The Lady in Black
Part 1 of 2 (Due to Length)
Note: I was taken aback by how emotional it was to write this letter. I had to step away several times. Thank you, Good Lord, for Kleenex!
This is a continuation of a letter from last week: To Live Or Die: What Led Is to Truro.
This is the 10th anniversary of a defining moment in my life. March 31, 2016, was a time of uncertainty and vulnerability. I did not see it that way then, only much later. To be fair, I was confused, at times delirious, and in searing pain.
Five days earlier, a friend brought me to the emergency room at Memorial Hospital in North Conway. I was in sepsis. Answers were not coming at the hospital, so I was shipped over to Maine Med in Portland in the most painful ride of my life.
Major roads in northern New England run north and south, but I was going from west to east. At the end of a long winter, there were countless potholes along the small roads. My kidneys had shut down, and I weighed 335 pounds. My body did not fit on the stretcher, and every bump and shudder of the ambulance was excruciating.
I’ve known pain before, but little like that late afternoon drive to the Maine Coast.
At Maine Med, more tests came, and they kept coming. Friends visited but did not recognize me. My speech was slurred, my body swollen. A longtime friend later told me, “Your eyes looked dead. You were dying.”
I remained at Maine Med for the month of April, and few expected me to leave on my feet. Doctors lied to keep my spirits up, even when I asked, “I’m not afraid, I just want to know, am I going to die?”
“No, Mr. Ryan, you’ll be fine. Just fine.”
But I am a writer and used to be a reporter. I recognized the lies in their eyes.
Maine Med is a teaching hospital. That meant that I had a team of four doctors for my heart failure, four for my kidney failure, and four for everything else. These teams switched out weekly. The faces were numerous, the accents varied, the names forgettable, especially with my feeble mind.
“No, Mr. Ryan, you’ll be fine. Just fine.”
I could not get out of bed. I was on a bedpan and using a urinal. My arteries gave so much blood that they collapsed, and bruises ran up and down my arms. A port was added to my neck for easier access. It matched the dialysis port in my upper chest.
I often faded in and out of consciousness. Friends who had visited me once or twice stopped coming, later admitting, “I couldn’t stand to see you that way.” Or “I did not want to see you die.”
Other friends came more often. They threw themselves into the fire.
There were days when I understood that it would be so easy to close my eyes and let go.
For nearly the entire time there, a quiet but peaceful woman, dressed all in black, remained by my side. She did not speak with her mouth, only her eyes, and they were kind and understanding. This mysterious woman conveyed empathy and love. Sometimes she’d stay in the room when I had a visitor, but they never saw her. That told me who she was, and it was as I had expected.
It was clear, and she didn’t have to speak to convey it, “I’m here to take you if you want to go. It’s your choice.”
There were numerous blood clots, and six days a week, I endured dialysis. It was exhausting. (Fifty-five gallons of excess fluid were drained from my body.) The entire time, I did not leave my bed. CT scans, a failed ablation for my racing heart, and the determination that I had had a stroke. I was on oxygen, incapable of breathing on my own. Then came the pneumonia and the anemia.
Even at the end of my hospital stay, which I obviously survived, I had difficulty simply sitting up. Whenever they sat me in a chair, I grew dizzy and passed out.
One day, a friend from the Mount Washington Valley made the drive over.
“Do you want anything?”
“Cookies. Those big vegan cookies Whole Foods sells. A lot of them. And some vegan ice cream, too. I’m starving!”
I was out of the room when she arrived that evening. I’d been told I could not eat until a test was done on my stomach. It was scheduled first thing in the morning. But it was put off. Hour after hour until they finally came for me at 6 pm instead of 6 am. I’d not eaten since the night before, and I was in a foul mood.
When I was brought back to my room in the ICU, my friend, the cookies, and the ice cream were waiting. I was famished!
As I ripped open the box of cookies, two young doctors I did not know showed up and took them away from me.
I was livid.
A loud argument ensued. For the first time in years, my Irish temper exploded.
My friend sat shocked as I laid into the frightened doctors. Oh, I can give it with the best of them, in debilitating, horrific prose. The doctors wilted under my attack. My favorite nurse came in to intercede. I was polite to her, but venom continued to flow toward the inconsiderate “fucks” who made me wait all day and thought little of it.
“Now give me back that box of cookies before I get out of bed and kick your asses!”
I spoke as a man who believed he could, even though I had not stood for three weeks.
Another doctor rushed in, and so did more nurses. I was ready to burn the place down.
I grabbed at the tubes and wires in my neck and chest and told my friend, “You’re driving me home tonight.”
She stood paralyzed.
“Get my clothes, Cindy. They’re in the closet.”
Now the doctors and nurses were holding me down. There were hands on my arms, legs, and chest. They were pleading. I was cursing.
“I’ve never seen you that way. I mean, I knew you had it in you because of what you told me about your past, but to see it! It’s like you were possessed.”
Another doctor came in and thrust a photo at me.
“If you take a bite of a cookie, if you leave this hospital tonight, you won’t make it through the morning. You see this? It’s an enormous blood clot in your stomach. If you move around, even if you eat solid food, it will dislodge, and you will bleed out!”
Like the Irish legend Cuchulain, the grandest and fiercest of warriors, my rage simmered. I was fighting mad and wasn’t ready to give up. Legend had it that after a bloody battle, Cuchulain was so uncontrollable that on the path back to his village, naked virgins were lined on either side of the way so that he would humble himself and drop his eyes. With every step, his blood cooled.
I had heard what the doctor said, but needed a moment to regain my humility. Eventually, I was talked down.
Over the next several days, I was put on a liquid diet. I loathed it and felt like a laboratory rat. There were still a few answers.
Then they moved me onto Jello.
I was sitting in a chair one afternoon, and I collapsed. Next thing I knew, there were hands all over me, lifting me back into my bed. I was fading fast.
Doctors and nurses were everywhere. I don’t remember anything. I believe I may have been gone or on the verge of crossing.
My favorite nurse picks up the story here.
“We thought you were leaving us. Your heart monitor was still showing signs of life, but not much. Your heart was only at 20 percent capacity. We were all in a panic. The doctors were calling out your name, slapping you, pinching you. One drove his knuckle into your chest. I swear, you had given up, but when he did that, you let out a faint groan.
“The doctor kept calling to you, and it was like you were swimming back up to the surface. You made a great gasp, and we all began to breathe again.
“We were all trying to figure out why you cannot sit up without passing out. The doctor in charge…”
“The one who took my cookies away the other night?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said with a laugh. “That’s the one. He was pressing you for answers, wanting to know what you were feeling before you blacked out. We were all searching for answers. You were fading in and out. The doctor spoke forcefully, ‘Tom, do you have any idea what happened?’
“And you looked at him and said, ‘Yes, you Fuck. You took my cookies from me the other night, and I haven’t had anything worth eating since!’
“Even the doctor, who is pretty much a hard ass, laughed.”
I remember then falling into tears with all those hands on me. They all held me as I wept and wept. But their hands felt different now. Instead of pulling me back to life in a panic, they held me while my body shook and I cried until there were no more tears. Only then did they all let go.
That doctor, one of the many faceless doctors who had come and gone, the one who took the cookies from me a few days before, sat with me for a while and held my hand. We sat in silence while the others eventually departed, leaving me alone with the doctor and that kind, patient, and silent woman in black.
Continued tomorrow, April 1. Founding Members will receive Part 2 tonight at 6 pm. The rest of the paying subscribers will receive it at 7 am tomorrow.
