Holding in Air
Grace
For the second time in my life, I wake up in a hospital bed with only a vague idea as to how I got here.
A low tone enters my ears, but I just ignore it, closing my eyes again.
“Did I have another seizure?” I ask the air around me.
If there’s an answer, it’s not one that I can understand.
After a while, things start to clear up a little bit more, and I am, if nothing else, able to recognize the voice in the room.
It’s Dr. Willis.
Dr. Willis, head of the trial for JH813, the experimental drug for oligodendroglioma that’s still running through my veins — the drug, that is, not the tumor; that’s thankfully stationary — is a shorter woman with flowing blonde hair and absolutely no ability to form her mouth into a smile.
“Grace, can you hear me?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I groan. “What happened?”
“You had a seizure,” she says, and looks down to her clipboard. “Is this the first seizure you’ve had since your diagnosis?”
“No,” I tell her. “I had a seizure a couple of months ago, and that’s what led to my diagnosis.”
“Have you been feeling any new or worsening symptoms since the last time we’ve met?”
“Other than the seizure I apparently just had?”
She looks up, perfectly incapable of finding anything charming. “Yes,” she says. “Apart from that, have you noticed anything out of the ordinary?”
“No,” I tell her. “Actually, I’ve been feeling pretty good being off the chemo.”
“You haven’t had any symptoms over the last few days that you haven’t reported?” she asks.
“No,” I tell her. “Where’s Jace?”
“Jace?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, “Dr. Churchill.”
“I’m in charge of the trial, and while he’s been notified, I’m your primary physician at this time,” she says.
“Don’t you think that’s kind of weird?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your job is to pump me full of a mostly untested drug and see if it’s going to help cure me or if it’s going to make me worse, and that, somehow, makes you my primary physician,” I explain.
“It’s a double-blind study,” she says. “There can’t be anything shared that might jeopardize the integrity of the trial.”
“What did he say?” I ask.
“What did who say?” she returns.
“Dr. Churchill. What did he say when you told him what happened to me?”
“I’m not the one that told him,” she says. “To be frank with you, I don’t think it’s entirely appropriate that he be involved in any part of your current treatment.”
“Who told him?” I ask, but the answer couldn’t possibly matter. “Never mind. What happens now? Are you going to take me off the drug, or do we up the dosage or what?”
“First off,” she says, “we don’t know that you’re on the real drug. As I’ve told you a few times now, both in our previous meetings and in this conversation, that this is a double-blind study. I don’t know who’s on the drug and who’s not, and if I did know, I would have to recuse myself from the trial, as it would no longer be double-blind.”
“Okay,” I tell her, “I get it. You’re a whore for procedure, but if you could just answer my question-”
“I don’t think there’s any reason that we should change our approach,” she interrupts. “You’re still new in the trial and you haven’t exhibited any new symptoms, so the best course, in my expert opinion, is to proceed as before.”
What kind of person is so in need of validation that they refer to their own opinion as “expert?”
“Is there anything we can to do help prevent further seizures?” I ask.
“No,” she answers. “Are you feeling lightheaded, nauseated?”
“No. So we’re just going to do nothing and hope it doesn’t happen again?”
She sighs and rolls her eyes, saying, “It doesn’t seem to be a result of the trial, so it’s anecdotal.”
I’m preparing myself to beat a little humanity into this misanthropic freak when the door to my room opens and Jace bursts in.
“Grace!” he exclaims, before he sees Dr. Willis standing at the foot of my bed. He turns toward her, trying to act as if nothing were amiss. “What happened with my patient?”
Dr. Willis doesn’t answer him or look over or even acknowledge his presence, she simply continues talking to me.
“We’ll run some tests, but I’m confident we’ll be able to keep you in the trial. If you start having more frequent seizures, we can revisit it, but I think one outlying incident doesn’t mean that much,” she says.
“I’d like to get a copy of any tests you run,” Jace says.
