Slow it down
Please, listen to me
Don’t take her yet
I’m begging you, please!
~ Hannah Gunner ~
Hannah’s heart sank when she heard her name over the intercom requesting that she report to the principal’s office. She hadn’t been caught smoking on school property, so that couldn’t be it, and she hadn’t been in trouble in any of her classes. Fear set in, followed by panic, knowing something must be wrong at home.
Running down the hall, the teacher on hall duty, Coach Darwin, hollered at her to slow it down. “Where’s the fire young lady? Walk!”
Hannah nodded but didn’t respond. Walking as fast as she could, getting to the office seemed to take forever! The administrator behind the desk was talking to another student, so despite the hurry, Hannah had to wait anyway. Her eyes inadvertently stared at those standing in the same room, but thankfully no one made eye contact with her. Impatiently, she waited for the teacher to address her.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m Hannah Gunner. I was called to Mr. Brown’s office.”
The administrator’s facial features noticeably softened and her voice sounded sweeter. “Ah, Hannah. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
This alone heightened Hannah’s fears. Something was wrong. She was right.
“Mr. Brown will see you now,” the administrator announced, pointing to his office door.
Nervously Hannah approached his office, knocked on the door, and waited. His voice responded with one word: enter. To her surprise, he handed her a note. Her eyes started to scan it, but all she saw was a three-digit number written in red ink.
“It’s a room number; um, hospital room.”
Hannah froze.
“Hannah, your aunt called. Your mom collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. Your aunt will meet you there, but you need to go immediately. Do you have a car, can you drive, or would you like a ride?”
Hannah tried to answer, but no matter how hard she tried to spit them out, the words would not come out of her mouth.
“Never mind. We’ll arrange for one of our staff members to drive you; that’s probably the best thing to do anyway.”
Mr. Brown picked up his phone and started making arrangements for her dismissal and transportation. Hannah, totally numb, followed his directions in a complete daze. Hardly remembering whose car she climbed into, she barely remembered opening the door and stepping onto the pavement outside the emergency room. Charging through the wide automatic doors, her mind flashed to Cash. Should she text him? But she never pulled out her phone. Rushing up to the desk, she requested to see Gloria Gunner. The girl sitting behind the computer tapped away at her keys, read the monitor, and finally spoke.
“And you are?”
“I’m her daughter, Hannah Gunner.”
“Mrs. Gunner has been admitted. They’re preparing her room, but if you like you can wait with her until they take her up.”
Hannah nodded her head. “Yes. Please.”
The girl pushed a button under her desk and the two large doors behind her opened onto another hospital corridor that Hannah didn’t even realize was there. Temporary holding rooms were on one side, separated by curtains, and examining rooms on the other, complete with real doors. Hannah glanced at the piece of paper still in her hands. Room 228 was on her left. She didn’t knock but merely barged right on in. Kathy was sitting in a chair in the corner of the stark room, and her mom was lying in bed. She looked pale and scary, hooked up to all kinds of hospital equipment that Hannah didn’t recognize. Monitors were beeping, nurses were drawing blood, and tubes seemed to be in odd places that Hannah didn’t think they should be.
“What happened?” Hannah asked as she walked into the room.
She leaned down and hugged her mom, laying a kiss on her cheek. Gloria managed to raise her arms, but dozing in and out of consciousness, she hadn’t recognized Hannah’s face at that moment but thought she’d heard her voice.
“She’s on pain meds and other drugs right now,” Kathy explained. “I’m not even sure what they’re all for, but her organs were struggling, and she was having breathing complications related to her illness.” She paused. “She’s been coming in and out since they gave the meds to her. They’re pretty strong. But they’re taking good care of her.”
Hannah sat down on the edge of the bed and placed her mom’s hand in hers.
“What are they going to do?” she asked her aunt.
“Try to stabilize her, and if possible, once that happens, when she’s strong enough or if she’s strong enough, perform a bone marrow transplant.”
Kathy hesitated. “If she’s up to it. But if her kidneys start to fail, they won’t do it. She’ll be on dialysis until… until its time.”
“Time for what?” Hannah asked.
Kathy didn’t respond.
The words if she’s strong enough stung Hannah like hot needles pricking her bare skin. Why on earth wouldn’t her mom be strong enough or regain her strength? Wasn’t it too early in the illness for her to be so weak? And her kidneys—failing? What had happened? Gloria came to again for a few minutes and realized Hannah was in the room. Trying to speak but having difficulty getting out the words, Hannah spoke for her.
“Causing trouble again, I see—you trying to scare me?”
Hannah’s smile melted her mom’s heart and brought her a comfort she couldn’t explain. Her hand reached up and pulled the oxygen mask off her nose and mouth as she tried to mouth the word, sorry! Hannah replaced the mask and hid the sadness she felt that her mom needed to apologize for being ill. Sorry. Why would she even say that?! Glancing at her aunt who sat close by, she received some of the answers she needed regarding the extra oxygen.
“It’s to help with the low oxygen levels that she had when she came in.” Standing up, Kathy wrapped her arm around Hannah.
“It’s a precaution. It takes the burden off her lungs and allows her to breathe easier, since she was struggling with shortness of breath.”
