Page 112 of Asher's Assignment
She hadn’t thought, just jumped.
Her hand went to her belly, feeling the thick bandages under the blankets. A heavy ache throbbed through her torso. What damage had it done? Would she ever be the same?
The door swung open, admitting sound and a shaft of light from the hallway. Through bleary eyes, she saw a nurse enter.
“Hi,” the woman whispered. She stopped next to Esther’s bed, smiling at her with tired brown eyes. “I’m Shawna. It’s good to see you awake.”
“How—how bad?” Her voice came out not much louder than a crackly whisper.
“Hang on. Let me get you a drink, then we can talk.” She still didn’t raise her voice.
Before Esther could ask why she was whispering, the nurse disappeared from view. A few moments later, the head of her bed raised, sitting her up a little more, and a set of hands holding a straw appeared in front of her face.
“Pull that mask down and take a sip.”
Feebly, Esther raised a trembling hand to bat at the mask. Her arms weighed a hundred pounds each. Somehow, she got one to her face and lowered the clear plastic. Shawna slipped the straw between her lips, and Esther took a long draw of the cool liquid.
“Not too much. We don’t want to upset your stomach.” Shawna withdrew the straw and set the cup on the rolling table beside the bed.
“Why are you whispering?”
Shawna glanced over her shoulder and nodded at something behind her. “Because that’s the first he’s slept since you got here.” She shifted so Esther could see.
Asher laid on the sofa under the window, a pillow tucked beneath his head and a thin hospital blanket over his long body.
“He passed out a couple hours ago. We’ve been tiptoeing around as we did our checks so we didn’t wake him. Though I think it might take several minutes of your IV blaring before he’d wake up.”
“How long was I out?”
Shawna glanced at her watch. “About twenty hours.”
“Twenty—” Esther’s head sank back into her pillow and she closed her eyes. “How bad is it?”
“You’re a lucky lady. You lost a bit of your liver—which should grow back or get compensated for, because that’s what livers do—and you have a hole in your right kidney, which Dr. Kerns sewed up for you. Things could have been much, much worse.”
“And the surgery took that long?”
“Oh. No. You were under for several hours, but once Dr. Kerns was sure you were out of the anesthesia, he kept you mildly sedated until rounds this morning. You lost a lot of blood, and he wanted your body to rest. Things are looking good, though.” Shawna glanced at the monitor above the head of the bed. “Your vitals have been stable since they brought you up here. And you’re awake now. How do you feel?”
“Like I’m deep underwater. My limbs are really heavy, and there’s just pressure—everywhere.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything else. But that should get better fairly quickly as the sedation wears off. How’s your pain level?”
Esther rested a hand on her abdomen. “Um, it’s okay for now.”
“Good. Dr. Kerns put in an order for a pain pump for you. Now that you’re awake, I’ll get that set up.” She pulled a pad of paper from her scrub pocket, then pressed a button on the monitor. The blood pressure cuff around Esther’s upper arm inflated.
“Okay.” Esther’s eyelids fluttered. Her energy levels were laughably low. “Is there a timeline for how long I’ll be here?”
“Several days, at least. It all depends on how quickly you recover and whether you have any complications.”
Esther willed her body to cooperate. She did not want to stay a moment longer than necessary.
The cuff released its air, and Shawna wrote down the results before tucking her paper and pen back into her scrubs. She offered Esther a sunny smile. “I’ll be back soon with your pain pump. Do you want me to lay you down some more?”
“No. I’m fine like this.” It felt better to sit up, actually. Things weren’t as stretched out as they were lying down. “Thank you.”
“Sure thing.”
