I had imagined the hospital would give me answers.<\/p>\n
Not all at once, perhaps.<\/p>\n
But quickly enough to make me feel less frightened.<\/p>\n
Instead, the questions continued.<\/p>\n
The medical staff examined Maggie.<\/p>\n
They checked her condition.<\/p>\n
They discussed what needed to happen next.<\/p>\n
I stood close enough to see her but far enough away to give them room.<\/p>\n
My hands were clasped together.<\/p>\n
I kept looking at the wedding ring on her finger.<\/p>\n
I wanted to be holding that hand.<\/p>\n
But someone was working beside the stretcher.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to interfere.<\/p>\n
The doctor came toward me.<\/p>\n
I straightened immediately.<\/p>\n
"How is she?"<\/p>\n
The doctor spoke carefully.<\/p>\n
"Maggie is very weak. We need to run tests to understand what's causing this."<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
"What kind of tests?"<\/p>\n
The doctor explained that they needed to examine her condition further, including checking her blood.<\/p>\n
I listened closely.<\/p>\n
I didn't understand every medical detail.<\/p>\n
But I understood the important part.<\/p>\n
They still didn't know exactly what was happening.<\/p>\n
I looked at Maggie.<\/p>\n
She lay beneath the blanket with the oxygen mask covering her face.<\/p>\n
Her eyes were closed.<\/p>\n
"Does that mean something is seriously wrong?"<\/p>\n
The doctor didn't dismiss my concern.<\/p>\n
"It means we need more information before we can explain what's causing her symptoms."<\/p>\n
I swallowed.<\/p>\n
"All right."<\/p>\n
It was difficult to accept.<\/p>\n
I wanted certainty.<\/p>\n
I wanted a name for what had happened.<\/p>\n
I wanted the doctor to tell me that Maggie would recover.<\/p>\n
But there wasn't enough information yet.<\/p>\n
I knew that.<\/p>\n
I had spent the ambulance ride trying to make sense of facts I didn't understand.<\/p>\n
Now the hospital was trying to find those facts.<\/p>\n
I needed to let them.<\/p>\n
A nurse approached Maggie.<\/p>\n
She explained what she was going to do.<\/p>\n
Maggie's eyelids moved.<\/p>\n
I watched her carefully.<\/p>\n
I felt a strange mixture of relief and sadness.<\/p>\n
Relief because she was still responding.<\/p>\n
Sadness because even hearing someone speak seemed to require effort.<\/p>\n
The nurse began preparing to collect a blood sample.<\/p>\n
I watched from a short distance.<\/p>\n
I had seen Maggie have blood taken before.<\/p>\n
It had never frightened me like this.<\/p>\n
Usually, it was an ordinary medical procedure.<\/p>\n
Something that happened during a checkup.<\/p>\n
Something she might mention afterward without much concern.<\/p>\n
Now every small procedure seemed connected to questions I couldn't answer.<\/p>\n
I watched the nurse work.<\/p>\n
I wanted to ask whether it would hurt.<\/p>\n
I stopped myself.<\/p>\n
Maggie had enough to endure without hearing my worry.<\/p>\n
The nurse completed the collection carefully.<\/p>\n
I looked at Maggie's face.<\/p>\n
Her eyes remained closed.<\/p>\n
I wanted to move closer.<\/p>\n
The nurse finished and stepped aside.<\/p>\n
I approached the stretcher.<\/p>\n
"Hello, sweetheart."<\/p>\n
Maggie's eyelids lifted.<\/p>\n
She looked toward me.<\/p>\n
I smiled.<\/p>\n
"You're at the hospital."<\/p>\n
I gently touched her hand.<\/p>\n
"They're taking care of you."<\/p>\n
Her eyes stayed on mine.<\/p>\n
Then they closed again.<\/p>\n
I rubbed my thumb across her knuckles.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether she understood that the doctors were trying to find out what was wrong.<\/p>\n
I hoped she did.<\/p>\n
I hoped she knew that every question and procedure was meant to help her.<\/p>\n
I wanted to explain everything.<\/p>\n
But I didn't know enough to explain it properly.<\/p>\n
That was a familiar feeling by now.<\/p>\n
I had spent hours wishing I possessed knowledge I didn't have.<\/p>\n
I had wanted to know what happened during the missing days.<\/p>\n
I had wanted to understand the paramedic's readings.<\/p>\n
Now I wanted to understand the tests.<\/p>\n
I looked toward the doctor.<\/p>\n
"Will the blood tell you what's wrong?"<\/p>\n
The doctor answered cautiously.<\/p>\n
"The results may help us identify what is happening and what needs further investigation."<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
"Okay."<\/p>\n
I wanted to ask how long it would take.<\/p>\n
I wanted to ask what they expected to find.<\/p>\n
I wanted to ask whether the answers would be frightening.<\/p>\n
But those questions were still ahead of us.<\/p>\n
