"Congratulations," he said. A blank white face stared back at him in awe and disbelief. At least, that's what I imagine Mike the EMT saw; the face of a young man who had been confronted by mortality. I'd seen the unbelievable emerge into a world not knowing she existed. In many ways it was like meeting God; having the miraculous happen. I had always hoped miracles were real or, more accurately, the supernatural. But everyone has dreams. My logical cynical self would have never condoned or endorsed the notion that such a day was possible; an event only describable as a miracle.
She called me on her way home from work, a Monday night; she wasn't feeling well. She had begun to feel abdominal cramps during her shift at the Cafe but she was strong. As I would soon see, she was stronger than I could have ever imagined. She took a few ibuprofen when she got home. They didn't help. In bed, she tossed and groaned in pain; it worried me to the point of physically making me ill but I listened when she assured me she would be alright. She was taking a trip back home Wednesday and assured me she would see her family doctor when she arrived. Time and again I asked her if she needed me to call an ambulance and the answer remained the same. I got her some Nyquil. She didn't get more than a few hours of sleep. Something was defiantly wrong. She startled out of sleep, squeezing my arm like it was the last time she would.
It was a long strange night followed by an even stranger morning and surreal afternoon. I had to go to work but she had the day off to prepare for her vacation. I didn't want to leave her of course and I'm still ashamed to say I did. Not that she begged me to stay, but I was wrong. No matter how many times she assured me that she didn't need a trip to the emergency room, how could I have left my best friend at home in so much pain? I had the order of things all backwards. My day at work was brief and worried as I told my boss and mentor about the experience of the night before. She called me a few hours later. Though she had managed to get a few more hours of sleep, now she needed my help.
As a stressed, often depressed, growing young man, I had always felt a strong compulsion to fufill my 'professional' responsibilities; I was frightened. I was frightened of letting my coworkers down and even more frightened of getting in trouble. But I knew that this wasn't just some childish call for comfort, despite her calm tone and confident resolve, something was seriously wrong. I wasn't scared, I wasn't afraid, I had no idea what hell was going on; all I knew was that it was out of my hands. When I got home with more medicine, she said she had been feeling better but that it was short lived. In another act of shame, I told her I could only stay a bit because I had told my boss that I'd be back to work; that is unless she needed to go to the ER. She did not want to go to the ER. At this point, seeing her in this vulnerable state, clearly needing me, there was no way I was going back to work. I still lied to my boss and said we were on our way to a clinic.
As the night went on her pain got worse. I laid next to her through the sleepless night waiting for her to squeeze my arm and cry in pain in between periods of what was undoubtedly shallow sleep. She was exhausted. Every time it seemed like the pain was subsiding, it came back worse and she would do everything to hold in screams of agony. At this point she was probably sure she was dying. My mind was inexplicably calm. Should have I been preparing for the worst? Nothing, nothought, could have prepared me for what would happen next.
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