Brain Trust Read online

  “I understand that without it, my mother’s screwed.”

  Dr. Siddiqui held out the release form. “Sign here.”

  I signed and Dr. Calloway returned. “So it’s a go for the tPA?”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Siddiqui and she went through the double doors. I caught a glimpse of a pair of feet covered in a thin blanket.

  “Would you like to go in and see her for a minute?” asked Dr. Calloway.

  “Absolutely.” I pushed Wallace into Mr. Knox’s arms. She struggled to get back to me and more tears sprang up in my eyes. “You stay here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Mercy?” asked Mr. Knox.

  “Yeah?” I turned around.

  “Can I call someone for you? You’re all alone.”

  I swallowed hard. “I have you. Nobody can get ahold of my dad.” I tried to think of someone else. Mom wanted Dad. She needed Dad.

  “I’ll call Miriam. She’ll know what to do.”

  Dr. Calloway’s face froze with a look of utter dismay.

  “I take it you know Sister Miriam?” I asked.

  “She visits patients sometimes. Sister Miriam makes the hospice nurses seem disinterested.”

  “Sorry.”

  He shrugged and put his hand on the door. “We can’t very well turn her away.”

  “Many have tried.”

  He gave me a wan smile before going in and I resisted the urge to bite my nails. It was definitely a time for biting nails if there ever was one, but Aunt Miriam hated that “nasty habit” as she called it and she wouldn’t mind telling me wherever we were, loudly and repeatedly.

  My Great Aunt Miriam was Grandad’s older sister and ninety-three pounds of terrifying. The elderly nun had no fear and an opinion on absolutely everything, and she felt strongly that it was God’s will that she share it. I was surprised that Mr. Knox both had her number and was willing to call her. She’d once cracked him with her cane at Mom’s Easter brunch over a disagreement on a passage in Corinthians. She was right, by God, and she smacked that fact into Mr. Knox’s shin.

  I glanced back at him and he said, “She’s not answering.”

  “Keep trying. It takes her a few times to find the button,” I said.

  “She’ll probably yell at me for not calling right.”

  “That’s a distinct possibility.”

  The door opened and Dr. Calloway waved me in. “Just for a minute. We don’t want any pressure changes.”

  I did tend to change Mom’s blood pressure and not in a good way. I tried to think of something soothing to say as Dr. Calloway walked me around the gurney. They’d already started the infusion. A nurse I didn’t recognize checked Mom’s nose and mouth for bleeding and then backed away. I bent over and said, “Hey, Mom.” I sounded all squeaky and terrified, which I was.

  The left side of Mom’s face was still completely paralyzed, but the working side sort of screwed up and she said, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Er…okay. You can go in a bit. You’re getting some meds right now.”

  “What for?”

  I glanced up at the doctors. Both faces were impassive.

  “Well, Mom, you had a stroke. They’re giving you tPA to break up the clot so you can move.”

  Mom just looked at me and then said, “I’ll never remember.”

  “Remember what?”

  “All the names.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. Nobody cares,” I said.

  She scowled at me, which was really weird when half her face didn’t do anything. “It’s not polite.”

  “Of course. I’ll get the names.”

  She smiled and closed her eyes. Dr. Calloway steered me out. They were starting more checks on her leg and arm. They didn’t want family to freak if it didn’t work. But it would work. It had to. I left the room and stood out of the way while a man in a wheelchair loved up Wallace. When his tech wheeled him away, I heard him say, “I feel so much better now. What kind of dog was that?”

  “A pug.” The tech winked at me over her shoulder. “She’s a special therapy dog.”

  “She’s good.”

  I kissed Wallace’s wrinkly head. “Hear that? You’re good.”

  Yip.

  “Mercy, I got Sister Miriam to answer.” Mr. Knox looked shell-shocked as many did after talking with my great aunt. “She’s coming.”

  “Was she mad?” I asked.

  “Not mad.”

  “Furious?”

  His lip twitched.

  “You should go. She’ll have her cane.”

