Can you use me instead
Jan. 12th, 2014 04:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
impyI don't know exactly how to say this, so I'll probably say it awkwardly but I've said it worse so...
You guys might've picked up on the fact that I have two best friends. (I know, lucky me!) You probably also picked up that I don't have a ton of friends beyond those two. I have a few I've picked up at work but really, beyond that anyone else isn't local.
Saturday morning, around 2am, I got a call from Cass who was crying. "Ari's not breathing and they're taking her to the hospital!"
From there I could detail things as they happened/as I found them out, or I could just say that I've had worse calls but really, this one cracks the top three. We'll be trying to go in order of things as they actually happened to her, and not necessarily to me.
So we rewind. Their grandmother was visiting and for whatever reason (the fact that D&A don't have a guest bed probably being the biggest reason) Ari and her grandmother were both sleeping D&A's bed. Grandmother wakes up to a very strange sound and realizes it's Ari who isn't breathing because she's gone into cardiac arrest. She calls D who maybe does CPR, maybe calls the EMS and they come in and do it. I don't know whether he did or not as no one seems to be sure. Someone doing CPR seems to have cracked one of her ribs, which they don't know at this time, and it might have pierced her liver, which I keep saying this and it keeps being true: I did not know that was even a thing that could happen. Not even a little. Your lung, yes. Your liver, no.
They take her to the nearest hospital (which is the one closest to me at home, but not me at work) and I only get bits and pieces of this as it happens. But we'll come back to that, I think. Anyway, due to the internal bleeding (and this is never mentioned again after my initial visit to the hospital around 7am) they can't do what they would normally do to 'fix'/help the brain damage they fear is going on, which is to cool her down. The bleeding has made that fix impossible, so they've done a few tests which is probably how they figured that part out. They sedate her and by the time I get to the hospital around 7am, D (her husband) has left and Cass and Matt are being sent out on errands. The only people left are her mother, her grandmother, and D's mother.
We rewind to my part of the night before moving on.
I get off the phone and C&C ask who was on the phone. I've got to stop doing this, but when people ask me something right after my world goes completely ass over teakettle, I have a way with words that only I find amusing later in it's inappropriateness. Untrue. I suspect that the Signigiant Ex would also find it amusing because he was a little messed up on his sense of humor.
In any case, I say:
"Um, I think my best friend is dying."
Because at that point all I know is that she wasn't breathing, her sister is breaking down and I can hear her husband doing the same, and that's how it feels at that moment.
It goes over as well as you'd think. But I'm at work and Cass lives in North Charleston which is a bit of a drive to St. Francis so I have to wait an hour before getting any update at all. The whole time I'm kind of in shock like, "Well, I should probably get back to work..." followed by, "ohmygod, I should go to the hospital!" But I don't drive to work so I don't have a car to get there (nor a license but really, only the car thing was stopping me), and the only people I know well enough to take me anywhere at 3am, that aren't here at the house, are either possibly dying, or a crying wreck because they think their sister is dying.
I text the boy to see if he's up and if he is, if he's at home. No reply, but he frequently screens my calls/texts when he's out and doesn't want to be bothered by "responsibility", so I text him what little I know.
No answer. I figure, though I don't know, he's at home asleep.
I decide there's no point in trying to wake Mom because I don't know anything at this point. So I wait. Eventually Cass texts back to let me know that ari's on a ventilator, that her heart is beating again, and that they don't know what caused anything. I shouldn't head to the hospital yet, they're running tests... and so I wait.
Around 5, she starts trying to get me not to visit and I'm torn. On the one hand, I don't want to intrude but on the other, we're talking about my best friend. Are you kidding? I know me going to the hospital isn't going to help her, but it's what you do, and also, D and Cass are my friends so yes, I want to fucking be there. For them, for me, for her.
But Mom oversleeps and doesn't even wake up til 6:12am. I don't get to the hospital until 7ish and by then they've begun clearing out since they're firmly at the Waiting portion. So I go home, too, because I'm a coward and I don't want to face her mother and grandmother alone. I shower, trying to make sense of anything and decide to settle for, "I need a shower because the hospital has enough sick germs that it doesn't need drugstore germs, too."
