He rolled his eyes as I pressed the button and talked to the nurse.
She came in moments later with a smile on her face.
Her eyes went from me to Pace, and I felt stuff inside of me clench in anger when her eyes lingered on his tall form standing beside my bed.
“You’re ready to finally get up?” she asked.
I was sure that she hadn’t intended it to sound rude, but it had.
Which made me grit my teeth.
“Yes,” I said. “I was wondering what I was and wasn’t allowed to pull out. I’d love to take a real shower. I don’t think I’ve had one of those in weeks.”
Embarrassed by my lack of shower, I shot a guilty look Pace’s way.
Pace only grinned. “I think I have you topped up on that department. I went months without one when this happened.”
He gestured down to his legs.
His legs that were now encased in sweatpants—sans non-slip socks.
I looked at his sweatpants with envy.
“Can I put some sweatpants on when I’m done?” I asked the nurse.
The nurse, her nametag read Lacy, nodded her head.
“You can,” she agreed. “But I do have to ask that when you urinate, that you do so in the little hat in the toilet. That way we can still measure your input and output to make sure that everything is going okay.”
I would
I so would.
“So that means that I can get my catheter out?” I asked hopefully.
The nurse grinned. “Yep. Do you want your hubby to stay or leave?”
I looked over at Pace with a grin to see he was smiling just as big. “This isn’t my husband. This is the man that donated his kidney to me. He’s a patient…he’s actually in the next room over.”
Understanding dawned on the nurse, then she scowled at him. “We’ve been looking for you for the last thirty minutes.”
He gestured to the seat. “I told Hastings that I was going to be here.”
Nurse Lacy rolled her eyes. “Hastings went to lunch. That’s gotta be why we didn’t know.”
“Anyway.” Pace looked at me. “I’ll make a loop around the unit and come back in when all your tubes and stuff are gone.”
With that, he left the room.
“Whew, he’s hot,” Nurse Lacy breathed when he was finally out of earshot.
I silently agreed.
Pace was more than hot.
Ten minutes later, I was sitting up on the side of the bed, mostly tubeless, wondering how the hell I was going to make myself stand up.
Pace was walking around like this was easy, but every time I tried to stand up, agony would shoot through my abdomen.
I’d come off the pain pump that morning, and they’d been giving me oral pain meds ever since.
And let me just tell you something, the IV shit was so much better than the oral stuff.
I attempted to stand once again, a gasp leaving my throat at the pain that coursed through me.
About to give up again and plop back down, a hand wrapped around my upper arms and continued pulling me up.
“The first time is the worst,” he said matter-of-factly. “It gets better.”
I couldn’t see how.
Especially since now that I was standing, rather hunched might I add, it sucked even more than sitting.
I couldn’t imagine having to actually take a step.
Then he forced me to.
I moaned.
Another step.
And another.
“Where is your nurse?” he asked curiously.
“There was a patient two rooms down that fell out of the bed,” I said through clenched teeth. “She went over there to help get him back in and hasn’t been back.”
He made an ‘ahhh’ sound and kept me moving.
“Why is this so easy for you?” I wondered. “You’re moving so easily.”
“Pain has been my constant companion for a very long time now,” he admitted, moving me. “In some form or fashion, I deal with it almost daily. I just compartmentalize it and keep truckin’.”
I hated that pain was his constant companion.
Even more, I hated that the idea of him in pain was like a dagger straight to my heart.
I hated that he was experiencing pain at all for me, to be honest.
“What’s that look for?” he asked curiously.
I debated for all of two seconds about whether to tell him the truth, but the pain kept my answers short and sweet.
“I don’t like that you’re in pain for me,” I admitted, taking another step.
We were almost to the bathroom.
“Want to do that shower? Or do a few more laps around the room and lay back down?” he wondered.
I didn’t know the answer to that.
On one hand, I wanted more than anything to be clean. On the other, I was fairly sure if I had to endure even five more seconds of this sitting up business, I would surely die.
“Since you don’t seem like you want to choose, I’ll choose for you,” he teased. “A shower will make you feel a thousand times better, trust me.”