“Man… I’m dragging today,” Dawn admitted the next morning as she shuffled around my hotel bed, setting up for my bowel program. “That alarm went off way too early for me.”
“Me too,” I said. “Sorry – I forgot it was one of my long days when I told Brian we’d meet them at nine.” Meeting at nine meant checking out at eight-thirty, which meant waking up at six-thirty in order to get everyone ready on time. “We should have made it ten.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s not like it’s any earlier than we usually wake up on weekdays,” she replied with a shrug. “I guess it just feels like it because we were up late last night.”
“You’d never know it by the way Mason bounced right out of bed this morning.” I could hear the Curious George theme song coming from the living room of our suite, where Dawn had turned on the TV to keep my son occupied while she helped me with my morning routine.
“Ah, to be young again. If only we had that much energy.” She tried to hide a yawn behind her hand, but I noticed.
“I dunno, Dawn; you usually do. You’re not hungover, are you?” I teased her, grinning.
“After two light beers? I would hope not! Then I’d really know I was getting old – as if the heartburn wasn’t proof enough.” She grinned back as she pulled on a pair of gloves. “But, no… not hungover. Just tired. That flu really kicked my ass last week; I’m not back to a hundred percent yet.”
“I hear ya.” I’d felt weaker than usual for almost a week after my own fever had broken, and I could sense the same fatigue in Dawn as she plodded back and forth between the bedroom and bathroom. Maybe it was just because we were in an unfamiliar place with a bed that was higher than the adjustable one I had at home and a shower that was smaller, but our well-rehearsed morning routine didn’t run as smoothly as it normally did. Every transfer felt more difficult than usual. By the time she’d finished helping me in the shower, Dawn’s t-shirt was drenched. “Looks like you got almost as wet as I did,” I said, laughing as she bent down to dry off my legs with a bath towel.
“Just trying to be efficient. This way, I won’t need to waste time taking a shower of my own,” she joked, flashing me a good-natured smile. But I could hear her breathing hard behind me as she steered my travel commode out of the steamy bathroom.
“How ya doin’, Mase?” I asked, poking my head through the doorway of the living room as Dawn pushed me past it.
Mason was curled up on the couch with his blanket, watching cartoons. “Fine,” he responded, hardly taking his eyes off the TV.
When Dawn wheeled me back to the bedroom, I glanced at the clock on the nightstand between the two beds. It was already a quarter after eight. My bowel program had taken longer than usual, but I didn’t know if that was because Dawn was slow-moving or because I’d overindulged at Brian’s Super Bowl party the night before – too much greasy junk food and beer, not enough fiber and water. It was probably the latter. In any case, we were running late.
“Give me about ten more minutes to get dressed, and then it’ll be time to pack up and check out,” I called to Mason as Dawn positioned my chair next to the bed for a pivot transfer. “We’re meeting Brian’s family for breakfast before we head home.”
“Don’t let me order a big meal,” Dawn said as she sank down to pick my feet up off the footplates and plant them on the floor. “I ate way too much salty food last night. I’m so bloated, I barely fit into my sweatpants this morning.” She groaned and patted her belly as she stood back up. “It’s gonna be fun trying to squeeze myself into some real clothes before we leave for breakfast.”
“So go in your sweatpants,” I replied with a shrug. “No one cares what you wear.”
“If it was just us, and we were going to the Waffle House, I would. But, knowing Brian and Leighanne, the place they picked is probably fancy, and I already feel like a big, fat troll next to the two of them. I’ve gotta at least try to look presentable when I’m out with the pretty people.”
“I know the feeling,” I admitted, glancing down at my quad gut as she grabbed me by the hips and scooted me forward.
“Oh, please. You are one of the pretty people, Kevin. You clean up nice – and don’t you dare insult me by disagreeing, because I’m usually the one who cleans you up.” She winked as she squatted in front of me, wrapping her arms around my waist. “Ready? One… two… three.”
Leaving heavily on Dawn, I helped her haul my body off of the commode and onto the bed, using my arms to lift and transfer as much of my own weight as I could while she maneuvered my hips across the gap between the two. Then I flopped back onto my pillows as she bent down again to lift my spasming legs onto the mattress.
“Whew,” I heard her sigh as she straightened up, rubbing the small of her back.
“Is your back still bothering you?” I asked sympathetically, watching while I waited for the spasms to subside.