I get a call as I'm getting dressed, and I run to the phone (which is charging) because I worry it's Cass. It's Karman, another friend, and she's just found out. She doesn't know whether she should go to the hospital or try and stay at work or what. So I tell her that clearly she wants to go to the hospital (not selfishly as I've already got two possible rides there) because it's funny. I don't know her super well, but I know enough to know that if she'd known at 2am, she'd have been there ASAP.
She offers to come get me and I agree. I scarf down the last of my taco cupcakes and we head off to the hospital. It's funny, but I still know my way around St. Francis. Not completely, but well enough. We head to the ICU waiting room and no one's there. Odd. We're not sure if we somehow misunderstood the directions or what, but decide to get something to drink. When we come back, Ari's mom is there along with three friends. Odder still since half the reasoning Cass was throwing my way was "family only"* but I will come to appreciate one of those people very, very much.
Hugs and hellos are given and we even get to visit Ari and it's weird when you have those moments when you aren't who you normally are. I am not the sort to be the speaker of any group, no matter how small, but Karman didn't seem to be able to say much even after the tech left. (I didn't while the tech was still there.)
But afterwards, I figured one of us should say something because who knows? I didn't say much and I got quiet a lot because I'm not used to speaking and not having someone interrupt me, especially Ari or Cass... and Karman's trying not to cry and I'm trying not to come off as too flippant because I know that I'll seem like a real jackass, but if I start to cry I will not be able to stop and I don't cry pretty.
Eventually we figure our 15 minutes are up and we go back to the waiting room and her mom tries to get us to leave but it doesn't feel right and also I'm waiting for Cass. My visit might not help Ari but it might help Cass.
She eventually shows up and this is getting long so I'll skip ahead.
Around noon, her grandmother and mother go back to talk to the doctor, along with the nurse friend who was one of the three there earlier. She's an ICU nurse and will be translating, as it were.
I don't know how long they're back there, but eventually Cass hears her grandmother call her and goes out into the hall. A few minutes later you can hear Cass breakdown. But we all give it a minute and then it happens again and I get up, with Matt and Karman on my heels and we go out into the hall and she's sobbing and her grandmother is crying and that alone is kind of weird, but I'm still in shock mode which is good.
We swarm Cass and while none of us ask, we do all wonder. When she can speak, she says that there's definitely brain damage and it's caused Ari to go into a coma. They don't know if she'll wake up. She starts sobbing again and Matt gets this look and asks Karman and I if we've got this, and we do, so he goes off to have whatever breakdown he needs.
I'm still kind of in shock because none of this seems exceptionally real and also because this? This isn't exactly news. I would have expected this, you know? And finally, Cass has been saying since the word go that her grandmother is all but ready to call this dead and move onto funeral planning or something, so no. I will not breakdown or anything because this is expected and obvious and I haven't seen her mother or the nurse friend who won't BS us.
Matt comes back and I allow myself a couple of minutes of crying because my head is killing me from the strain of not crying, but it's about two tears and we're done. I refuse to accept that my best friend is not coming back to me, okay? So no, I will not slip into a crying jag yet.
Eventually nurse friend comes by and takes one look at Cass and is surprised by the level of sad left in grandmother's wake. She points out that this isn't necessarily a bad thing, that this could be Ari's body's way of recovering from the crap it's been through in the past six months and while it's true, she might not wake up, it's also true that for the love of god, people, we're talking brain damage not brain dead.
Only she doesn't say it like that. Cass perks up. Karman perks up. And I feel vindicated because it's what I've been saying, only coming out of the mouth of someone who KNOWS.
Lunch runs are made and her biological father (I'd refer to him as Cass's father but Ari never really seemed to feel that way. She's repeatedly said she considers her stepfather to be her father.) and two of her brothers show up. Not the step brother who I always think of as their actual brother since he grew up with them, because he's in the air force or something. D's family has been there awhile and the room seems to lose all oxygen and Karman and I leave shortly after lunch because I have to work later and she's feeling sick from the Moe's Cass insisted we get instead of the burgers Matt wanted.
