EARTHQUAKE - Chapter 11

Mary was so happy. She couldn’t think of anything else than, “Dana is alive. I saw her. It was her.” Mary couldn’t wait until Reverend Rowell came

She had needed something happy to think about. After they dressed her stump, the nurse wrapped it with an elastic bandage. The whole leg hurt, even the part that was no longer there. When time came to lay on her stomach and then two hours later to lay on that leg, she thought that she would go out of her mind the pain was so bad. Shawanda came by to examine the dressing to see if the elastic bandages were causing an increase in drainage. They weren’t. She noticed Mary grimacing in pain.

“Honey, how bad is the pain, one to ten?”

“Eleventy-eleven”

Shawanda laughed. “I heard that! We don’t want you to endure severe pain. We know there is a certain amount of pain all the time that you are healing, but severe pain. That’s no good. Let me see what I can get you.”

In the nurses’ station Mary heard Shawanda arguing with Wanda. She said, “If you won’t call the doctor, I will.”

“When little foxes eat spinach, you will.”

Wanda called Dr. Kubicki and in a deprecating tone told him what Shawanda reported. He ordered morphine with phenedrin.

“Yes, sir, Dr. Kubicki.”

After the shot, Mary felt like she was lying on a cloud and drifting across the skies.

That night, after the elastic bandage was removed, the old dressing was removed, the stump washed, a new dressing applied, and then a new elastic bandage was wrapped around the stump, Mary was given another shot. She slept through the night like a baby.

On Friday morning Dr. Kubicki came to her bed and inspected the stump.

“Your stump is healing nicely. I am going to reduce your pain medicine to one-half today and one-fourth tomorrow. If the pain is too bad, let the nurse know, but I don’t think that it will be.

“We will continue the dialysis another week. It looks like the kidneys may resume functioning. We can’t be sure at this point. Keep drinking your mamaw’s cranberry juice remedy and keep praying. We want those kidneys to function. We don’t want to have to remove them.”

After he left, the new dressing and elastic bandage was applied. That afternoon the dialysis equipment was rolled into her cubicle. The dialysis process took about two and a half hours. As the nurse was coiling the various hoses and wires, the Reverend Rowell came in, girded with a paper gown and a mask. She told him the good news she had about her daughter Dana. After their visit, he prayed and included thanksgiving for preserving Dana from the danger so many had faced last weekend.

It was time to be turned onto her stomach. She was surprised that there was not the severe pain of yesterday. It was uncomfortable but bearable.

When it was time to lie on her left side, she was glad because that was the best time to read or play games on her Kindle. When it was time to turn her onto her right side, they turned her onto her back just while she ate supper. Then they turned her onto her right side.

Now that she knew Dana was alive, Mary wondered about the men in her life – her husband Karl, and her father.  She wondered if the Red Cross was getting set up so that she could ask about Karl and her father. Tomorrow was Saturday, Ilene would be coming back and Shawanda and Shawnda would be going on a wild weekend with their boy friends. They were going to be introduced to the past time of “mudding”. They had no idea what it was. She couldn’t wait for the day they would be back to find out what “mudding” involves.

On Saturday she received the same treatments and medicine, but there was something about the atmosphere of the hospital that was different, maybe more relaxed, on the weekend. She tried to imagine what Dana might be doing on the weekend. She knew that Dana would find a church and go to church no matter where she was.

That thought led her to think of when Karl had gone to Iraq with his National Guard unit in 2010. Dana was only eight years old then. Karl had been working in the Fort Smith area. She didn’t know many people there. Her father and mother were living in Whistleville in Northeast Arkansas, a long drive from Fort Smith. Karl had told her to look at the moon and stars when she was lonely.

“The same moon and stars will be looking down on me.”

Mary couldn’t look at the moon and stars now. She knew the same God that she prayed to, that Dana was praying to, and if her father and Karl were still alive, they were praying to Him also.

When Ilene came to change her bandages, Mary asked her,

“I guess I couldn’t go to it, but do they have a church service somewhere in the hospital?”

“No, but remind me in the morning and I can find a church service for you on the television set.”

Even though it was the ICU, Mary could tell that there were a lot more visitors on the weekend. Monday she was going to ask the Red Cross person to try to locate her father, Karl, and Dana. If she could just send them a card and get a message from them, that would be a comfort.

She was starting to get tired of cranberry juice every meal and at snack time at night, but she had been the one to suggest it, so she would stick to it until the doctor told her that her kidneys were working again. He said something about removing them. If they remove your kidneys, what do you do then?

For the rest of the day she occupied herself reading or playing puzzles on the Kindle whenever she was in a position where she could do so. It was awkward and uncomfortable when she was lying on her stomach. It was virtually impossible when she was on her right side, lying on the stump. Those times she tried to nap.

On Sunday Mary watched the morning service of some large Baptist Church. She didn’t know if it was a church located in Monroe, Louisiana or someplace else. Monroe, Louisiana would be as far away as Fort Smith had been if Dana and Karl are located in Little Rock, Arkansas or its vicinity.