“No deal,” Dr. Willis replies. “I know you’re relatively new here, but even you should know that we’re not going to disclose any kind of information about one of our trial patients until we publish the results of the trial itself.”
Jace holds his tongue.
“So, just so I’m clear on this: you’re not going to actually do anything about the fact I just had another seizure, huh?” I ask.
“I have other patients to deal with,” Dr. Willis says, and before I have time to ask her any more questions or call her a cunt, she’s out of the room.
Once the door’s closed behind her, Jace is at the side of my bed, holding my hand.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“I’m still a little out of it, but I’ll be all right. You on the other hand have really got to do some work on your poker face. If I didn’t know any better, I would start to think that something was going on between you and me.”
“You’re a strange woman,” he tells me, “but you have a point. I’m sorry. I was just worried about you.”
“Funny how you didn’t seem so worried about me the first time we met. I’d just had a seizure then, too. I think you want some of this,” I say and squeeze my boobs, “don’t ya?”
“They are pretty remarkable.”
“Well, I think we should probably wait until I’m out of this hospital bed before any copulation takes place,” I tell him. “Then again, you’re the doctor.”
He laughs. “I think you’re going to be fine,” he says.
“Glad to hear it,” I tell him, but I’m getting tired. Something about having a seizure just takes it right out of a person. “I hope you don’t mind, but I think I’m going to power down for a little while. It’s been a long day. I had to go to the doctor where we conducted a procedure I’m pretty sure isn’t in the AMA guidelines, and then I apparently fell down somewhere and danced like it was 1999, so I’m kind of beat.”
“That’s fine,” he says. “I’ll check in on you when I can. If I’m not here when they’re getting ready to discharge you, let me know and I’ll make sure either Yuri or I can give you a lift home.”
“Thanks, sexy doctor man,” I mumble.
If he says anything else, I’m asleep before I hear it.
***
“I really don’t think we should be doing this,” Jace says, looking up at me from 10 feet below.
“Yeah, you said that last time,” I tell him. “Are you coming up, or am I going to have to enjoy this view by myself?”
He just stands there, so I keep climbing.
It’s about 3 o’clock in the morning and I’m climbing the metal-rung ladder welded to the side of the old, broken-down Ferris wheel.
What Jace is so worried about is the fact that it’s only been about 36 hours since I was lying in that hospital bed after having my second seizure.
What I’m not telling him is that I’m terrified of heights. Up until my diagnosis, I was perfectly content to remain acrophobic, but something about having my lifespan significantly shortened made me want to change that.
In fact, if I could die without any remaining fears, that would be spectacular.
The fear of death, now that’s going to be a particularly relevant one, but I think it’s best to tackle one thing at a time.
I’m about halfway up and my heart is pounding so hard, I’m a little nervous it’s going to affect my equilibrium. Naturally, it doesn’t, but that hardly makes my anxiety go away.
Below me, I can hear the metal clang, clang, clanging of Jace as he begins to follow me up the ladder.
I’m committed now, if I wasn’t before, but that’s kind of the point.
When I was in college, I was usually the one standing at the bottom of the Ferris wheel to make sure that no security guards came by, but it was only an honorary position, achieved by the fact that I was the only one there with breasts, and I wasn’t afraid to show them.
When I reach the top of the ladder, I freeze.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but in order to get into one of the Ferris wheel’s cars, I’m going to have to just climb up and into it.
It doesn’t make sense that there would be some magical, rail-enclosed platform, but that’s more along the lines of what I’d told myself to expect.
Jace catches up to me before long — apparently, heights aren’t such a big deal for him — but I can’t move or speak. I can hardly breathe.
“Are you all right up there?”
“I’m fine,” I lie. “I’m just trying to figure out the best way to go about this.”
“Take your time,” he says, and I wonder if he can see me shaking from where he is below me. “We can go back down if you want. I think you’ve proven that you can do this.”
For whatever reason, that statement is all the motivation I need to take a step up to the next rung and lean forward, one hand still on the top rung, the other hand on the car sitting at the top of the wheel.