She shrugged. “No worse than any of my other aches and pains,” she replied, laughing it off. “Getting old sucks.”
“Yeah, but dying young sucks worse.”
Dawn nodded, her smile fading. “True dat. I guess I should be grateful for those aches and pains, huh?”
“Coming from someone who can’t feel most of mine anymore? Yeah,” I said as I stared up at the ceiling. “‘Course, that’s easy for me to say when I can drop a damn bowling ball on my foot and not even notice. I don’t miss that kind of pain, but I’d welcome it back in a heartbeat if it meant my body would work the way it used to.”
“Understandable,” said Dawn as she trudged across the room to fetch my clothes from my suitcase. I wished she would hurry; she had left a towel draped across my waist, but the longer I lay naked on the bed, the colder my body became. I could feel goosebumps erupting up and down my bare arms.
“Hey, would you mind turning off the A/C?” I finally asked when I realized I could hear the air conditioner running. “I’m freezing.”
“Sorry – I may have cranked it down a few degrees while you were in the shower,” she confessed. “I thought it was stuffy in here. Maybe it’s just me.”
“Nah… it’s me. You know how cold-blooded I am,” I said with a sheepish smile. “Anything below seventy, and I start shivering.”
“I know. I’m coming.” Dawn adjusted the thermostat, then tossed a Wildcats hoodie over my top half to cover me while she dressed the bottom half. She worked a pair of underwear over my feet and up my legs, rolling me from side to side so she could pull them all the way up to my waist. I had become so accustomed to lying there like a ragdoll while someone else dressed me, having done so every day for the last five years, that I didn’t stop to think about how difficult it must have been to move my dead weight around. Dawn had always made it look relatively easy.
But that day was different. That day, I could hear her panting as she threaded my puffy feet through the narrow leg holes of my jeans and hitched the stiff denim up my heavy legs, inch by inch, lifting and tugging. It looked like hard work. Jeans were the worst because they were tight-fitting and didn’t have much stretch. As I watched Dawn struggle with them, I said, “I’m starting to wish I had gone with sweatpants. Are my legs swollen from all that salty food, too?”
“No worse than usual.” With a grunt, she rolled me away from her, turning me onto my left side in order to pull the pants up over my right hip.
“Well, you’re sure getting a good workout this morning.” I lay in an awkward position, my left arm pinned beneath me, the side of my face pressed against my pillow. “Sorry for being such a pain in the ass.
“No need to apologize.” She rolled me the other way, putting me on my right side so she could reach the left. “It’s not you; it’s me.”
Her clipped tone caught my attention. Looking closely at her, I noticed a layer of perspiration coating her pasty white face. “You okay?” I asked in concern.
“I told you, I’m just tired,” she replied breathlessly. “I… I may need to rest for a minute.”
“Please, sit down. You look like you’re about to pass out.”
Dawn perched on the side of the bed and took slow, deep breaths, her shoulders rising and falling. “Sorry,” she said, frowning deeply as she rubbed the front of her damp t-shirt. “I dunno what’s wrong with me today.”
“You’re recovering from the flu – that’s what,” I replied. “It’s okay. Take your time. I can always text Brian and tell him we’re gonna be late.”
“No… I’m fine. I’ll be fine,” Dawn repeated. She rocked backward and forward, giving herself some extra momentum to get up from the bed. But when she stood up and turned toward me, I saw her white face go blank. A second later, her eyes rolled back, her knees buckled, and she dropped like a stone, straight down. I heard a dull thump as her body hit the floor.
“Dawn!” I cried, dragging myself to the edge of the bed so I could see where she’d landed. Dawn lay in a crumpled heap on the thin carpet, her eyes closed, her body completely still. I couldn’t tell whether she was breathing or not, and, of course, I couldn’t reach her to check. All I could do was call her name and hope she would come around. “Dawn! Dawn!” I shouted it repeatedly, but she didn’t respond. My mind raced, and my pulse pounded inside my head as my heart hurried to catch up, pumping a rush of adrenaline through my veins. But the rest of my body lay motionless on the bed, refusing to follow all but the most basic commands coming from my brain as it cried out for help. It was a very frustrating feeling.
“Dad? What happened?”
When I heard Mason’s voice behind me, I almost told him to go back into the other room; I didn’t want him to see Dawn that way. But I knew I needed his help. “C’mere, Mase,” I called out to him. “Grab my cell phone off the nightstand and put it in my hand, as fast as you can.”
