Chapter Ten

Carlos

My day had not gone as I had expected it to.

As an on-call general practitioner in an emergency room, there was very little that happened that surprised me. I had seen pretty much all that there was to see, from drunk men taking a violent swing at our on-call nurses to little kids who had somehow ended up with an exposed fracture and everything in between. We learned very quickly that the unexpected was, in fact, to be expected. It was all a part of a job.

If I had to think about everything that I had seen and everything that I could potentially see, I had no doubt at all that I would probably find it difficult to get any sleep at night. I would probably find that it was difficult to go into work. At the same time, oddly enough, the thought of all the horror that the world beheld could turn out to be the very reason that I found myself rushing into the hospital after a phone call.

Someone had to. Though it was hard, it was our responsibility and passion to help the world. I have to be honest; there were days that I did not particularly want to answer that call. Those days were far and few between however. The desire to do some good in the world far outweighed the trepidation that came with having to see some of the bad in the world.

The last thing that I had expected that day, or any other day for that matter, was to find my lover waiting for me at hospital. Moreover, I did not expect to recognize the scene that I found myself walking in on.

Nate was in a state. His skin, usually sporting a healthy golden hue, was pale and clammy. I could see the sheen of sweat from where I stood in the doorway of the ward. The nurse was fussing over him, using a cool cloth to wipe away the sweat, only to have it reappear moments later when she went to rinse the cloth in fresh water. He barely looked anything like the man that I had come to know, more like a faint shadow of him.

He was only semi-conscious, to my relief. I don’t think I would have been able to uphold a calm demeanor if I had to come face to face with him. More than I ever had before, it dawned on me exactly why there was an unwritten and unspoken rule that doctors and their patients did not fraternize or have personal relationships. How were you supposed to be professional when the thing that you were dealing with was very, very personal?

I had been standing in the doorway for a while before I forced myself to take steps forward into the ward. Most of the other patients were sleeping or otherwise occupied by something, one woman with her nose buried in a book. There were only four beds, Nate’s included, out of the six in the ward that were occupied. As I moved closer to the bed where my lover lay, I realized that he was trembling, his fingers twitching. I was glad that there were no eyes on me. The nurse looked up as I approached, her brow furrowed with what I knew to be concern.

I wondered if she recognized him as the man who had come in only that afternoon. She had fetched me as I was about to make myself some filter coffee, to tell me that there was a “hell of a hot guy” waiting for me near reception. I had felt ecstatic excitement. It was almost silly, really, considering the fact that I had seen him that morning. Of course, he had been asleep by the time I left for work, but that was beside the point.

“I have never seen someone in such a rough state after an attack like the one he had,” she whispered to me while she patted Nate’s skin down.

“What kind of attack did he have?” I asked, forcing myself to use my voice. Thankfully, it came out stronger than I felt.

“His chart is at the end of the bed if you want to give it a look.” She said. “He had some kind of a seizure. It seems to have been grand mal. According to his medical history, it isn’t the first one.”

I moved back over to the end of his bed where the food tray was standing and picked up the chart. I flipped through all of his personal information, knowing most of it already, until I found his medical history. I took a deep breath to clear my head before I began to read through it. This was one of the most helpful things that a doctor could have after an episode like the one that Nate appeared to have had. In my case, it was anything but helpful for all of the inner turmoil that I was succumbing to.

Without really noticing what it was that I was doing, I had started to look through all of the previous admittances that Nate had had. There were a lot and more so than I would have expected there to be. My heart started to beat a little faster as I continued to read.

Finally, I found what I was looking for. Apparently my hands had had a mind of their own and we were on an admittance that had taken place during my residency. I knew that I was going to see it but it was not until my eyes roamed over the sheet that the guilt really started to set in. The pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

This was why I had recognized Nate from the first moment that I had ever laid eyes on him. To put it quite simply, I had met him before. I had been on the team that helped treat him and I had been the one  to whom he had been most comfortable speaking. It was for that reason that our head of medical training had asked me to deliver the news that he probably would not make it through the night. Yet, he was very clearly lying before me, very much alive, and he had survived not only that night but several years after it.

Seeing Nate lying in that bed had brought it all back. He was one of the most significant people in my medical life. The first person that a medical practitioner had to deliver bad news to, particularly the news that they are terminal, always will be. There is no comparing that interaction to anything. It was sad, personal, and intimate.

The man before me both resembled and looked nothing like the Nate from years before. That man had been frail. He had been thin, weak, and pasty. It was as if he had been a man who knew he was going to die, a man who perhaps even wished for death. Meanwhile, the man that I had come to know seemed to be full of life. He was strong and healthy. As I looked over at my lover, however, I could see the tell-tale signs of his pallor, the shine of moisture on his skin, and the elevated heart rate present in both the way that his chest rose and fell and the parted lips that drew in ragged breaths.

It was when I started to notice the cracks on his lips that I felt that I should excuse myself for a moment. The reminder of why doctors and patients should never fraternize rang out once again. I desperately wanted to press a glass of water to those dehydrated lips, to take the cloth from the nurse and pat his skin down myself. I was compromised.

“Excuse me for a moment,” I said. The nurse gave me a curt nod, continuing with her ministrations. “The patient is dehydrated,” I added before I left. “Please make sure you give him some water.”