I know these cars lock if you roll them too far either forward or backward, but it doesn’t seem like that knowledge is going to help me here.
I take another step up the ladder, making sure to lean as far forward as I possibly can, and my body from breasts up is over the car.
There’s no choice now, so I let go of the top rung of the ladder and grab the enclosing rail at the front of the car, which immediately swings open a bit.
The guys hadn’t mentioned that when they came down.
There are a few empty beer cans in the car and what I’m pretty sure was some kind of smoking device, although it doesn’t look like it was something to be used with pot — I’m starting to get familiar with those by now.
I take another step up and I’m starting to realize that leaning as far forward as I am, while it certainly seemed like a good idea in theory, is going to lead me to falling into the car. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a problem, but with the metal bar at the front swinging open freely, chances are I’d end up falling out the front of the car.
The good news, I guess, is that that would save me tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills.
Not worth it.
My only real option is to steady myself as best I can and straighten myself up so I can simply step into the car.
“I think we should go back down,” Jace says.
“Shh!” I scold. “I’m concentrating here.”
Slowly, I start to get back to standing nearly straight up, and I hold onto the back edge of the car with one hand while I step up to the very top rung.
With my heart as the only sound I can hear, I gingerly work one foot off the top rung and over the car itself.
I’m slow, deliberate in lowering my foot to the floor of the car, but I’m almost there.
I have to kick a couple beer cans out of the way before I set my foot down, but once it’s in there, my second foot comes a lot more easily.
Still with a death grip on the back of the car, I move to the far side and start to sit down. The car rocks a little, back and forth, and I’m absolutely certain I’m going to die right until my butt hits the seat.
After a moment, the rocking subsides, and I look back toward the ladder at Jace, whose head is just coming up above the top of the ladder to the side of the car.
“The front doesn’t stay closed,” I tell him, “so don’t get cute and try to rock this thing while we’re sitting in it or I might just have to throw you out of it to save myself.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says.
It’s dark, but I could swear that he’s a few shades lighter in color as he climbs the final rungs to the top.
“You’ll want to lean forward a little bit,” I tell him, “but not too much. I think the best way is just to step in.”
“Okay,” he says, though I’m pretty sure he’s not hearing anything I’m saying.
“You’re going to be fine,” I tell him. “If I can do this, you can do this.”
“Yeah, that logic doesn’t really work, but I’m willing to try.”
I’d never considered that Jace might be scared of heights, too, but as he leans forward, bringing one foot slowly over the side of the car, I could swear that his face is a pale shade of green.
“I wish you didn’t tell me about the front of the car,” he says.
“Had to,” I tell him. “If I didn’t, you might have tried to use it for support and-”
“Please stop,” he pleads.
It’s almost nice being the one talking him through this. It might be a lot nicer if I wasn’t still so terrified, myself.
His eyes are on me as his foot comes down onto the floor of the car, and I hold out my hand to him. He’s gripping the back with one hand, but with the other, he slowly, deliberately reaches out and takes mine.
“You’re almost there,” I tell him. “When you get in, just sit down slowly and lean back a little. You’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” he says, though his voice is hardly anything but air.
He brings his other foot into the car and it crunches down on whatever that glass paraphernalia is, and he sharply raises his foot, the change in weight distribution causing the car to pitch backward and then forward, and I’m leaning back with every ounce of me to keep from having this be the last thing I ever do with my life.
His foot comes back down quick enough and he sits down, still clutching my hand, though “crushing” may be the more accurate term at the moment.
He’s shaking more than I am, although not by much, and both of his arms are around me as if I’m the immovable object that’s going to save his life if this thing pitches forward any farther.
“Lean back and stay leaned back,” I tell him. “Do it slow, though, we don’t need this thing rocking any more.”
“I don’t know how in the hell I let you talk me into this,” he says. “This thing must be a hundred years old, and it’s rusty, and they obviously took it out of whatever theme park it was in because it was-”
I shush him as calmly as I can.