The dinner meal on Sunday was a bit nicer than ordinary. Otherwise, the day went by the same as every other one. Mary noticed that Wanda worked better with Ilene than she did with Shawnda and Shawanda. Wanda came in at the end of her shift.

“Well, I’ll be off for the next three days. I’m sure this place won’t fall apart without me. Keep your chin up, dearie. You are doing fine; much better than any of us expected. No doubt its mamaw’s cranberry juice. You sure she didn’t make some kind of moonshine or brandy with it?”

There were two nurses on night shift who did Mary’s dressing and turning. They were two middle aged white women. One was plump. Her name was Matilda. Matilda’s face was what Mary thought of as a “baby face.” She smiled whether she was happy or not. Her personality was placid. The other woman, Linda, was thin and wiry. Her face was wrinkled and leathery. Mary thought to herself, “She is a heavy smoker.”

 Matilda and Linda worked well together. Linda gave all the orders and Matilda did exactly what Linda told her to do. Mary noticed that they were not as coordinated in working together as were Wanda and Ilene or even Shawanda and Shawnda. Of all of them Merrybelle was best. In the morning Matilda bathed her before going off shift. She worked much smoother and more confident while working alone.

When the Monday morning shift came on, Shawanda came to change her dressing. Just as she had removed the elastic bandage and dressing and was about to wash the stump, Dr. Kubicki came in. He looked at the stump intently, then motioned to Shawanda to continue what she had been doing.

“Mrs. Cusak, you cannot know how pleased I am with how your stump is healing. It is healing as well as any amputation I’ve ever done. It pleases me that I don’t have to share the credit for that with Mamaw.

“Beginning tomorrow, you will be kept busy with exercise and physical therapy. You’ll be doing exercises while you are lying down, and exercises while sitting on the edge of the bed with both legs hanging down. In addition to that, you will begin learning how to get out of bed into a wheelchair AND you will learn how to put those elastic bandages on by yourself.

“As far as your kidneys are concerned, we will continue the dialysis and Mamaw’s Miracle Medicine. There is some indication that the kidneys may be resuming some minimal amount of functioning. I can’t be sure. We will just watch and wait. Keep saying your prayers and drinking cranberry juice.”

“Thank you, Doctor Kubicki.”

After he left, Mary said to Shawanda,

“Whew, I’m exhausted already. Shawanda, I am dying to find out what “mudding” is and whether you had a good time.”

“Mrs. Cusak, you know what? Men never stop being little boys. We went out to this place where they had flooded a half dozen acres until it was just gooey mud. Then these grown-up, oversize boys had four wheel drive trucks on which they had put oversize tires –some of those tires must have been six foot tall and three feet wide, well almost. Then they ran those trucks out in the middle of all that mud and tried to get to the other side. Of course they were slinging mud up in the air.

“Spectators couldn’t help but get covered in mud. Some of the vehicles got stuck out in the boggy mud. Men would slog out in the mud to attach cables and chains to the stranded trucks to rescue them. While they were trying to pull a truck out, the driver would be roaring the engine trying to help. I tell you, I can’t think of anything more childish than deliberately running a forty-thousand dollar truck out into a mud bog to show off that the truck can make it to the other side.

“You know what? I hope that I never fall in love and marry a silly fool like that. He would probably just want a wife who could work and buy him a set of those tires. I’ll bet they cost $500 a piece or more.”

By the time Shawanda finished her account, Mary was laughing so hard, her stomach and sides were aching and tears were rolling down her face.

“Thank you, Shawanda. That is the first good laugh I’ve had since before the earthquake.”

The day went on in its usual routine of bandages, turnings, meals, and dialysis. As the dialysis nurse was leaving, Reverend Rowell came in for a visit. Mary was grateful for his visit, for reading the Scriptures, and for his prayers for her and for her family.

After he left, Mary was turned onto her right side and she found herself watching the clock, counting the time until she would be turned onto her back. Another visitor came into her cubicle.

“Mrs. Cusak, my name is Elizabeth Fontaine. I am a volunteer for the Red Cross. I have come to bring you some bad news and some good news. “

Mary steeled herself.

“Your father Henry Wallace Fairfield was taken to the Arkansas Heart Hospital last Monday. He was flown there from Victoria. He had had two heart attacks the previous week. He was taken there by a Mrs. Cartright and she is the one whom they notified. He died in their Cardiac Care Unit early Saturday morning.

“Mrs. Cartright evidently tormented the Red Cross in Little Rock and Osceola so persistently that they located your daughter, then your husband, and today she found out that you were in Monroe, Louisiana. She wouldn’t give us any peace until we went through our records, found out what hospital you were in and promised her that we would go today and bring the news to you. She took down all the information about you, so she will undoubtedly be trying to contact you herself.

“Your daughter is in a shelter with other women and children in Little Rock. Your husband is in Blytheville working with the National Guard until this Wednesday, then he will come down to Little Rock. The funeral for your father will be on Thursday when your husband and Dana can be there. Your husband may not know where you are. It was hard for Mrs. Cartright to contact him in Blytheville. She may wait until she sees him on Thursday to tell him.”

“Thank you so much, Elizabeth. God bless you.”