Helen slept badly, tossing and turning for the rest of the night. She kept thinking of Paddy’s operation.
She rose early and downed a full pot of tea, her stomach too sick to eat. Then they all showered and dressed and got ready to go to the hospital. Paddy’s operation was scheduled for about 8 a.m. and she wanted to see him before he went down.
Ciara appeared in tight-fitting jeans, a pale-blue buttoned grandfather shirt, and a black cardigan.
‘Did you sleep, pet?’ Helen asked.
‘No!’ Ciara admitted as she filled a giant glass with orange juice and munched on two slices of brown bread and butter. She still looked half-asleep and had forgotten to line her eyes with their usual kohl.
Amy and Ronan both had to go to work, but wanted to see Paddy before his operation; Ciara had decided to stay with Helen. Helen checked that her phone was charged as they all went to the hospital. Ciara was driving her car for her, as she didn’t trust herself on the roads today!
* * *
Paddy was already dressed in a hospital gown, ready for theatre, when they made their way to his room. He looked tired and had a scared look on his face, something they had rarely seen. He had been washed with a special antiseptic soap and his legs, arms, chest and underarms were shaved.
‘I feel like a big turkey being got ready to put in the oven,’ he joked, as they sat with him.
The nurses were busy and kept coming in and out, checking on things.
‘I even had a priest in last night to give me a blessing after you’d all gone home!’ Paddy joked.
Ronan was great, telling him about the football results and about his plans to go on holiday to Poland with Krista.
Ciara told him that she was glad to miss lectures today as their new lecturer was like a Nazi and constantly shouted at them all. ‘Honestly, Dad, it’s a wonder people take his class on Ancient Mesopotamia, as he hates it when anyone asks a question, and shouts at them if they try to ask someone else! It’s a nightmare.’
‘Ciara, don’t you let that fellow my lad of a professor, or whatever he is, think he can walk all over you. You should all write out your questions, and put them in his inbox in the college. He couldn’t ignore a hundred student questions!’
Doctor Puri, a young Indian doctor in blue theatre scrubs, came in, listened to Paddy’s chest briefly, and gave him the consent form to sign.
‘I am your anaesthetist,’ he explained, ‘and we will be ready for you in theatre in a short while.’
‘That’s good,’ said Paddy, wanting to get it over with.
Helen tried to control her nerves when Staff Nurse O’Donnell came into the room to tell Paddy that it was time.
The nurse checked Paddy’s wristband as they all hugged him and wished him luck.
‘Daddy,’ said Amy as she flung her arms around him. Ronan gave him a big bear hug, unable to say anything, while poor Ciara was crying as she hugged him tight. Paddy fought to control his emotions.
‘You keep an eye on your mum!’ he teased. ‘I don’t want her moping about the place just because I’m laid up.’
‘Will do!’ sniffed Ciara.
As the porter wheeled his bed away Helen was the last one to kiss him.
‘Don’t worry, love, everything will be OK,’ he said.
Helen could have wept. There was Paddy going to have awful surgery, and his concerns were for her.
‘I love you,’ she whispered.
‘Love you, too,’ said Paddy.
‘Mr O’Connor!’ called Staff Nurse O’Donnell. ‘Paddy O’Connor!’
The porter wheeled Paddy down to the theatre on the first floor, where another nurse checked his name bracelet and his chart.
Helen stood watching them push his bed down the corridor to the lift, praying that in a few hours he would be safely returned to them. She tried to compose herself till she was sure Paddy was well and truly out of sight.
‘What will I do if anything happens to him?’ she cried, searching for a tissue in the black hole of her handbag.
‘Dad will be all right,’ assured Amy, hugging her. ‘He said that he’s got the best medical team going, and he’s been fit and strong all his life. He’ll sail through the operation. Just you wait and see.’
The staff nurse reappeared.
‘Are you OK, Mrs O’Connor?’ she asked kindly.
‘Yes,’ said Helen, blinking away the tears. ‘How long will he be in theatre, do you think?’
‘It’s usually four to six hours,’ the nurse explained. ‘You do know that he won’t be coming back here to this room, but will go directly into intensive care?’
‘Yes,’ said Helen dumbly. Doctor Lennon had explained that to them yesterday.
‘You should go for a walk or go shopping or do something else to take your mind off it, if that’s possible,’ suggested the nurse. ‘We have your mobile number and will contact you when there is any news.’
Helen knew that she couldn’t bear to stay in the room or the corridor and wait. She needed to get some fresh air.
They walked outside. It was a bright breezy morning.
‘I’d better go to work for a few hours,’ said Ronan, ‘but if you need me, Mum, just give me a shout.’
‘I’d better head off, too,’ apologized Amy. ‘I told Norah that I’d come in for a few hours. Are you and Ciara going to go home?’
‘What I need is a walk,’ Helen sighed, ‘along by the seafront, and then I’d like to go to the church there in Booterstown and have Mass and say a few prayers. Ciara and I can decide then if we want to go home for a while or go back to the hospital. You two go on ahead, and we’ll keep in touch.’
Lost in thought, she and Ciara left the car parked and went for a walk down along the seafront, watching the sea horses run to the shore and the huge Seacat ferry head out across Dublin Bay. It was beautiful and sunny, and she found it hard to believe that Paddy was having his bypass operation while everything seemed so normal. People were flashing past in the DART trains heading in and out of the city, and driving along Rock Road in their cars to school and work and college, all unaware of what was happening to her husband in the nearby hospital.