Mason retrieved my phone and ran around the bed to bring it to me, stopping dead in his tracks when he caught sight of Dawn lying unconscious on the floor. “What’s wrong with Dawn?” he asked, his eyes widening.
“I don’t know; she just fainted. Give me my phone, please. I’m gonna call for an ambulance.”
Squeezing carefully past Dawn’s still form, Mason uncurled my fingers and threaded them through the strap on the back of my phone, the way he’d seen Dawn do thousands of times before.
“Can you get down on the floor and find out if she’s breathing for me?” My hands shook as I fumbled with the phone, using my knuckle to unlock it and dial 9-1-1. “They’re gonna wanna know if she’s breathing or not. Put your fingers under her nose and tell me if you feel a puff of air.”
Kneeling next to Dawn, Mason followed my directions. “I feel it!” he announced.
At the same time, I saw Dawn’s eyelids flutter. I studied her face hopefully, my hand hesitating over the green call button on my phone as I watched to see if she would wake up first. When her eyes finally opened, I sighed with relief.
“Dawn!” Mason cried happily, hurling his body on top of hers as he gave her a hug. “Are you okay, Dawn?”
“Mason, get off her!” I snapped at him. “Give her some space.”
As Mason backed away, Dawn blinked up at me, her eyes clouded by confusion. “What happened?” she asked, looking around the hotel room. “Did I faint?”
I nodded. “You stood up from the bed and went straight down. Don’t try to get up yet,” I added quickly as she started to pull herself into a sitting position. “We should make sure you’re not hurt first. I didn’t see whether you hit your head or not, but you fell pretty hard. How do you feel?”
“A little dizzy,” Dawn admitted as she sank back to the floor. “How long was I out?”
“Not long – a minute at most. I was just about to call 9-1-1.”
She groaned. “Please don’t. I’m okay.”
I hesitated, torn between wanting to respect her wishes and needing some reassurance that she was really all right. “Are you in any pain?”
“My head’s fine, but my chest feels heavy, like I still have a five-year-old boy on top of me.” She tried to smile as she massaged the center of her chest, but it looked like more of a grimace. “It’s kinda hard to breathe when I’m lying flat on my back on the floor like this – not the most comfortable position.”
A wave of deja vu washed over me as I listened to her describe her symptoms, but at first, I didn’t understand why. “Mason, grab a pillow and put it under her head,” I directed him, my thoughts still swimming a million miles a minute. When he had done this, I added, “Now go find my blood pressure monitor. It should be in the bottom of my suitcase. Black box – you’ve seen it before.” While Mason went to dig through my bag, I turned my attention back to Dawn. “How’s that? Better?”
She nodded. “A little. Thanks.”
“No problem.” When Mason brought the monitor over, I said, “Let’s check your blood pressure.” As the words left my mouth, I suddenly recalled the night I’d nearly passed out in the middle of a love-making session with Natalie. Not only had I felt the same way Dawn did now, but her response then had been nearly identical. No wonder I had deja vu.
Dawn must have realized it, too. “Oh, how the roles have been reversed,” she sighed, raising her eyes to the ceiling. But she didn’t protest as Mason took the blood pressure monitor out of its case.
“I can do it!” he exclaimed eagerly. The Velcro crackled as he unrolled the cuff and wrapped it around Dawn’s left arm, like he’d seen her do to me. She helped him position it correctly and pull it tight enough to take an accurate reading.
“All right, Dr. Richardson.” Resting her arm at her side, she gave him a reassuring smile. “Go ahead and push the button.”
Mason grinned back as he pressed the start button on the monitor, prompting the cuff to begin inflating with a low hum. Dawn lay still, staring up at the ceiling as it slowly deflated. When the monitor beeped to indicate that it was finished, she lifted her head to look at the display.
“What does it say?” I asked. “Lemme see that, Mase.”
Mason turned the monitor toward me, so I could see it, too. Squinting, I read the numbers on the screen. I was no medical expert, but I knew what was considered “normal” for able-bodied people.
“Well, it looks like your pressure’s all right, but your heart rate is really high,” I said, frowning. When I took a closer look at the monitor, I noticed a little heart with a squiggly line next to the pulse rate, which indicated an irregular heartbeat. I had never seen that symbol appear before, not even during my worst episodes of autonomic dysreflexia. It worried me. What if she was having a heart attack? “I think we’d better call for that ambulance and get you checked out before we go home. Don’t you think so?” I tried to keep my voice light and calm as I looked Dawn in the eye, uncomfortably aware of the fact that my son was listening to every word. I didn’t want to scare him.