  “I can’t leave you,” he said.

  “You can. Now that Aunt Miriam knows, everyone will be coming.”

  He smiled and said, “I’m more than willing to stay.”

  “She’s my aunt. I’ll take the cane. You’ve been great.” I teared up again. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

  He put his arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “I hear the stories. You’d have thought of something. You should go to the waiting room instead of standing out here.”

  Mr. Knox, a little teary himself, led me to the waiting room, sat me down, and got me a cup of coffee. He fiddled around, antsy with the occasional twitch.

  “You can go. Seriously. I’m fine and there’s nothing more to do for Mom.”

  “Do you feel that?” Mr. Knox looked around.

  Everyone in the waiting room froze. There were moms with babies, an elderly couple trying to figure out their new cellphones, and a group of teenagers that had been skateboarding with predictable results. They all stopped talking and listened.

  There was something. More a feeling than a sound. Sort of like the barometric pressure dropping before a hurricane.

  “It’s her,” I said.

  “How do you know?” Mr. Knox asked.

  “How do you know? I can feel it. Go. Save yourself.” I shooed him to the door.

  “But she might hit you with that damn cane.”

  “I guarantee she’s going to hit me with the cane. It’s okay. I’ll take one for the team. It’ll take my mind off Mom.”

  A red-headed woman carrying a coffee the size of a Big Gulp walked by and said to her friend, “There is a nun out at security yelling about mismanagement.”

  Mr. Knox said, “Good luck.” He dashed out the door not a minute too soon.

  One of the teens said to me, “She doesn’t get to hit you.”

  “You’re too hot to hit,” said another.

  I rolled my eyes. “Watch and learn.”

  “Carolina Watts!” yelled my tiny aunt. “Carolina Watts!”

  I guess my day just wasn’t bad enough.

  “She can’t hit you,” said the boy again. “I’ll call the cops.”

  Aunt Miriam charged through the door, scary as I’ve ever seen her and I’d watched her chase pimps and drug dealers off street corners. They called her ‘The Angel of Asskicking’.

  “Carolina Watts!” she yelled. “There you are. Skulking in here when you ought to be with your mother. What kind of daughter are you?”

  “They kicked me out and stop yelling,” I said. “Everyone in here is having a very bad day.” I looked around for confirmation, but nobody moved, like rabbits in front of an approaching dog.

  “You should’ve called me!”

  “I did.”

  “Immediately.”

  “Kinda busy. Please sit down.” And shut up.

  “I will not shut up,” she spat at me.

  Did I say that out loud? No. Pretty sure I didn’t.

  “I heard that,” said Aunt Miriam.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You thought it.”

  “Please stop yelling.”

  “I should’ve been informed immediately.”

  I backed away slowly and set down my coffee. “Basically, you were. We haven’t been here that long.”

  “Long enough to make decisions you have no business making,” said Aunt Miriam, her voice now a venom
ous whisper.

  “What?” I asked, my mouth falling open.

  “As her closest living relative, I should make all relevant decisions.”

  “I’m her daughter.”

  Aunt Miriam cracked me on the hip with her cane so fast, I didn’t have time to flinch. “I’m an adult.”

  “Ouch! That hurt. And I am an adult and a nurse, for crying out loud.” I circled the room, looking for an escape opportunity. I’d seen Aunt Miriam mad before, but never like this. Like Mom’s stroke was my fault. What the hell?

  “You’re practically a child.”

  “I’m twenty-six.”

  “Exactly.”

  Dr. Siddiqui walked in. “Miss Watts, I need to speak to you.”

  I scratched Wallace’s head and she gave me a little lick. “What?”

  “Please step outside for a moment.”

  Please say it worked.

  “Miss Watts?”

  I glanced at Aunt Miriam, but she didn’t move. All the anger had drained out of her and she stood there, pale and shaking. I went over and took her hand. “Come on.”