Hannah didn’t question her aunt; not knowing for sure what was going on was more comforting than having all the facts. Watching her mom struggle to breathe was a lightbulb moment for the teen. On the one hand, she wanted to reach for her JUUL to settle her nerves, and on the other, she could see her mom struggling to breathe and never wanted to touch the tiny device again. What was happening in that room didn’t have anything to do with vaping and yet the visual that she had of her mom struggling to breathe suddenly clicked with her mom’s words and what she’d been preaching for years. It was staring Hannah in the face. Watching someone, someone you love, fighting to breathe, regardless of the reason, was shocking. Struggling for air. Even gasping at times, Gloria’s chest heaved up and down, even with the extra oxygen. Kathy was wrong. It wasn’t a precaution. Sick to her stomach, frozen in fear, silently Hannah vowed right then and there that the next time her mom called her out, she’d look her in the eye and truthfully be able to say that she, Hannah Gunner, one hundred percent wasn’t smoking! White as a sheet, Hannah stood by her mom’s bed and held onto Gloria’s hand. Gloria dozed in and out of consciousness. Another doctor with a nurse by his side examined her. Making notes and writing orders, he started her on a strong round of antibiotics for fluid in her lungs, better known as pneumonia.
“Likely from within the community or passed on through her line of work, she’s in health care, and it is pneumonia,” he remarked. “Usually she would have been fine, but her immunity was already damaged, and that made her susceptible to the illness. Being stage three at diagnosis and now moving into stage four,” the doctor hesitated. “Well, it isn’t good.”
He continued to examine Gloria, making notes and giving directions for her care.
“We’re going to keep her here and stabilize her, get her through this. I really want to see how these kidneys are going to hold up, and for that reason we’ll bring in our nephrologist for a consult.” He paused. “Any questions?”
Any questions? Hannah had barely understood a word. Stunned at hearing the words stage four for the first time. How did her mom go from resting at home to being admitted to the hospital and organs starting to shut down? What in the hell had just happened? Kathy looked as shocked as Hannah; white, pale as a ghost, she stood at her sister’s side by her hospital bed. Hannah, panicked, pulled out her phone and reached out to Cash.
Hannah: So sick right now! Fill you in soon. Luv ya
Cash: Do you need anything? And luv ya, too.
She never responded.
“Honey, do you want to talk about it?” Kathy asked. “Hannah. Hannah!”
As if in a trance, Hannah jumped when she heard her name.
“You were a million miles away. It’s a lot to take in. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Stage four?” Hannah croaked. “That’s not good.”
Kathy’s eyes darted toward Gloria, and she raised a finger to her lips. Hannah nodded, understanding that she didn’t want to upset her mom. Stage four. Shocking. How? When? Too many questions, no answers, and surely not enough time!
Hannah sat down on the crisp white sheets of her mom’s bed. The crinkling sound that they made forced her to look down and feel them with her hand. They were softer than she thought they would be given the crunching noise they’d made. Her mind was focusing on the most mundane things: the color of the walls, the steel sink in the corner, the disinfectant containers on the walls, rubber glove holders, and how many nurses came in before the doctor transferred her mom to another room on a different floor. Gathering her mom’s things, she followed the gurney and equipment down the corridors. They stopped in front of two large steel doors, and Hannah didn’t realize until the doors opened that it was a massive elevator. Rolling her mom’s gurney inside, they made a space in the corner for Kathy and Hannah.
“There’s room, y’all, come on in,” a young nurse assured them as politely as she could, given the circumstances.
Gloria had never looked so frail in her life. She was pale, and all of sudden seemed way too slim. Little. Skinny. Hannah hadn’t realized that before; her heart started to pound, and she couldn’t think clearly. The elevator doors closed and her mind drifted back to a simpler time. Her mom was sitting at the kitchen table, the Captain was chasing her down the hall, and they were laughing hysterically. They ran into her bedroom for a bedtime adventure. Gloria’s voice bounced off the walls after them. It was so clear. She was telling them to keep it short, and the Captain was making faces from the other side of the wall that made Hannah laugh. The sound of dishes clanging against each other told them Mom was cleaning up after supper. A second warning was about to come; that’s how it worked. It was clear the Captain had always been there, and her mom was a part of that life they all loved. Go back to that time! Right now—why couldn’t they just go back!
“Ahoy! All hands on deck, Matey,” the Captain had boomed.
“Not too late, Hank, now you hear! She has school in the morning.”
“Does kindergarten count?”
“Hank!” Gloria had snapped. “School is school, and we agreed, start her off right.”
“You mean Captain, Momma.”
“That’s right, Matey.”
The elevator moved slowly, and Hannah could see herself in her mind’s eye, giggling. “And you mean First Matey, ’cause you done did promote me, remember?”
Hannah’s heart jumped into her throat, realizing for the first time, in a long time, that her dad was the Captain and had been there, with them, in that house where she was a little girl, the one that Gloria had loved before he’d died. He had been real, and not just part of her imagination, which she was starting to believe and had purposely convinced herself of at times because it was easier than letting the memory of the Captain go. Thinking about the three of them while she rode in the elevator both pleased and momentarily stunned Hannah. She knew her dad had died. She knew she played with the Captain in her dreams, and she knew she had forced herself to forget that they were one and the same. But why on earth was she remembering all of that now? Panic set in as she realized one thing. Loss. She was fearful she was going to be confronted with losing her mom as well as her dad.
Trying to focus on her mom, she pushed out of her mind the images of Gloria packing up boxes containing her dad’s things after she’d received the terrible news of his death. It was neither the time nor the place for those memories, but her mom’s words flooded back to her mind. There had been a fight; he had died. Stop. Stop thinking about that now, she instructed herself. Kathy placed an arm around her shoulder, and thankfully Hannah was brought back to reality as the cold steel elevator doors opened up in front of her. For the first time in her life, as they wheeled her mom out of the elevator on the hospital bed, Hannah wished she hadn’t always insisted that her dad act out her bedtime stories and put her to bed. For just once, she wished she had reached out and asked her mom to read her a story, any story, instead!