“Yeah… you’re probably right,” Dawn grudgingly agreed, letting her head flop back onto the pillow with an air of defeat.
I placed the call from my phone. When the 911 dispatcher answered, I told him the name of our hotel and our room number and described what had happened to Dawn, answering as many of his questions as I could while he took down my information and sent an ambulance to our location. My sense of deja vu intensified as we waited for it to arrive.
Within ten minutes, there was a knock at the door. Mason hurried to answer it and ushered a pair of paramedics into the room, where Dawn was still lying on the floor. “Go pack your things, Mason,” I said in a low voice as they rolled in a stretcher. I didn’t know how he and I were going to go anywhere, since Dawn was the only one of us who was capable of driving the van; I just wanted to distract him from what was happening to her.
But, being a five-year-old boy, Mason wanted to watch the paramedics work. I couldn’t blame him for being curious, so I didn’t protest when he climbed onto the foot of my bed instead.
“C’mere, buddy.” I reached out to him as best I could from my awkward sideways position, patting a bare spot on the mattress. Mason crawled closer to me, carefully pushing my legs out of the way to make more room for himself to perch on the edge of the bed. “They’re gonna take good care of her,” I told him quietly as the two medics talked to Dawn and took her vital signs.
“Who are the wheelchairs for?” I heard one of them ask as he looked around the room, noticing my manual chair parked in the corner and my shower chair sitting next to it.
“They’re mine,” I answered. “I’m a quadriplegic. Dawn was helping me get dressed when she passed out.” I wanted to explain why I was still lying bare-chested on the bed with my pants unbuttoned.
The paramedics both looked at me, making me feel even more self-conscious. “Are you her husband?”
“No. She’s my attendant – and my son’s nanny. She lives with us.”
“Has anything like this happened to her before?”
I shook my head. “No, not since I’ve known her.”
“Any history of health problems we should be aware of?”
I deferred to Dawn on that one. “I had the flu last week,” she said. “I’m also a carrier of DMD – Duchenne muscular dystrophy. It can cause muscle weakness and heart problems, but I’ve never had any symptoms of either. I’ve always been healthy otherwise.”
“How are you feeling now? Any pain, heart palpitations, or shortness of breath?”
“All of the above,” she answered, closing her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, they were bright with tears.
By the way she was talking, I could tell she was trying to stay calm, but the panic I saw in those watery, blue eyes as they peered out of her pale, white face sent a flicker of fear through me. I had almost forgotten what she had told me the morning I’d come home from the hospital after that humiliating night with Natalie:
“We all have our hypochondriac moments. Whenever I get winded playing with Mason or carrying laundry up the stairs, I can’t help but wonder if it’s just because I’m old and fat or because my heart’s beginning to fail. I know I’m probably just being paranoid, but that fear will always be with me.”
Maybe she wasn’t being paranoid, I thought, hoping I was wrong, hoping this would turn out to be another one of those “hypochondriac moments.”
After hearing her describe the symptoms she’d been experiencing, the two paramedics exchanged glances, probably thinking along the same lines as I was. “We’re gonna go ahead and transport you to the hospital, so they can run some tests, find out what’s wrong, and get you feeling better,” one of them told her. Then he looked up at me. “Is there someone else you can call to take care of you and your son?”
I nodded. “We’re here visiting my cousin and his family. I’ll call him.”
As they strapped her onto the stretcher, Dawn caught my eye. “I’m sorry, Kevin,” she said, the tears starting to drip down her face.
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault,” I replied quickly, flashing her a reassuring smile. “We’ll be fine – and you’re gonna be fine, too. Don’t worry about me; just try to relax and focus on feeling better, all right? I’m gonna give Brian a call and tell him what happened, and I’ll meet you at the hospital as soon as he can get me there.”
She shook her head. “You don’t have to come right away. Go have breakfast like you planned.”
“Are you kidding?” I gave her an incredulous look. “You don’t really think I’d let you go through this alone, do you? I’m coming.” I could recall Natalie saying something similar the night I’d cracked my head open in her hotel room on our second or third date. I had been in Dawn’s place plenty of times over the past five years, but I’d never been alone. I’d always had someone to accompany me to the emergency room, wait with me at the hospital, and drive me home once I was discharged. Now that I was on the other side for once, I wanted to be the supportive one, the one Dawn could depend on. After all she had done for me, it was the least I could do for her.