So, as far as I know, things are much the same. They're weaning her off the sedative, she's still in a coma (her eyes were fluttering/opening on their own though she wasn't tracking anyone) and it seems that overnight she suffered smaller episodes like the one that triggered all of this nonsense. But I refuse to let her go.
I will not be like her grandmother who apparently said this little gem today, "So we're just waiting to pull the plug."
No you ancient hag, she's brain damaged, she's not fucking brain dead. You'd think someone who has cheated death so many times that Death has fucking given up would understand that important motherfucking detail, but no. You're making this worse! I'm not sitting here all sunshine and puppies, but there's a difference between knowing the worst and outright calling for it to happen.
Sitting at home, worrying and jumping each time the phone chimes but also wishing it would chime and have an update from Cass, even if it's just, "nothing new, family is crazy, can I have that tequila now?"
eta: No car means no way to get to hospital. (Boy is, I think, at work. Will murder him if he's gone off to hang out knowing I might need the car.) Feeling petty that I'm irked by the news that despite driving by here (in general), K didn't call or stop by and Cass never did come to pick up her mini bottle. Instead she got it elsewhere. Which is great.
It's fab. You do what you gotta do. I'll just be over here, worrying. Alone. I'm good. I'm good.
You guys might've picked up on the fact that I have two best friends. (I know, lucky me!) You probably also picked up that I don't have a ton of friends beyond those two. I have a few I've picked up at work but really, beyond that anyone else isn't local.
Saturday morning, around 2am, I got a call from Cass who was crying. "Ari's not breathing and they're taking her to the hospital!"
From there I could detail things as they happened/as I found them out, or I could just say that I've had worse calls but really, this one cracks the top three. We'll be trying to go in order of things as they actually happened to her, and not necessarily to me.
So we rewind. Their grandmother was visiting and for whatever reason (the fact that D&A don't have a guest bed probably being the biggest reason) Ari and her grandmother were both sleeping D&A's bed. Grandmother wakes up to a very strange sound and realizes it's Ari who isn't breathing because she's gone into cardiac arrest. She calls D who maybe does CPR, maybe calls the EMS and they come in and do it. I don't know whether he did or not as no one seems to be sure. Someone doing CPR seems to have cracked one of her ribs, which they don't know at this time, and it might have pierced her liver, which I keep saying this and it keeps being true: I did not know that was even a thing that could happen. Not even a little. Your lung, yes. Your liver, no.
They take her to the nearest hospital (which is the one closest to me at home, but not me at work) and I only get bits and pieces of this as it happens. But we'll come back to that, I think. Anyway, due to the internal bleeding (and this is never mentioned again after my initial visit to the hospital around 7am) they can't do what they would normally do to 'fix'/help the brain damage they fear is going on, which is to cool her down. The bleeding has made that fix impossible, so they've done a few tests which is probably how they figured that part out. They sedate her and by the time I get to the hospital around 7am, D (her husband) has left and Cass and Matt are being sent out on errands. The only people left are her mother, her grandmother, and D's mother.
We rewind to my part of the night before moving on.
I get off the phone and C&C ask who was on the phone. I've got to stop doing this, but when people ask me something right after my world goes completely ass over teakettle, I have a way with words that only I find amusing later in it's inappropriateness. Untrue. I suspect that the Signigiant Ex would also find it amusing because he was a little messed up on his sense of humor.
In any case, I say:
"Um, I think my best friend is dying."
Because at that point all I know is that she wasn't breathing, her sister is breaking down and I can hear her husband doing the same, and that's how it feels at that moment.
It goes over as well as you'd think. But I'm at work and Cass lives in North Charleston which is a bit of a drive to St. Francis so I have to wait an hour before getting any update at all. The whole time I'm kind of in shock like, "Well, I should probably get back to work..." followed by, "ohmygod, I should go to the hospital!" But I don't drive to work so I don't have a car to get there (nor a license but really, only the car thing was stopping me), and the only people I know well enough to take me anywhere at 3am, that aren't here at the house, are either possibly dying, or a crying wreck because they think their sister is dying.
