You lie on your side and look at the bedrails. The rails are painted white, but there are rusty cracks in the paint, and you wonder for a moment what could be in those cracks. The pervasive smell of disinfectants reminds you that you are in a hospital. Then you drift off again and in your delirium you see a vast open field, your dead husband is running away from you, and you call out to him, but he doesn’t turn around. You start running, and you wake up to excruciating pain in your backside. You try to move, but the tubes won’t let you. You search for the button to summon the nurse, but it’s out of reach. So you struggle to untangle the long wire to pull the button to you but it only gets worse. It’s exhausting and you give up trying. Next you try yelling “Nurse!” but only a pitiful sound like a cat’s meow comes out of your mouth. After a while, when you lie back drained, your friend Katie arrives. You recognize her footsteps, but can’t turn around to look at her. She summons help, and when you can turn, you see the horror and pity in her face that she is trying to hide.

How did you get to this point? You are the same age and have known each other for 60 years. Now here you are helpless while she is walking around. You did have a kidney transplant years ago but managed well, and you were always in charge of yourself. In the past, you had been Katie’s equal at all times. Taller than her and more attractive. You had the ability to draw people to you. Where are they now?

She leans over to hug you tight, and you hang on to her desperately before drifting off again. When the pretty nurse comes in and gives you another shot, you gratefully close your eyes and moments later you are back on that field, your husband now turning around, beckoning to you. Then all goes black.

The next time you wake up you are in relentless pain again. The open wound on your backside they call a bedsore has grown. They told you it is now five inches long and two inches wide. It hurts much more than your healing broken hip. You are in a different position, able to see the door and shadows passing in the hallway. Katie is gone. Needing to urinate, you reach for the call button, and to your relief, it’s within reach. You press the button. No one comes. You push it again, someone answers on the speaker above you.

“May I help you?” asks the woman at the other end. She sounds bored.

“I have to urinate.”

The voice replies, admonishing now, “You have a catheter, remember? There is no need for you to go to the bathroom.”

Oh, yes, the tubes. You remember. You lie still. The talking has tired you, exhausted all your strength. You push the button again.

“May I help you?”

“I hurt.”

“I will send the nurse in.”

Minutes pass, no one comes, you desperately push the button again. Instead of a nurse, Alex, your son, appears. He brings in the smell of fresh air and something else: beer on his breath as he leans over to kiss you.

“How are you doing, Mom? They told me they will be bringing dinner soon.”

There was ample beer in the fridge the day you fell in the kitchen while cooking dinner last week. Or was that last month?

“I’m OK. Is the nurse coming?”

“She said she has to call the doctor for more orders before you can have more medication.”

“Mom, can you sign this check? I need to buy groceries.” He is holding a pen and your checkbook. You try, but you know with IVs and tubes pulling on you your signature will turn out almost illegible. He seems satisfied, though.

“Let’s turn on the TV for the news,” he says.

You watch him turn it on; he doesn’t have any trouble reaching anything, although he is over fifty with a potbelly. But still tall and handsome.

When dinner comes, you know what he will say, “Mom, you have got to eat,” and he does say it. But you can’t eat. Your mouth is dry, your throat lumpy. When he sees that you are not eating, he picks up the fork and tries to feed you the unidentifiable foul-smelling pulp. You take a mouthful and make a useless attempt to chew. It’s no use, nothing happens, you have no saliva. Even though you have not swallowed anything, you gag and throw up what is in your mouth together with some greenish fluid all over the blanket. You look at Alex for help, but he turns away and leaves the room.

“I’ll get someone,” he says on his way out. Nursing aides come in to clean and turn you over.

“Where is Alex?” you ask the short, friendly one.

“He had to leave. Said he’ll be back.”

“I have to move my bowels.”

“Remember you have a rectal tube.” Oh, yes, there is that tube too.

After they are done and Alex doesn’t come back, you ask for more pain medication, and get it only after the cheerful young nurse checks your IV and your PICC line. You drift off once more. Back to the field.

It looks different this time, it’s a purplish color instead of green, your husband is not there, your beautiful mother is. She is beckoning to you. She has been dead for thirty years, and you miss her still. You get closer to her and can see that she is worried about you. She says something, but you can’t understand the words, then she melts away. You start walking to where she was, while floating six inches above the ground, and there are no tubes to hold you back. It feels beautiful.

There are voices in the room and it’s not a dream. Alex and Katie are arguing. It’s about consent. The words “tube” and “feeding” are mentioned,and you don’t understand the connection. And you don’t know why the two people you love most are arguing. You ask for more medication for the pain all over your body. You get the medication and the next time you wake up you are rolled out of surgery to the recovery room, and all seems confused and out of focus and nobody is telling you anything, but you are not in pain, and for that you are grateful. This room is all white, and you are on a cot with other cots surrounding you. Is it a morgue? Are you dead? You are able to move one of your arms, and as you explore your body, you find a new tube sticking out of your belly. A youngish Asian woman doctor comes over. She tells you that you now have a G-tube because you couldn’t eat.

When they return you to your room, the pain comes back with a vengeance. Alex is there. Katie is not. He must have won the argument. You wonder if she will ever come back. You hear someone crying. It’s you.

“How are you feeling, Mom?” Alex asks.

You touch the fresh dressing on your abdomen finding a new source of pain.

“I’m OK.”

Clara Frank was born in Budapest, Hungary and arrived in California at the age of 17 as a refugee speaking no English. She had been an avid reader since childhood and had tried her hand at writing at that time in her native language. Her writing ambitions were put on the shelf as she earned living, so she chose to study the sciences, because of its universal language. Now, retired after a successful career in hospital epidemiology, she is able to take up writing again.

Header image: lil peep by Jodie Filan.