I'll Be Here

364.

My image in the sliding glass door is unsettling. I look like a guy who has been through a war and survived, shot at and missed….as the saying goes. In retrospect I should have at least gone to the hotel, showered and changed clothes, but in my haste to visit Mustang in ICU, my focus was elsewhere. The supposition that in emergency hospitals the staff are accustomed to such personal oversight, is almost calming, but not completely. I briskly walk towards the information desk, identify myself and ask for directions. Still running on leftover adrenaline fumes, I decide to take the stairs up the six floors to the ER, noting with each step the response from my hips, quads, hamstrings and knees. I remain in a perplexed state of bewilderment as they all seems to be taking the difficult chore of post-traumatic adaptation with fierce determination. My hubris at the circumstance is terminated as I enter the emergency ward where a chaotic choreography of frantic animation is underway. My hope is that none of it is part of Mustang's care.

I am asked by a nurse receptionist to kindly take a seat and advised that she will relay the information of my presence to the post-op team responsible for my injured partner. I want to pull rank and overrule her request under the guise of national security or some other immediate necessity, but choose to politely thank her and find what looks like the most comfortable chair in the adjacent waiting room.

As I walk in a young couple looks at me through weary, bloodshot eyes. Without asking I know that there is a child being tended to in the same proximity as my partner. I sit in the corner trying to find some comfort in the industrial design of a chair whose maker evidently held little regard for human ergonomics. There is no sound in the small room except the hum of the compressor feeding a few tropical fish with life supporting air, a metaphor I find ironic.

I rub my eyes. Without the sensation of sight I consider which of the two patients, my partner, riddled with gun shot wounds and fighting for her life, or what I imagine to be a young child, perhaps just learning to walk, undergoing some exotic and dangerous operation to salvage her opportunity to go on living - to continue HER practice. Who has the priority? I cringe with the answer to my own question; that the decision is often settled by the party having the best insurance coverage. I open my eyes sensing the presence of someone standing in from of me. It is a nurse wearing what looks to me like full combat gear.

"We are out of surgery, if you would like to see the patient, we need to clean you up a little," she says once we make eye contact, "but be advised that she is heavily sedated and unable to talk."

I stand ready to roll, passing the young couple as we exit the room. I glance at them and offer as much empathy and hope as I am able with only a knowing smile. I want to say something in the likes of 'hang in there' or 'it'll be OK" but nothing comes besides the powerful, spiritual understanding of the basic human premise that life is suffering and this, sadly, is that.

The nurse takes me to a giant stainless steel sink where we do a field cleanse of my hands, arms, face and neck. She then outfits me with a blue gown, mask, cap and gloves. Knowing the drill I offer no resistance but with the addition of each additional personal protective garment my sense of dread increases. Properly adorned, we walk into a large circular room with medical activity in every other triangular shaped room. We pass one where I notice what appears to be a child receiving attention from a team of surgeons. For the second time today I say a silent prayer.

The nurse pulls back the curtains to a room and offers me entrance. I am immediately aware of the wall of electronic equipment all in full digital display of vital signs. In front of them, almost unrecognizable behind layers of white gauze lies my partner.

I swallow and take the five steps to her bedside. My eyes immediately mist in response to the drama of the scene before me.

I reach for her hand. I look at her closed eyes desperately wishing them to open; bright, clear and compassionate as I have known them. I remember back to our introduction when I first opened my eyes after a six month induced coma. She was there. She stayed there. She was singularly responsible for my recovery. She volunteered to join our group. She displayed enormous amounts of courage and wisdom at every stop. She tutored, monitored and participated in my physical rehab. We became close friends and a formidable law-enforcement team. She had, and has, my absolute respect.

And I put her in harms way. I asked her to risk everything for the sake of the mission. I should have had her stay back and provide cover as I stormed the van. A thousand similar thoughts rush through my consciousness as I caress her hand and watch for any sign of movement around her eyes. Just the sound of the beeps from the EKG machine and activity from the other stations. My world is reduced to one thing. One emotion. One energy.

"I'll be here," I finally say.