There was no use demanding a result before the testing was complete.<\/p>\n
I looked down at Maggie.<\/p>\n
Her hand was still inside mine.<\/p>\n
The wedding ring felt cool beneath my thumb.<\/p>\n
I traced the familiar circle.<\/p>\n
I thought about how often I had believed that being her husband meant being able to take care of her.<\/p>\n
When something broke at home, I tried to fix it.<\/p>\n
When she was tired, I could do something to make her day easier.<\/p>\n
When she was worried, I could listen.<\/p>\n
Those were ordinary things.<\/p>\n
I understood them.<\/p>\n
This was different.<\/p>\n
I couldn't repair whatever had happened inside her body.<\/p>\n
I couldn't make her blood reveal an answer.<\/p>\n
I couldn't give her the strength she had lost.<\/p>\n
I could only stand beside her while other people did what I couldn't.<\/p>\n
That realization hurt more than I expected.<\/p>\n
I looked at her face.<\/p>\n
"I'm sorry, Maggie."<\/p>\n
Her eyes stayed closed.<\/p>\n
I didn't know whether she heard me.<\/p>\n
I wanted to apologize for not recognizing how serious her illness had become.<\/p>\n
I wanted to apologize for every moment I had failed to understand.<\/p>\n
But the hospital wasn't the place to unload my guilt onto her.<\/p>\n
She didn't need to carry that.<\/p>\n
I looked at the nurse.<\/p>\n
"Is there anything I can do?"<\/p>\n
"Keep talking to her if she responds to your voice. Just don't tire her out."<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
"I can do that."<\/p>\n
I leaned closer.<\/p>\n
"Sweetheart."<\/p>\n
Her eyelids moved.<\/p>\n
"I'm right here."<\/p>\n
She opened her eyes slightly.<\/p>\n
I smiled.<\/p>\n
"You don't have to answer."<\/p>\n
She looked at me.<\/p>\n
Then she rested again.<\/p>\n
I continued holding her hand.<\/p>\n
The medical staff moved around us.<\/p>\n
Someone adjusted the equipment.<\/p>\n
Someone reviewed information.<\/p>\n
The doctor spoke quietly with another person.<\/p>\n
I could hear pieces of their conversation, but not enough to understand everything.<\/p>\n
I decided not to guess.<\/p>\n
That had become important.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to invent an explanation because I was frightened.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to mistake a medical term for something it didn't mean.<\/p>\n
I wanted the doctors to tell me what they actually knew.<\/p>\n
Until then, I had to live with uncertainty.<\/p>\n
It was not easy.<\/p>\n
I looked at Maggie's hand.<\/p>\n
I remembered the ambulance.<\/p>\n
The siren.<\/p>\n
The paramedic's calm voice.<\/p>\n
The way she kept opening her eyes and looking toward me.<\/p>\n
I had believed reaching the hospital would change everything immediately.<\/p>\n
Instead, I was still holding her hand while someone else tried to help her.<\/p>\n
The setting had changed.<\/p>\n
The fear had not.<\/p>\n
But something important was different.<\/p>\n
The doctors were gathering information.<\/p>\n
They were examining her.<\/p>\n
They were trying to understand what had made her so weak.<\/p>\n
I looked toward the place where the blood sample had been taken.<\/p>\n
I knew the results might explain something.<\/p>\n
I didn't know what.<\/p>\n
And I didn't want to imagine the worst before anyone had told me the truth.<\/p>\n
The nurse came to check Maggie again.<\/p>\n
I moved aside.<\/p>\n
I watched her work.<\/p>\n
Maggie opened her eyes briefly.<\/p>\n
I stepped closer when there was room.<\/p>\n
"Hello."<\/p>\n
She looked at me.<\/p>\n
I smiled.<\/p>\n
Then I let her rest.<\/p>\n
The doctor had said they needed more information.<\/p>\n
I repeated those words silently.<\/p>\n
More information.<\/p>\n
Not a final answer.<\/p>\n
Not a promise.<\/p>\n
Just the next necessary step.<\/p>\n
I stood beside Maggie's stretcher.<\/p>\n
Her wedding ring rested against my finger.<\/p>\n
I rubbed the familiar circle over her knuckles.<\/p>\n
And I waited while the hospital began searching for the explanation I had been unable to give.<\/p>\n
I had imagined the hospital would give me answers. Not all at once, perhaps. But quickly enough to make me feel less frightened. Instead, the questions continued. The medical staff … <\/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-37535","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\/37535","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=37535"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37555,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37535\/revisions\/37555"}],"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=37535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}