Dawn cracked a smile. “Thanks,” she said softly. “I’ll see you there, then.”
As the paramedics raised the stretcher to its full height and rolled her past me, I reached out and patted her shoulder. “Hang in there.”
“I will.” To Mason, she said, “Don’t worry, kiddo. Your dad’s right – I’m gonna be just fine. You be good and help him out as much as you can, okay?”
Mason nodded, but I could tell he was worried. There were tears welling up in his eyes, too. “Can I go with you?” he asked, his voice wavering. Whether he wanted to stay with Dawn or really just wanted to ride in an ambulance, I wasn’t sure, but I immediately shook my head.
“No, buddy. You need to stay here with me – I may need your help,” I told him, which was the truth. “But you can go hold the door open for them. Just don’t leave the room, okay? The door will lock if you let it close behind you.”
“Okay.” He jumped off the bed and hurried around it to help the paramedics. I held my breath as I listened to the sound of the door opening and closing, hoping he hadn’t locked himself out. It was frustrating to have to put my faith in a five-year-old.
But Mason didn’t let me down. A second after the door banged shut, he came back over to my bed. “Thanks for being such a good helper, buddy,” I said, giving him a grateful smile. “How ya doin’?”
He shrugged. “Is Dawn gonna be okay?” he asked in a small voice.
“You heard her – she’ll be fine,” I assured him, hoping I wasn’t lying to his face. If it turned out that Dawn was having a heart attack, there was no telling what might happen. But I didn’t want to freak him out with worst-case scenarios when we didn’t even know for sure what was wrong with her. “Remember that time Daddy had to go to the hospital in the middle of the night? It turned out to be no big deal, and I was better by the next morning. We just wanna make sure Dawn’s feeling better before she drives us home.”
Mason nodded again, seeming to understand.
“Go get dressed and pack your bag,” I told him. “I’m gonna give Brian a call and have him take us to the hospital, okay?”
“Okay, Dad.”
While Mason was busy getting himself ready, I called Brian and told him what had happened. “I hate to do this to you, cuz, but I’m gonna need your help getting out of bed and getting to the hospital. Can you meet us at the hotel?”
Brian didn’t hesitate. “Of course! We’re already on our way to the cafe. I’ll have Leighanne drop me off at the hotel instead. I assume you’ll want me to drive your van?”
“Yeah… that would be the easiest way. Thanks, man.” I gave him the name of the hotel and our room number before I hung up.
As I lay there, waiting for him to arrive, it occurred to me that I had been stuck in the same position for at least half an hour with no extra padding to protect my right hip or prevent my knees and ankles from rubbing together, putting me at risk of pressure sores. I tried to roll myself onto my back by swinging my arms to generate enough momentum, but I only managed to twist my torso and tangle my legs into an even more uncomfortable position.
“Hey, Mase, c’mere a minute!” I called, and Mason came running. “You think you can climb up on the bed and roll me onto my back?”
“Yeah!” Mason, always eager to help, scrambled back up onto the bed and managed to straighten my body out. He fastened my jeans for me, his small fingers working the zipper and button closure much faster than my nonfunctional ones could have. Then, pulling me by the arms, he helped me sit up in bed, so I could put on my sweatshirt. Bracing myself with both hands, I watched as he put on my socks, then my shoes. He even managed to tie the laces by himself.
“Dawn has taught you well, young padawan,” I said, smiling at him in approval. “Thanks for helping out your old man.” As much as I hated having to rely on a kindergartener to take care of me, it was nice to know I could count on him.
Mason grinned, pleased with himself. He was still too small to help me transfer safely to my wheelchair, so I stayed on the bed until Brian turned up a few minutes later. At least I was fully dressed by the time he did.
“Man… it’s always something, isn’t it?” Brian said, shaking his head as he helped us finish packing. “First the flu and now this? Y’all can’t catch a break lately.”
“I know,” I murmured, nodding in agreement. Ever since I’d gotten back from Jamaica, it seemed like nothing had gone the way I’d planned. I hoped that wasn’t an indicator of how the rest of the year was going to be, with so many big things on the horizon: our twentieth anniversary celebration, the new album, and a world tour, just to name a few. But, at the moment, none of that mattered to me.
I just wanted Dawn to be okay.
***