The Rise of A Phoenix

Chapter Four- One Final Battle For Life

Just then, I glanced over at Tommy and noticed that he was abnormally pale, almost ghost white. I grabbed his wrist and took his pulse.

It's slow, but he's not blue, and he's not gasping for air yet. I think that I'll have Meredith look at him when she comes back to give me my next round of meds, I thought to myself.

As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I heard him retch and vomit. I rammed the call button for my nurse and held my breath as I listened for footsteps.

“Hemingway, baby, I have you. Everything is fine. You're gonna be fine. I promise,” I said this but thought the opposite in my head and

my heart was in my throat just like it was on our first New Year's Eve together when I watched the medics carry Tommy out of Victoria House on a stretcher.

Tommy had induced an infection in his bloodstream then, causing an abnormally high white blood cell count. This was because he wasn't taking care of his colostomy hardware. He would rather have pretended it didn't exist and he was able bodied.

It was happening again.

This time he was going to die. I knew that because the symptoms followed the exact same pattern as they had on our first New Year's Eve together and in addition, his heart was dangerously slow.

Tears pricked my eyes and I had to swallow hard to keep them from flowing. It wasn't Meredith, but one of her colleagues who took one look at Tommy and smashed the Code Blue alarm button because she couldn't see the rise and fall of his chest nor could she feel a pulse in his wrist or neck. I heard the alarm wailing, lost my courage and composure and started crying.

“ Baby, please don't do this. You're way too young to die like this. Please fight for yourself and me. Remember what you're fighting for. You can't quit on me. I won't let you quit Hemingway!” I watched the resuscitation team as they worked him over to get him breathing again, counting chest compressions in rhythm. “One, two,three, four, five…fifteen, sixteen…twenty-seven…thirty. Hold compression. He still has no pulse or rhythm. Resume compression.” The command was given and the team began CPR again. I knew in my gut he was going to die.