The fresh air did her good, and she could feel her tension headache beginning to ease as she kept in step with her daughter. Turning up Booterstown Avenue they walked to the small local church, slipping into a pew to pray for Paddy. Helen was delighted when morning Mass began, and offered all her prayers for her husband, silently urging him to come through the operation.
Paddy was strong and healthy, and maybe he would sail through his surgery. In thirty-three years of marriage he had never been seriously ill, never had anything worse than bad flu or a toothache or stomach bug. One time he had fallen and broken his arm during icy weather when the children were small, and it had been a nightmare trying to cope while his arm was in a cast. She was the one who usually had the health problems. She’d had a hysterectomy seven years ago, and been so weak she could barely walk up and down the stairs of her home for weeks on end. More recently, she’d been having problems with her knees and had been told she was developing early signs of arthritis, a disease that ran in her family.
Paddy was strong as a horse, she reminded herself. He would get through this. He would.
‘Mum, you’ve had no proper breakfast,’ Ciara reminded her when Mass finished. ‘Why don’t we go down to a coffee shop in the village? Then maybe we can go for a drive, or, if you want to, just sit in the sun in the park near the hospital.’
‘That sounds good. I want to be near by and be back in the hospital before your dad’s operation finishes,’ Helen insisted. ‘I just want him to know that I’m there.’
Five hours later they seemed to have spent days waiting for news, walking the hospital corridors. They sat in the large hospital day room drinking tea and coffee from the vending machine in the corner.
The time ticked by so slowly that Helen felt like they were in some private limbo. Amy and Ronan and Fran kept texting her and she could only say no news . . . no news. She and Ciara took turns asking the nursing staff on the ward if there was any word on Paddy and his condition.
Helen felt the tight grip of fear ease a little when Staff Nurse O’Donnell eventually told her that Paddy was out of theatre and in the recovery area. At least he had come through the surgery and would soon be moved up to intensive care.
Ciara squeezed Helen’s hand, her tense face twisting into a smile. ‘Dad’s going to be OK!’
An hour later they were dressed in gowns and masks and led into the intensive care unit, which was hushed and quiet, with patients asleep on narrow beds. These seemed almost suspended, and were surrounded by machines and attached to all kinds of monitors.
Oh my God! Helen thought, getting such a shock when the nurse who had been assigned to look after him, Nurse Breda Carey, brought them over to Paddy. He was covered in wires and tubes and looked as cold and white as a corpse.
‘The operation went well,’ assured Nurse Carey. ‘Mr Mulligan will be in later, when he is finished in theatre, to check on Paddy. He’ll be around again in the morning if you want to talk to him.’
Paddy looked so pale and old, his hair pushed back off his face, wrinkles across his forehead, and deep lines etched on either side of his jaw. Helen kissed him gently, almost relieved to hear his slight snore. She could see the dressing on the long wound on his chest: blood was oozing from it.
‘You should go home and rest for a while,’ suggested Nurse Carey. ‘We will be closely monitoring him. The first twenty-four hours after surgery is critical.’
Helen stared at her husband, praying that he had the strength and energy to come through this.
‘Is he in pain?’
‘No, we have him sedated so he cannot feel pain,’ assured Nurse Carey. ‘Any change in his condition will be monitored, but we would hope that in twenty-four hours Paddy will be well enough to move from here back to the cardiac floor.’
Ciara was holding her dad’s hand, stroking it gently.
‘Can we stay here with him?’ she asked.
‘Only for a few minutes.’ Nurse Carey smiled at her. ‘We need to be able to move around him and make sure that he is comfortable, so unfortunately we cannot encourage family to stay sitting here around the bed, but you are welcome to use the family room across the corridor and we will automatically call you if there is any change in Paddy’s condition.’
‘Thank you,’ said Helen, filled with gratitude for this young nurse who was helping to keep her husband alive. She was reluctant to leave Paddy, but knew that they were in the way of the high-tech medical team working in the unit.
‘Come on, Mum,’ urged Ciara. ‘We can come back in and check on Dad later.’
Ciara was right. Paddy was in a deep sleep after the surgery. He needed the rest.
‘I’ll see you in a little while, Paddy love,’ Helen whispered before leaving the intensive care unit with Ciara.
Amy and Ronan arrived about an hour later, Nurse Carey bringing them in to see their father. For the next few hours they all took turns going in and out to check on Paddy.
Amy fetched sandwiches from the hospital café. Helen was so glad that she had her family around her now when she needed them most.
‘Mum, it’s nearly midnight,’ Amy announced. ‘You’ve been here all day, maybe you should go home and sleep for a few hours. You must be exhausted!’
‘How would I sleep with your dad like this?’ Helen said, adamant about staying near Paddy. ‘No, I’ll grab a blanket and pillow and rest up on the couch there.’
‘Listen, I’ll stay here with Mum and you two go home,’ offered Ronan. ‘I’ll phone you if there is any change. There’s no point in us all being sleep-deprived.’
While Helen settled herself in a blanket on the couch, Nurse Carey showed Ronan where to find pillows for them both. Silently Helen thanked God for getting her husband to this point, and begged Him to let Paddy recover.