I text the boy to see if he's up and if he is, if he's at home. No reply, but he frequently screens my calls/texts when he's out and doesn't want to be bothered by "responsibility", so I text him what little I know.
No answer. I figure, though I don't know, he's at home asleep.
I decide there's no point in trying to wake Mom because I don't know anything at this point. So I wait. Eventually Cass texts back to let me know that ari's on a ventilator, that her heart is beating again, and that they don't know what caused anything. I shouldn't head to the hospital yet, they're running tests... and so I wait.
Around 5, she starts trying to get me not to visit and I'm torn. On the one hand, I don't want to intrude but on the other, we're talking about my best friend. Are you kidding? I know me going to the hospital isn't going to help her, but it's what you do, and also, D and Cass are my friends so yes, I want to fucking be there. For them, for me, for her.
But Mom oversleeps and doesn't even wake up til 6:12am. I don't get to the hospital until 7ish and by then they've begun clearing out since they're firmly at the Waiting portion. So I go home, too, because I'm a coward and I don't want to face her mother and grandmother alone. I shower, trying to make sense of anything and decide to settle for, "I need a shower because the hospital has enough sick germs that it doesn't need drugstore germs, too."
I get a call as I'm getting dressed, and I run to the phone (which is charging) because I worry it's Cass. It's Karman, another friend, and she's just found out. She doesn't know whether she should go to the hospital or try and stay at work or what. So I tell her that clearly she wants to go to the hospital (not selfishly as I've already got two possible rides there) because it's funny. I don't know her super well, but I know enough to know that if she'd known at 2am, she'd have been there ASAP.
She offers to come get me and I agree. I scarf down the last of my taco cupcakes and we head off to the hospital. It's funny, but I still know my way around St. Francis. Not completely, but well enough. We head to the ICU waiting room and no one's there. Odd. We're not sure if we somehow misunderstood the directions or what, but decide to get something to drink. When we come back, Ari's mom is there along with three friends. Odder still since half the reasoning Cass was throwing my way was "family only"* but I will come to appreciate one of those people very, very much.
Hugs and hellos are given and we even get to visit Ari and it's weird when you have those moments when you aren't who you normally are. I am not the sort to be the speaker of any group, no matter how small, but Karman didn't seem to be able to say much even after the tech left. (I didn't while the tech was still there.)
But afterwards, I figured one of us should say something because who knows? I didn't say much and I got quiet a lot because I'm not used to speaking and not having someone interrupt me, especially Ari or Cass... and Karman's trying not to cry and I'm trying not to come off as too flippant because I know that I'll seem like a real jackass, but if I start to cry I will not be able to stop and I don't cry pretty.
Eventually we figure our 15 minutes are up and we go back to the waiting room and her mom tries to get us to leave but it doesn't feel right and also I'm waiting for Cass. My visit might not help Ari but it might help Cass.
She eventually shows up and this is getting long so I'll skip ahead.
Around noon, her grandmother and mother go back to talk to the doctor, along with the nurse friend who was one of the three there earlier. She's an ICU nurse and will be translating, as it were.
I don't know how long they're back there, but eventually Cass hears her grandmother call her and goes out into the hall. A few minutes later you can hear Cass breakdown. But we all give it a minute and then it happens again and I get up, with Matt and Karman on my heels and we go out into the hall and she's sobbing and her grandmother is crying and that alone is kind of weird, but I'm still in shock mode which is good.
We swarm Cass and while none of us ask, we do all wonder. When she can speak, she says that there's definitely brain damage and it's caused Ari to go into a coma. They don't know if she'll wake up. She starts sobbing again and Matt gets this look and asks Karman and I if we've got this, and we do, so he goes off to have whatever breakdown he needs.
