Saving Ganton

In the fluorescent lights of the hospital I remember seeing nurses coming and going. All the hustle and bustle of the emergency room reminded me of the hallways at school. Except less fighting, and swearing and people laughing. I felt spacey and sick to my stomach. I felt like I had tunnel vision and I was tuning out everything trying to stay in my own head. I felt safer inside than I did on the outside. About twenty minutes of letting my thoughts run wild, I thought my head was going to explode. I got up and walked over to the front desk. 

"Hi, excuse me? I was wondering if you had heard anything back from doctor Alders? She was the doctor who was helping my boyfriend, Ganton Wescott?" 

The receptionist nurse looked at me, with a real endearing expression. Almost like she thought I was cute, in a childlike way, which made me both instantaneously like and dislike her. 

She looked at her charts and then followed with a quick "hold on, I'll be right back". 

The woman returned with a small smile in the corner of her mouth.

"Doctor Alders is here working with another patient, she had to transfer Ganton into another suite, and doctor Michaels is working on him at the moment. Doctor Alders will be with you shortly, sweetheart, okay?" 

"Thank you so much" I said and returned to my seat in the hellish waiting room, surrounded by the quiet buzzing of the vending machine and my thoughts. I glanced at the clock and it read 9:40. Had we really been here for almost four hours? I looked out the window and the sky was pitch black illuminated by the streetlights and hospital signs, but no stars. I remembered my abuela and took my phone out. I dialed the number. 

"No, abuela, I'm alright. Entiendes? Estoy bien, I'm just in the hospital with Ganton.  

Se lastimó a si mismo and needed to go to the hospital. Si, I know how Diane is, that is why I'm here with him. Promise you'll call if you need anything? Te amo, abuelita. Si, te amo. Adios." 

All the while I'm on the phone I see a girl walk into the hospital with her mother. Her mother is moaning and groaning and saying that she can't breathe. The girl stays calm as they put her mother on a stretcher and wheel her into the ER. She sits across the waiting room while I tirelessly explain to my Grandmother that I am not hurt, intently listening to my Spanish-English mess of language. I hang up the phone and take a deep breath. I can still feel her staring at me, but I ignore it. My mind is only on Ganton. I could feel the racing of my heart in my chest, and I could feel the anxiety start to take over my breathing. I had to go somewhere, I could not sit still. 

I got up and went outside. I stood outside the hospital doors and took out my pack of cigarettes. My hand was shaky as I went to light it. I took a drag and exhaled in the moonlight. It was a beautiful night, and Ganton and I were stuck here, in the Emergency Room. I glanced inside and noticed the doctor looking around the waiting room. She looked over to the girl across the room and I saw her mouth move and she pointed in my direction. The doctor was making her way outside. I turned and dragged on. 

"Are you Donnie? Ganton Wescott's..partner?" 

She approached me with a cautious look on her face. 

"Boyfriend, yeah" I took another hit.

She sounded drained and sad. I knew what she had to say to me wouldn't be good news. Or maybe it was, and she just felt bad for me. I turned to her and she started giving me the run through.

"Ganton was in poor condition. It was hit and miss for a while. He had deep wrist lacerations and went into hypovolemic shock. Once we stitched up his wrists we had to find a way to get blood thoroughly pumping through his body again. We gave him a  plasma transfusion and right now he is in the ICU, in a comatose state. We did give him some Hydrocodone while we were sewing him up, just to make the procedure less painful for him." 

I met her eyes, they looked tired, sunken in. 

"W-what do you mean he's in a coma?"

"When his wrists were slashed he lost a lot of blood. When he went into hypovolemic shock, he experienced an ABI, or an anoxic brain injury. He lost many brain cells, and his brain began shutting down. That's when he slipped into his coma. His vitals are stable enough to keep him off of ventilation intubators. That means he is still breathing on his own. He may need a few days to wake up, but when he does, he still needs to be seen by a medical psychologist and I am going on record and strongly recommending a ten day psych evaluation. And I will need his mother down here at some point, to sign consent forms for the inpatient care. I understand you gave out receptionist his insurance cards so there will be no need to make her search for them. If I'm being honest, I've never seen a non-family member act as mature and loving towards someone they care about like you have. Ganton is lucky to have you in his life." 

I was standing there speechless. I couldn't believe he was okay, my heart felt an overwhelming sense of relief. But I knew there was a long, bumpy road ahead of us, and I knew I was up to whatever life had to swing at us. But I knew he wasn't. 

"So when can I see him?" I blurted out after fifteen long seconds of silence. 

"I can show you to his room right now, if you're feeling up to it?" Doctor Alders replied. 

I followed her back into the automatic hospital doors. I wasn't prepared to see him but I knew I needed to. As I walked in, I blankly turned to the corner the girl was sitting in. Her mother was gone, but she was still sitting there, alone. She lifted her head for a split second before I entered the elevator just to wink at me.