Holli! I would so kick her ass when I saw her next. Not that it was her fault. We hadn’t seen her since before his mother passed, so she would have given him the weed candy during a happier time. I just wanted to direct my anger somewhere. “How much Valium did you take?”
“Four milligrams,” he mumbled into the duvet.
“Not more than that?” When he didn’t answer, I snapped, “Neil! Did you take anything else?”
He shook his head then let out an exhausted sigh. “I had some scotch on the plane.”
Because Neil had gone through chemo in London, I still had his general practitioner’s emergency number in my phone. I sighed and hit “call” on the screen.
Dr. Hearn was a physician I’d only spoken to twice during Neil’s treatment, but he seemed warm and affable. He also made bank with Neil as a private patient, so I wasn’t worried about calling too early.
He answered on the second ring.
“Hi, Dr. Hearn, this is Sophie Scaife, calling about Neil Elwood.”
“Oh dear, he isn’t having trouble again, is he?” The man’s voice—I imagined him as a kind, older gentleman with sympathetic eyes, since I’d never seen him in person—was tinged with alarm.
“Not the leukemia, no.” I chewed my thumbnail. “His mom died—”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Dr. Hearn interjected into my slight pause.
“Thank you. Um, he…took some…drugs. And now I’m concerned.” Was Neil going to get arrested? Would he get in trouble?
“What kind of drugs?” The friendly tone was gone from Dr. Hearn’s speech, replaced by instant clinical concern.
“He took four milligrams of Valium, some scotch on the flight here, and some marijuana hard candies. I don’t know how effective they are, but they must have been pretty good, because his speech is slurred, he can barely walk, and he’s blacking out.” I really hated what I was going to say next. “I don’t know how to put this delicately, but it would be unfortunate if this required an emergency room visit.”
More than unfortunate. Neil wasn’t as famous as a movie star, but since his retirement, he’d had more time to attend social events, and his face had begun showing up in the society pages. He wasn’t the most famous billionaire in the world, but he was high profile enough that a trip to the ER while ODing had the potential to be publicly embarrassing. He didn’t need that on top of grieving his mother. Emma didn’t need that on top of losing her grandma.
“Oh, no, I don’t think that’s necessary,” Dr. Hearn said. “Four milligrams isn’t a heavy dose. My only concern over this interaction would be for his respiration. Do you know how to check respiration and heart rate?”
Did I ever. I just wished I wasn’t having to track those functions again. “Yes, from before.”
“Take those vital signs every fifteen minutes for the next few hours, and should there be anything wrong, ring me. Try to get some coffee into him, if he can wake up enough to drink it.” Hearn sounded weary. I wondered how many of his patients did this on the reg.
I thanked him and hung up then turned back to Neil. If I stayed there a moment longer watching him snore and half smother in the bed, I was going to be mad enough to pack my bags.
Kneeling beside him, I shoved at his shoulder. I couldn’t roll him, so I slapped his cheek. One eye peeled slowly open. I smacked him again.
“I’m awake!” His indignation was made somewhat less serious since he sounded like he was talking with a mouth full of hot oatmeal.
“I called your doctor. I need you to try to wake up. I’m going to go get you some coffee.” I was so pissed. He reached for me, and I dodged his hand. I didn’t want to comfort him.
For as fuming angry as I was, when I got out to the hallway, I lost all sense of purpose. This was such bullshit. I’d already done the medical panic thing with him more times than I cared to count. I didn’t want to do this again. It was unfair of him to put me in this position.
I went to find Emma and Michael, and I lucked out on my way down the stairs. Michael was quietly closing the door to Emma’s room, and I motioned for him to come over.
“What’s up?” he asked with a slight frown.
“Is Emma taking a nap?” It would be so awesome if we didn’t have to worry her with this.
Michael nodded. “Yeah, she’s completely wiped out. How’s Mr. Elwood?”
“He’s…” I glanced to Emma’s door and lowered my voice. “He’s kind of ODing on some stuff, right now.”
Could you OD on marijuana? I didn’t think you could.
“Jesus!” Michael swore. “We have to call an ambulance.”