  The doctor took us out into the hall and to my surprise, Aunt Miriam remained silent. That was almost as frightening as what Dr. Siddiqui had to tell me. The CT showed that Mom had two clots, a very large one and a smaller one behind it in the main artery to the brain. The tPA wasn’t able to dissolve the whole thing. Forty percent of her brain was affected. It was a devastating stroke. They would have to go in and get the main clot.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?” asked Dr. Siddiqui.

  “Are you going to break it up?”

  “No, I will use a stent removal device threaded up through her groin into her brain. I’ll retrieve the clot and pull it out.”

  “What about the second clot?” I asked.

  “I believe the tPA will dissolve it once blood flow reaches it.”

  I thought I should ask what would happen if it didn’t, but I couldn’t make the words come out.

  “We need a release signed so that I may perform neurosurgery on your mother.”

  Where the hell is Dad?

  “There are inherent risks to all surgical procedures. We may cause a secondary stroke or damage the artery, causing a brain bleed.”

  Dad!

  “There is a possibility of death,” said Dr. Siddiqui, calmly as if she’d said Mom might get the common cold.

  I looked at Aunt Miriam. Nothing. I don’t think she was even blinking.

  “There’s really no other choice,” I said.

  “No, there isn’t.”

  “How many times have you done this?”

  “The procedure has been approved for a year. I’ve done it fifty-seven times.”

  “What are the outcomes like?”

  She smiled for the first time, showing a row of small, very white teeth. “Excellent. Your mother is young and healthy. I see no reason that she shouldn’t withstand the procedure well.”

  Withstand?

  “Do you do it here?” I asked.

  “Yes, we’re ready to take her up now.”

  She handed me the release and I signed it. My hands were shaking.

  “We’ll take her up now and get her prepped.” Dr. Siddiqui went into the hall and called for Carrie.

  Carrie came and said she’d take us up to the neurosurgery waiting room. I nodded and turned to Aunt Miriam. She stood in the corner, clutching her cane and pale as paper. That’s saying something since she was a red-head like my dad and Grandad. The only color they had was in their freckles. “Aunt Miriam, are you ready?”

  “How could this happen to her?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know.” I took her arm and steadied her as we walked down to the elevator.

  “You should’ve called me.”

  “You’re here now.” I’d seen a lot of people freak out in my short nursing career. Usually, they yelled about the wait in the ER and pain meds being too slow. I think Aunt Miriam was straight up terrified. But nothing scared her and that was terrifying me.

  We went up to the surgical floor. I put Aunt Miriam in the waiting room with Wallace and went in to see Mom. Rita was doing her anesthesia and that calmed me considerably. Rita knew Mom. It would be fine.

  I leaned over into Mom’s frame of vision. “They’re prepping you now. It’ll be over soon.”

  Her eyes dropped and I kissed her forehead.

  “Out now,” said Dr. Siddiqui.

  I hurried out and returned to the waiting room, but I couldn’t go in. I called Dad again, ready to scream like Aunt Miriam, but he didn’t answer. Now I needed to scream. Why was he always gone? Why were dead people more important than us?

  I dropped my phone and almost stomped on it. What good was it if he didn’t answer? What was I going to tell Mom? The husband you adore couldn’t be bothered to answer the damn phone?

  A hand reached down and picked up my phone. Aaron stood there, looking off to the left and smelling of sausage grease and hot dogs. I flung myself at him. “Aaron, Mom had a stroke.”

  He patted my back and said, “You hungry?”

  “Um…what?”

  “You hungry?”

  “I couldn’t be less hungry.”

  Aaron picked up a cooler and a large picnic basket. “You’re hungry.”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  He went in the waiting room, presumably to feed me a seven-course meal. There was an excellent chance that I would throw it all up, but that wouldn’t stop my partner. The elevator door dinged and Uncle Morty and Grandad ran out, spinning in a circle before they saw me.

  “Mercy, sweetheart.” Grandad ran up and wrapped his bony arms around me. “She’s in surgery?”

  “Yes. It won’t take long, like fifteen minutes,” I said.

  “It will be fine. Carolina is something else.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I agreed. Mom was something else.

