Green walls
not green-shoot new-life green,
rotting-flesh dying-toad green
Hospital green,
I sit, eyes darting
walls ceiling floor bed
brain dying, husband lying
there, knowing
pain is the last to go
names—mine, our daughter’s, his own—
and streets and who’s president and how old are you and what year is it
those leave first
and their leaving leaves me alone
in the green-walled trauma center at William Beaumont Hospital,
January 11, 2001
Where I sit and wait for—
Adam Kerr
comes in
I didn’t know I loved Adam Kerr
emergency room trauma doctor Adam Kerr
“He’s a very sick boy.”
Always they say “boy”
strange even in this strange
man, boy? bleeding brain, all the same
blood-thinner thinned blood bleeding
inside his head
too much to tell where it started
or what to do to make it stop
Vitamin K stat
thicken it fast
so fast
his St. Jude titanium heart valve
might stop
Adam Kerr does not lie
“He might not make it.
We will try.”
I didn’t know how much I loved people who don’t lie and those who will try
long into the night they try
tests plasma vitamin K wait
Cardiologists neurosurgeons doctors of all persuasions
And nurses
gentle, let me stay
I sit in a straight-backed chair against
the toad-green wall
Marlene comes
hugs brings me a cheeseburger
Says “you have to eat!”
I didn’t know how much I loved Marlene
or cheeseburgers.
Shifts change, no more Adam Kerr
new doctors new nurses
freight elevator
up we go
Neurological Trauma Center, Critical Care Room 3.
vacuum-sealed doors
glass walls
here is where the hotshot nurses work
wires, tubes, vitamin K plasma beep stat wait
our very own hotshot nurse
goes about herself
blonde hair, sure voice, strong chin, furrowed brow
I don’t like when nurses furrow brows.
Every hour she points to me
“who is this?”
every hour he doesn’t know
“Move your hands” he does
“Move your feet” he does that too.
“these are good signs”
let me stay
I didn’t know how much I loved the blonde nurse who let me stay
I talk
because maybe he hears
about fishing, the river,
the time Sally
caught that trout
and when we thought she fell in the deep hole
and he jumped in
the river
in his shoes and clothes
I didn’t know how much I loved our life.
You will fish again
you will do everything again I promise I promise
I should have known they were wrong
the first hospital,
migraine what
should have insisted harder.
I was the ambulance
that brought him here
finally late
“two acute subdural hematomas”
says Dr. Ho
big gray-haired husky humble neurosurgeon
two big trapped blood globs
under leather
it’s like a sponge, the brain
(it can absorb a lifetime
and have a lifetime
wrung from it)
“his only chance for a normal life”
kind eyes, hands strong
“Always take your only chance”
my husband would say
but he can’t
so I say it for him
I didn’t know how much I loved having an only chance.
Blood is thicker than
It’s time to go 11 PM
empty hospital except for…
Dr. Ho
carries a plain wooden box
he made himself
it holds his saw his drill
tools of the trade
all in a day’s work
“you never know with brain surgery”
gurney rolls away
we stay
friends and family
somewhere knowing
saw whirrs dust flies
in Area D
big quiet emanates from every corner
taking words and laughter and carrying them away
1:00 AM, critical care post-op
glass door slides
my breath catches
Richard is
sitting up
gauze turban
bright eyes smiling
right at me
“Hello” he says
like he’s been to the store and back
not blind not paralyzed
“Hello” I answer.
I didn’t know how much I loved the word.
Hello.