I'm still kind of in shock because none of this seems exceptionally real and also because this? This isn't exactly news. I would have expected this, you know? And finally, Cass has been saying since the word go that her grandmother is all but ready to call this dead and move onto funeral planning or something, so no. I will not breakdown or anything because this is expected and obvious and I haven't seen her mother or the nurse friend who won't BS us.
Matt comes back and I allow myself a couple of minutes of crying because my head is killing me from the strain of not crying, but it's about two tears and we're done. I refuse to accept that my best friend is not coming back to me, okay? So no, I will not slip into a crying jag yet.
Eventually nurse friend comes by and takes one look at Cass and is surprised by the level of sad left in grandmother's wake. She points out that this isn't necessarily a bad thing, that this could be Ari's body's way of recovering from the crap it's been through in the past six months and while it's true, she might not wake up, it's also true that for the love of god, people, we're talking brain damage not brain dead.
Only she doesn't say it like that. Cass perks up. Karman perks up. And I feel vindicated because it's what I've been saying, only coming out of the mouth of someone who KNOWS.
Lunch runs are made and her biological father (I'd refer to him as Cass's father but Ari never really seemed to feel that way. She's repeatedly said she considers her stepfather to be her father.) and two of her brothers show up. Not the step brother who I always think of as their actual brother since he grew up with them, because he's in the air force or something. D's family has been there awhile and the room seems to lose all oxygen and Karman and I leave shortly after lunch because I have to work later and she's feeling sick from the Moe's Cass insisted we get instead of the burgers Matt wanted.
So, as far as I know, things are much the same. They're weaning her off the sedative, she's still in a coma (her eyes were fluttering/opening on their own though she wasn't tracking anyone) and it seems that overnight she suffered smaller episodes like the one that triggered all of this nonsense. But I refuse to let her go.
I will not be like her grandmother who apparently said this little gem today, "So we're just waiting to pull the plug."
No you ancient hag, she's brain damaged, she's not fucking brain dead. You'd think someone who has cheated death so many times that Death has fucking given up would understand that important motherfucking detail, but no. You're making this worse! I'm not sitting here all sunshine and puppies, but there's a difference between knowing the worst and outright calling for it to happen.
Sitting at home, worrying and jumping each time the phone chimes but also wishing it would chime and have an update from Cass, even if it's just, "nothing new, family is crazy, can I have that tequila now?"
eta: No car means no way to get to hospital. (Boy is, I think, at work. Will murder him if he's gone off to hang out knowing I might need the car.) Feeling petty that I'm irked by the news that despite driving by here (in general), K didn't call or stop by and Cass never did come to pick up her mini bottle. Instead she got it elsewhere. Which is great.
It's fab. You do what you gotta do. I'll just be over here, worrying. Alone. I'm good. I'm good.
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(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-12 09:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-12 09:54 pm (UTC)She couldn't keep anything down and back in October (I think) they were talking about how she'd need a feeding tube if she couldn't manage to eat and hold onto anything. I gather shortly before the cutoff time she found at least one thing she could eat. She seemed to spent a lot of time popping in and out of the ER because she was dehydrated. A couple of weeks ago (around the time we were supposed to exchange Christmas presents) she went in for the whole "no can eat, headache from hell" thing and they figured that she had gallstones and that they should remove her gallbladder. Which they did and they were also supposed to give her a feeding tube then. I didn't know until yesterday that they didn't do it after all.
So... the non expert opinion, backed with a little of the ICU nurse's theory is that she's been running on below empty for so long that her body just said fuckit and shut down in an effort to fix things.
Cass is supposed to stop by sometime this evening, I think, and maybe she'll have further news, although I'll have to figure out how much is the gloom filter and how much isn't.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-13 04:46 am (UTC)*HUGE HUGS* Please let me know if there is anything I can do. I'll be thinking of you and Ari.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-13 02:37 pm (UTC)I think I'm currently in need of distractions until it's time for me to go visit, so it's time to check out what the rest of the universe has been up to.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-13 05:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-13 02:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-14 12:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-14 02:33 am (UTC)