Critical Condition

Two Weeks Earlier, Wednesday, June 13, 6:45 a.m. She felt the sound more than heard it. It came from deep within her brain, and in the first few seconds seemed to have no more significance than the tiny popping noise a congested sinus makes when it clears, or the slight creak that even a healthy neck can produce after the muscles and tendons have stiffened from being too long in one position. So Kathleen Sullivan ignored it, automatically relegating the minute sensation to the background trivia of everyday life, deeming it part of approaching forty, unimportant, therefore not to be heeded, and resumed making love to Richard Steele, whom she sat astride watching his eyes glitter in the gray traces of morning light that had begun to creep into her still-darkened bedroom. God, she loved him. Their sex seemed always such a celebration of how they matched each other in life. Then the pain hit her at the base of her skull with the force of a two-by-four. "Oh, my God!" she screamed, clasping the back of her head and freezing. She felt him initially increase his movements, then slow when she failed to respond, his flushed, smiling features growing puzzled. A swirl of dizziness sent her reeling to the right as if she'd been slapped. She toppled off him. Nausea overwhelmed her, and vomit arched out of her mouth as if shot from a hose. She flopped down, half on and half off his chest. Blackness came quickly, but it took longer before she lost sensation enough to stop feeling the pain entirely. And she could still hear. "Kathleen! Kathleen, what's the matter?" he cried from somewhere far off. Someone's prying open my skull from the inside, she tried to tell him just before the pressure squeezed all consciousness out of her. The pain, like roots, ate deep into her sleep, and tendrils of harsh light ripped her out of the merciful dark. She tried to scream, but no sound came. She could see racks of bottles, bags of fluid, and coils of plastic tubing lining the walls of whatever little room they were in, yet everything looked wrong, as if outlined in double. She blinked to clear her vision; it made no difference. She couldn't shift her eyes from side to side, but she could look up and down. She tried to move her hands, but not even her fingers would budge. Had they tied her to the bed? Someone loomed over her and placed a black mask on her face, then pumped air into her mouth and down her throat. "Her breathing's labored," she heard Richard say from a place beyond her line of sight. "Step on it!" "We're a minute from the door, Doc!" She felt the room sway hard to the left, and realized they were in an ambulance. Probably on the way to Richard's ER. But why couldn't she look at him? Move anything? God, what had happened to her? "It's okay, Kathleen," she heard him say. "We've got you. Just relax and let us help you breathe." Volleys of air forced their way past the base of her tongue and down into her larynx. Each one felt big as a tennis ball and filled her with the urge to gag, but her pharynx stayed flaccid, refusing to respond. She wanted to shake off the mask and gasp for breath, yet couldn't. "If you can hear me, Kathleen, we've called ahead to the hospital, and the chief of neurosurgery is waiting for us. You've suffered some kind of stroke, probably hemorrhagic from the way it's affected your eyes, but you'll make it okay, Kathleen. Count on it!" His voice trembled and broke, leaving her wondering if he'd sobbed. Squeeze after squeeze of air went down her throat. "Hyperventilating you like this blows offClement, Peter is the author of 'Critical Condition' with ISBN 9780345443397 and ISBN 034544339X.