I had never felt so helpless sitting beside my own wife.<\/p>\n
Maggie lay on the ambulance stretcher with an oxygen mask covering her mouth and nose.<\/p>\n
I held her hand.<\/p>\n
Her fingers were warm, but she barely had the strength to hold mine.<\/p>\n
The vehicle started moving, and I shifted closer so I wouldn't lose contact with her.<\/p>\n
A paramedic checked the equipment beside her head.<\/p>\n
I watched his hands because I didn't know where else to look.<\/p>\n
Every little movement made me nervous.<\/p>\n
When he adjusted the oxygen mask, I leaned forward.<\/p>\n
When he checked her pulse, I watched his expression.<\/p>\n
He didn't say anything alarming.<\/p>\n
That should have comforted me.<\/p>\n
It didn't.<\/p>\n
Maggie opened her eyes for a moment.<\/p>\n
She looked directly at me.<\/p>\n
I squeezed her hand.<\/p>\n
"I'm here."<\/p>\n
Her eyelids lowered again.<\/p>\n
I wanted her to answer.<\/p>\n
I wanted her to complain about the ride or ask where we were going.<\/p>\n
Anything that sounded like the Maggie I knew.<\/p>\n
Instead, she remained quiet.<\/p>\n
The paramedic turned toward me.<\/p>\n
"How long has she been feeling this bad?"<\/p>\n
I looked at Maggie before answering.<\/p>\n
"Several days."<\/p>\n
He waited.<\/p>\n
"Maybe three. Could be four."<\/p>\n
Saying it aloud made me feel sick.<\/p>\n
Three or four days.<\/p>\n
My wife had been unwell for that long, and I was sitting in an ambulance trying to explain something I barely understood.<\/p>\n
The paramedic wrote something down.<\/p>\n
"Has she been awake and responsive?"<\/p>\n
"Yes, but not much."<\/p>\n
I looked at her face.<\/p>\n
"She keeps opening her eyes."<\/p>\n
He nodded and continued working.<\/p>\n
I wanted him to ask me another question.<\/p>\n
Something I could answer properly.<\/p>\n
Her birthday.<\/p>\n
Her age.<\/p>\n
Anything simple.<\/p>\n
But the important questions weren't simple anymore.<\/p>\n
I knew how long we had been married.<\/p>\n
I knew the sound of Maggie's footsteps.<\/p>\n
I knew how she looked when she was tired.<\/p>\n
And I knew that the woman lying beside me was struggling just to keep her eyes open.<\/p>\n
That frightened me more than I could explain.<\/p>\n
I rubbed my thumb across the back of her hand.<\/p>\n
There was a time when she would have squeezed back without thinking.<\/p>\n
Now I couldn't tell whether she felt it.<\/p>\n
"Maggie?"<\/p>\n
Her eyes opened slightly.<\/p>\n
"It's me."<\/p>\n
She looked toward me again.<\/p>\n
I tried to smile.<\/p>\n
It was a poor attempt.<\/p>\n
"You don't need to talk."<\/p>\n
I wasn't sure whether I was reassuring her or myself.<\/p>\n
The ambulance continued down the road.<\/p>\n
The siren rose and fell beyond the walls.<\/p>\n
Inside, everything felt too close.<\/p>\n
The stretcher.<\/p>\n
The equipment.<\/p>\n
The paramedic.<\/p>\n
My wife's pale face.<\/p>\n
I had no way to make the ride shorter.<\/p>\n
No way to give her my strength.<\/p>\n
All I could do was remain beside her.<\/p>\n
The paramedic checked her mask again.<\/p>\n
Maggie moved her head a little.<\/p>\n
I leaned nearer.<\/p>\n
"Are you uncomfortable?"<\/p>\n
She didn't answer.<\/p>\n
Her eyes closed.<\/p>\n
I sat back.<\/p>\n
I wanted to ask the paramedic whether she would be all right.<\/p>\n
The question stayed in my mouth.<\/p>\n
I was afraid of hearing something I wasn't ready for.<\/p>\n
So I asked something smaller.<\/p>\n
"Is she getting enough oxygen?"<\/p>\n
He checked the reading.<\/p>\n
"We're watching her closely."<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
Closely.<\/p>\n
That was all I wanted anyone to do.<\/p>\n
Watch her.<\/p>\n
Help her.<\/p>\n
Don't let anything happen while I sat there unable to change it.<\/p>\n
Another few minutes passed.<\/p>\n
Or perhaps it was only one.<\/p>\n
I couldn't judge time properly.<\/p>\n
I kept returning to the same thought.<\/p>\n
Three days.<\/p>\n
Maybe four.<\/p>\n
I had said those words to a stranger as though they were ordinary.<\/p>\n
They weren't ordinary.<\/p>\n
They were days in my wife's life that I could not get back.<\/p>\n
I watched Maggie breathe beneath the mask.<\/p>\n
The paramedic continued his work.<\/p>\n
And I stayed beside her, holding the hand of the woman I loved.<\/p>\n
I had never felt so helpless sitting beside my own wife. Maggie lay on the ambulance stretcher with an oxygen mask covering her mouth and nose. I held her hand. … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37521"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37541,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37521\/revisions\/37541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}