We smiled and both said, “You go first”—again, at the exact same moment.
I held out my hand indicating the floor was hers, so it wouldn’t happen a third time.
“I was just going to say I’ll pick up Hailey tonight from Addison’s and stay with her, if you want to spend the night at the hospital again.”
I frowned. “Elodie, I didn’t intend to come back last night when I dropped you off. I really did plan to go home.”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to explain.”
“No, I need to explain. I don’t want you to think I lied to you.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“But don’t worry about Hailey. Addison said she would keep her a few days. She’ll be fine. She loves Addison.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. And besides, if one of us had to leave to go get her, it would be me, not you. You belong here.”
“So do you.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know where I belong these days.”
Elodie’s face told me she’d taken that to mean something more than I’d intended.
“I didn’t mean—”
She stopped me. “It’s fine. What were you going to tell me?”
“I spoke to Richard, and he said the doctors want to talk to him at two o’clock. He wanted us both to be there.”
“Oh, wow. Okay.” She looked at her watch. “That’s an hour. I should probably go grab something to eat. I don’t remember the last time I ate, and all the coffee I drank is making me jittery.”
She didn’t ask me to join her, and that made me sad, though I understood the need to be alone. “Alright.”
Elodie stood. “There’s a bagel shop about a mile up the road. Would you like me to bring you back anything?”
“No, thank you.”
She looked at me awkwardly and raised her hand in a wave. “Okay. See you up there, then.”
I watched her walk away like a damn idiot. In my heart, I knew I should’ve grabbed her and held her in my arms before letting her go. Yet I couldn’t. And I hated myself for that.***“So, Dr. Rashami and I have spoken at length,” the pulmonologist, Dr. Marks, said. “And we’ve also consulted with Dr. Cowan, the staff ICU doctor who has been monitoring Brianna’s care since she arrived.”
All of us were lined up on one side of the bed—me, Richard, Elodie, Tobias, and Mariah. The two men in white coats stood on the opposite side of the bed.
I looked down at Anna. This morning I’d asked a nurse if she could hear me when I spoke, and she’d said sometimes people remember things they heard when they were in a coma, and other times they didn’t. I got the feeling that whatever was going to be said now might be scary to Anna if she were listening, and I didn’t want her to suffer any more than she had to.
So I spoke up, even though it wasn’t really my place. “Do you think we could have this conversation somewhere else? The waiting room, maybe?”
Dr. Marks nodded and pointed to a door a few beds away. “Of course. Let’s do that. Why don’t we go into the isolation room? It’s empty today.”
We moved into a small, private room, and the doctor closed the door behind him.
“So, like I was saying, the two of us have conferred and spoken to the other members of Brianna’s care team. As you know, we did a high-definition CAT scan, some x-rays, and ran blood work. Basically, we’ve learned that Brianna’s LAM, her lymphangioleiomyomatosis, has progressed, causing blockages of the small airways and damage to her lung tissue. She also has a blockage in her lymphatic channel that has caused a good amount of fluid to collect in her chest and abdomen—fluid that shouldn’t be there.”
“So what do we do?” Tobias asked.
“Well, the fluid in her chest and abdomen can be drained. But that requires a surgical procedure. And even if we were to do that, there’s a good chance they would fill back up again. However, we know because of Brianna’s advance directive, that she did not want any lifesaving actions taken if she was to enter a state where she was unable to make her own health decisions.”
“So what will happen if we do nothing?” Richard’s voice shook as he spoke.
“Her lungs will continue to fill up and… Well, there’s no easy way to say this, but it needs to be said so you can make the right choices. She’ll basically drown in her own body.”
Mariah broke into a loud sob. Her husband put his arm around her and pulled her to his chest.
The doctors looked at each other. “We believe the right thing to do would be to turn off the ventilator before we reach that point.”
“Can she breathe on her own?” I asked.
The pulmonologist looked down and then back up. He cleared his throat. “No, that’s not likely.”