered thoughtfully as he rifled through the newest comic book in his collection.
“I wonder how a routine thing like appendicitis can hurt so much. It’s like being stabbed or something, it’s terrible.”
“Serves you right for making fun of Kevin when he had his appendix removed.”
“But Nick that was you.”
“Oh yeah…”
For a few hours the three guys were content at reading comic books and talking about Howie’s upcoming operation. Brian was still slightly intimidated by the hospital, but ever since he’d gone through surgery nearly unscathed, he had a newfound respect for doctors. Howie nodded approvingly every time Brian gave him some advice.
A doctor arrived in the midst of one of their loud conversations and waited until they noticed him. He looked weary and his face was drawn, but in the middle of that was a playful smile. The clipboard he had placed until his arm was lifted to waist length and the young man pulled a pair of glasses out of his pocket.
“Howie Dorough!” he said suddenly. The guys jumped at the sound of his voice. “I really do need to get my prescription checked, I should have recognized you guys. So you’re up for an appendectomy eh?”
“The old age is getting to him!” Nick joked. The doctor laughed as Howie swiped at Nick, missing him by inches.
“How are you feeling? If these guys are getting on your nerves, I can bump them.” He smiled cheerfully so that they would know that he was only joking.
“I’m a bit woozy, I feel like I’m gonna puke any second.”
“Why didn’t you tell us that before!” Nick shouted.
“Because, unlike someone I know, I can actually control my puke!”
“That’s all right, it’s a reaction to the pain killer we gave you. You should be back to normal after the operation. Which will start in,” he checked his watch, “twenty minutes. You’re friends were really determined to get you out of here, something about you going back to your family?”
“Oh ya, I haven’t seen them in months. We all haven’t, it’s terrible sometimes. Say, where are those two, AJ and Kevin? Shouldn’t they be back by now?”
“They fell asleep in the lobby.”
“But it’s four in the afternoon!” Brian exclaimed.
The doctor just shrugged. I’ll be back for Howie in twenty minutes okay?”
“Okay, I just want to get this over with.”
The young doctor left and the guys became engrossed in their comics once more. Howie tried to be brave about the operation and the best way he could do that was by forgetting that he was getting one at all. Kevin had told him before that the appendicitis is much worse than the operation.
True to his word, the doctor came back to cart Howie off to the OR. Brian and Nick wished him the best and promised to stay at the hospital until they brought Howie back. The operation wouldn’t take that long, they were promised.
The nurses that were wheeling Howie to the OR warned him not to fall asleep. Then they would have to wait until he woke up because he was under the influence of the anesthetic and could not be woken up manually.
Howie’s eyelids felt heavy, but he fought the urge to shut them. He looked at the ceiling spinning by until he got dizzy. Then he felt that the nurses had come to a stop. They pushed him through the double doors and into the OR.
He remembers seeing enough light to blind him, but not enough light to light up the entire room. It must have been the anesthetic that was making him see these things. The only part of a person he could see was an arm putting on his gas mask and voice telling him to count backwards from a hundred, slowly. He does this, his stomach lurching from the smell of the anesthetic. Somewhere in his brain he makes a mental note that the gas is purple, even so it isn’t. He also wonders if he could make it to zero without passing out. He barely makes it to 98.
Howie remembers nothing about this part. He might remember black if he really tries, but there’s nothing significant about the first half of the operation. The anesthetic does its part in keeping him unconscious, but somewhere in-between it falters. But that comes later.
The doctors have done this procedure many times, but they are extra careful with this one. People would panic if someone as famous as Howie died during a routine procedure. Several experienced doctors were working on the task, cutting expertly into the soft flesh. Howie’s face is peaceful as he sleeps and the doctors are comforted by the gentle “beep, beep” of Howie’s healthy heartbeats. Nothing must go wrong, but the doctors are calm. If they panic they know they’ll make a mistake.
The doctors work quickly to remove the diseased organ. Some want to go home very badly because they have worked more than three shifts in that day alone. There was that terrible car wreck a few hours before and that flu epidemic at the retirement home. Others were rushing because they wanted to get this over with, plain and simple. They hated the fact that if stars could negotiate properly; they could get what they wanted in a hurry. Some wanted to earn that method with their procedure.
Thick red liquid oozed out of the cut that the doctor had just inserted. A nurse monotonously wiped it clean and the doctor proceeded. He ordered a second tool from the nurse beside him and when he received it, he placed it on Howie’s chest. This particular doctor liked to do everything different from his colleagues. If classical music was in for them, he would play country. Of course it would annoy everyone around him, but that was the whole point. He also enjoyed placing surgical instruments on his patients’ chests, but only if they were male. His colleagues often shook their heads when they see him do this, but he doesn’t care. They think it’s unsafe, but in his twenty years of practice, he has never once had a fatality.
As he probes the second tool into Howie’s body, more blood squirts out of the cut. Howie is bleeding quite a bit, but this is no cause for alarm. The alarm would be sounding if Howie wasn’t bleeding as much as he was.
The doctor thinks about the hospital’s overall fatalities. He knows that he has never caused one, and he also knows that this is one of the best hospitals in Tampa. Thanks to him, he reminds himself mentally. They’ve had a few deaths of course, that comes with the profession. But they were mostly seniors and comatose patients. He can only remember a couple of procedure failures, but those were before he came on the job. They hardly ever lost a patient to a routine procedure, or had any complaints. In fact, most people came back there if they needed another operation. Well, this hospital was about to encounter something that has almost never happened in their hospital before.
Part 3
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