After that, nobody tried to stop me from visiting Kurt. I still didn’t feel comfortable when Kurt’s mother was there. I guess she was trying to be nice to me, but she really got on my nerves.
“You’re such a loyal friend,” she’d say in a haughty voice. But the way she said it sounded like an insult. I wanted to say something to her, but I just kept my mouth shut.
“Kurt’s improving nicely,” Mr. Richards would say. But that wasn’t quite the way I saw it.
When they were out of the room, I’d say to Kurt, “Squeeze my hand. Hard.” This was my little test to try and figure out if he really was getting better.
He’d squeeze, but there wasn’t much to it. He was still pretty weak. And he seemed depressed.
“I know what you must be feeling,” I said to him ten days after he had first arrived in the hospital. I’d said it to him before, but today things were different.
“No you don’t,” he snapped back. “You don’t know what it’s like at all.”
I felt a little hurt.
“This whole situation stinks. It shouldn’t have happened to me.” He was really angry.
“No, it shouldn’t have,” I said. “You’ll get better.”
“I think it’s the hospital. The longer I stay here, the more I think I’ll never get out. They just keep me here so they can keep the hospital in business. If I just had a chance to get outside, to go home, I’d get better. I know it.”
The door opened and two doctors came in. They were very calm and quiet. They checked the chart on the bed and then one of the monitors beside the bed I recognized Dr. Bennington, the young doctor who had been in Emergency when Kurt had arrived. He’d been a regular, but the other guy was new. Something was up.
While they were in the room, Kurt seemed angrier. The doctors always made him mad. When the door closed behind them, he whispered to me, “They don’t know what they’re doing. If they did, they’d have me fixed up by now.”
“I’ll be right back,” I said. I decided to talk to Bennington myself. Maybe Kurt’s parents knew the whole truth. But I knew Kurt didn’t, and I sure as heck didn’t have all the facts.
I don’t usually sneak up on people and snoop, but Bennington and his buddy were standing at the nursing station desk with their backs to me. No one else was around. Bennington was pointing at Kurt’s chart, which was in his hand.
I crept up silent as a cat and ducked behind the nurse’s station.
“I estimate that the liver is only working at about twenty-five percent,” Bennington said. “He’s going to have to stay in treatment for a long while, maybe indefinitely.”
The other doctor disagreed. “I don’t think that’s going to do it. In fact, I think that his confinement here is dragging him down. Look at these other indications. I don’t think we’re doing enough. Besides, he needs continual transfusions and he’s got B-negative blood. Our supplies are running low. Have you been able to use blood from his family?”
“No luck there. I already tested them. We’re going to have to put a call out for more blood. But aside from that, what else can we do?” Bennington asked.
“Only one thing to do,” the other doctor said. “I don’t think we have much choice.”
I felt a cold wave of panic come over me. I didn’t really understand what they were saying, but it sounded scary.
“But look at the blood type,” Bennington said. “You realize how hard it will be to find a matching donor?”
“Without a transplant, he could die. In fact, I’d say the odds are good that he will die without one. Even if he stays hooked up to everything we can muster and even if we can keep him stocked in fresh blood, he’s in very bad shape.”
That’s when the day nurse rounded the corner and bumped into me. She started to curse, and I straightened myself and said I was sorry. Bennington immediately recognized me and realized I had overheard their discussion.
“What are you doing?” the nurse asked me. “You’re not allowed back here. Now get.”
I ignored her.
“What do you need to save Kurt?” I asked Dr. Bennington point blank. I wasn’t sure I fully understood what they were talking about. Something about a transplant, but I didn’t understand the rest.
Bennington took off his glasses. “You don’t miss much, do you?”
“No,” I said. “Is Kurt gonna die?”
“Not if we can help it. We’ll do everything we can. Today I’ll put out a call to hospitals all over the East for a possible donor.”
“What about me?” I asked, not knowing what I was saying.
Bennington shook his head. “Each of us only has one liver. And you can’t live without it. Sorry. The donor has to be dead. The blood type has to be a match and we need permission to harvest the organ.”
I felt like everything was collapsing around me.
“But we do need blood,” the other doctor said. I think he had seen my despair. “What’s your blood type?”
I shrugged.
He pulled a notepad out of his pocket, scratched down something and handed it to me. “Two flights down. They only take a little blood. It doesn’t hurt.”
I took the paper and headed to the elevator. My head was dizzy. I prayed that I had the right blood type. I’d give as many pints as I could if it helped keep Kurt alive. I turned around, realizing Kurt would wonder why I had not come back.
“Don’t worry,” Bennington said. “I’ll tell your boyfriend you’ll be back later.”
I decided not to explain that I wasn’t Kurt’s girlfriend. I just cared for him, that’s all. And I wanted him to get better.