  Uncle Morty peeled Grandad off me and gave me a fierce bear hug. “I can’t get Tommy. I’m using every damn thing I got.”

  I burst into tears. “Where is he? I thought he was teaching some class.”

  “He is. All I can find out is that they went into the field. There ain’t no freaking cell service.”

  “Won’t they take a message out to him?” I asked. “This is an emergency.”

  “I’m working on it.” Uncle Morty’s lip trembled. “Is she scared?”

  “Not that I can tell. She’s mostly worried about remembering everyone’s names.”

  “Who gives a flying fuck? She’s paralyzed, ain’t she?”

  “Mom cares and I’m not altogether sure she understands what’s happened,” I said.

  Grandad put his arm around me. “Did you tell her?”

  “I did, but she just looked kinda blank about it.”

  He nodded and said, “Maybe that’s for the best.”

  Morty looked around. “We lost Aaron. I don’t know where he got to.”

  “He’s in the waiting room. He wants to feed me. I don’t think I can.”

  Grandad steered me in the waiting room. “You can.”

  He was right. I could. At least a little. Aaron opened a thermos and poured a thick hot chocolate that smelled seriously alcoholic.

  “I don’t think I should have any alcohol,” I said.

  He held out a cup and stared at me, unblinking.

  I guess that doesn’t matter so much.

  I took an experimental sip and it was powerful, but I wasn’t doing neurosurgery, so what the hell. I drank it and insisted Aunt Miriam have a cup, too. She sat with her brother, looking frail and shocked. I thought that I should do something for her, but what? Thankfully, she had Wallace on her lap and received little licks about every thirty seconds.

  The hot chocolate made my head light, which was a huge improvement over the way it felt before.

  “What kind is this?” I asked.

  “Black Russian hot chocolate,” said Aaron.

  “Go
od for tragedy,” said Uncle Morty, looking up from his laptop. “I’m going to get Tommy, if I have to drag him out my damn self.”

  I looked up at the clock. Procedure should be almost done. Mom’s life. What would it be after this? I took another sip. “Black Russian hot chocolate. Appropriate.”

  Chapter Three

  DR. SIDDIQUI WALKED into the waiting room with another doctor in tow. “Miss Watts, the retrieval was successful. Your mother is going into recovery now. The blood flow is restored. Due to her excellent health, it returned quickly. I believe her damage will be minimal, considering the nature of the stroke.”

  I fell back onto my seat and the Black Russian sloshed over my fingers. The other doctor knelt in front of me and took the cup from my hands. He pulled down his surgical mask. Pete.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked in a fog.

  “I assisted Dr. Siddiqui.” He glanced back.

  The surgeon nodded. “Cover the rest, Dr. Lindstrom. I have another acute coming in.” With that, Dr. Siddiqui left and I never saw her again.

  “I didn’t thank her,” I said vaguely.

  “No need. It would just embarrass her,” said Pete.

  “Is Mom really alright?”

  He brought me to my feet and tossed the cup. Uncle Morty was there in an instant, clapping Pete on the back and offering to buy him a bottle of whatever he drank. Grandad hugged him and couldn’t speak. Aunt Miriam just stroked Wallace and shivered.

  “I think she needs a blanket from the warmer,” I said, heading for the door.

  Pete took my arm and said loudly, “Fine. I’ll show you where they are.”

  “I know—”

  He squeezed my arm hard and practically dragged me from the room.

  In the hall, I stopped short. “You said it went well.”

  “It did. It went great. Your mom has damage. That’s unavoidable, but the blood just flooded her brain. We won’t know how extensive her damage is until we get an MRI. Probably tomorrow. She’ll go up to the ICU and we’ll monitor her closely.”

  “Then what is going on?” I asked.

  Pete’s face was so intense. I’d never seen him look like that.

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “Your mom has no risk factors.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “How closely did you look at her?” he asked.

  “Um…I don’t know. Not at all. I was calling 911.” My stomach started to tighten. “Why?”