That whole being the rock for him thing has lost its glamour, and right now, I’m just trying not to start freaking out as vocally as he is.
“You’re fine,” I tell him, “we both are. We’re going to be okay.”
His grip on me lightens a little, but he’s not ready to let go, and I’m all right with that. It’s just good to be able to expand my lungs again.
I look at the front gate of the car, and I notice that there’s something dangling from one side of it.
“What’s that?” I ask, pointing to it.
“I don’t know,” Jace says, unwilling to look anywhere but at me.
I lean to one side a little, just enough to see where that dangling piece of metal goes: it’s the pin that locks the restraint shut.
When I start leaning forward, Jace pulls me back.
“I’m going to lock the front,” I tell him. “Trust me, we’re both going to feel better about this after I do.”
“What if you have a-” he starts, but I’m not about to let him finish.
“Jace, shut the fuck up right now.”
If I have a seizure up here, chances are I’m not going to be able to stay in the car whether the front is latched closed or not, and I’ve done really good about not thinking about that until dipshit over here just had to bring it up.
I lean forward again, but Jace is still pulling me backward.
“You have to trust me,” I tell him.
His embrace loosens. Though not much, it’s just enough for me to reach the pin and find the hole it slips into.
“I’m going to have to pull the gate shut a little more,” I tell him, hoping that letting him know what I’m doing will help ease his mind.
It doesn’t.
Jace pulls me back and the startle from the motion causes me to drop the pin. Fortunately, it’s on a little chain, but the sudden movement has caused the car to pitch back and forth again, and both of my hands are on the unlatched front gate.
I quickly release my grip on that, and in the process, I elbow Jace in the nose, causing him to jerk back fast, and his arms come off of me and up to his face.
The car is rocking, and all I can think to do right now is to try to get the front latched.
I scream at Jace to lean back — the actual words being, “Lean back, fuckhead!” — and I grab onto the restraint with one hand and grab the pin with the other.
With one hard jerk, the metal bar goes into place, but I’m having a hell of a time getting the pin to go through the hole in the right way: it’s through the top, but I can’t find the bottom.
“We’re going to fucking die!” Jace shouts, his voice muffled by his hands.
I scream right back, “Shut the fuck up!”
I jerk the bar backward again, this time throwing my body weight into it and hoping the metal pin goes in place before the car has a chance to pitch forward again.
“This is so fucking stupid,” Jace says, and I’m about ready to elbow him in the nose again.
With the palm of my hand now, because my fingers keep sliding against the smooth metal, I force the top of the pin through the bottom hole just as we start to pitch forward harder than before.
There’s no reason to believe it’ll hold, but both Jace and I instinctively grab for it as we tilt so much it feels like we’re already falling out.
The restraint holds.
Jace is finally out of his panic just enough to realize that he was acting like an idiot before. He doesn’t say anything, but he does his best to make amends by staying perfectly still in a backward lean.
It feels like it takes a long time even though it can’t be more than a few seconds, but the car slowly stops rocking and finds its equilibrium.
“You know,” I tell Jace, “I was thinking of fucking your brains out up here, but after that, I think you might just toss me out of the car for moving it too much.”
“We can’t,” he says. “It won’t hold.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about — everything’s going to hold,” I start, though as the words are leaving me, they strike my ear as being extremely naïve. That’s not helping. “To tell you the truth, though, I’m really not in much of a mood to give you anything that might be construed as a reward for your behavior.”
“That’s fine,” he says quickly. “Let’s just be as still as possible.”
As I sit here, about 50 feet off the ground in the car of a broken-down Ferris wheel, which, by the way, can’t be any older than 30 years, despite what Jace may think, it starts to sink in why the front restraint was open when we got here.
It comes over the knees.
For us to get back out of here, we’re going to have to take the pin back out and open the front a few inches like it was before.
I’m trying not to think about how we’re going to get down from there.