Cabin Fever (23 page)

“Your eyes are messed up, that’s for sure. We’ll find out why very soon. Stay put. I’m just going to park in this valet area and get a wheelchair.”

I wait as he follows through on his plan, my hands floating up to touch my face. I close my lids, but they feel completely normal to my fingers. That’s a relief. I guess they’re not sealed shut or anything supernatural creepy like that. I take several long, deep breaths, trying to soothe my panicked brain and my thumping headache. It doesn’t work at all.

My door opens letting in more cold air. “I’ve got ya,” Jeremy says, lifting me out.

“What about Jaws?”

“He’ll be fine in the truck for now. He has a big blanket there to snuggle up in, and if we’re still here in an hour and they expect you to stay, I’ll board him at a nearby vet while we’re here. We passed one just down the street that has 24-hour emergency care.”

“Okay. Okay.” A tiny ray of relief zips through me. At least I won’t have to worry about my fur baby. I hope he’s not worried about me.

A woman’s voice is off to my right. “I’ve got the chair. Go ahead and put her in.”

Hard angles bump into my elbows. I grab the arms of the chair as soon as I realize what they are.

“What’s going on?” the woman asks as the chair starts wheeling forward. I’m jerked to the left and then the right as she turns corners.

“She called me on the phone, and we were talking, and then suddenly she screamed and said she thought something was after her. I went to help her and this is how I found her. Look at her eyes.”

The wheelchairs stops and I smell someone with smoker’s breath in front of me. “Hmmm. Could be detached retinas. We’ll get her in right away and have the doctor take a look.”

“Detached retinas?” I say. “That sounds really bad. Is it permanent?”

“Shhh, not a word that I said anything,” the nurse mumbles. “We’re not supposed to make diagnoses out here. Just relax. Everything’s going to be just fine.”

I grip the arms of the wheelchair with everything I have. The metal digs into my skin.
Detached retinas? What the hell is that? Are my eyeballs going to fall out into my lap?
Jeremy will be disgusted. My life will be over. I’ll never paint or see anything worth painting again.

The biggest pity party I’ve ever had has officially begun, and I’m the guest of honor. I can’t stop crying. My heart is breaking for the future I’ll never have.

I can hear Jeremy jogging next to me as the nurse starts yelling things out, I assume, to her co-workers. We’re out of the cold and the smell of sick people and antiseptic is strong. I must be in the hospital now.

“Babe, it’s going to be fine,” Jeremy says, his voice surprisingly calm. “I’m going to call my brother as soon as you’re in a bed and he’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”

I can’t listen anymore. I don’t know if it’s what the nurse said making it happen, but I’m starting to feel pressure in my eyeballs. It hurts worse than the headache. I can’t stop crying. They become sobs, loud ones.

“Listen, you need to relax,” another nurse says. “The more you put pressure on yourself, the worse this is going to get.”

“That’s easy for you to say!” I shout at this stranger. “Your eyeballs aren’t about to fall out of your head!”

Someone laughs, but the voice that responds is very calm. “Your eyes are not going to fall out. Just relax. We’re going to take good care of you.”

Thank God I have COBRA for my insurance, or I’d have to be planning my first bankruptcy hearing after this little visit. As it is, the co-pay’s going to eat up most of my savings. I don’t have to be a doctor to know that fixing sudden blindness has to have a giant price tag. I’ll never get any painting done now. I’m going to have to find a job, but who in the hell’s going to hire a blind person? No one, that’s who. I’ll have to go on disability. The tears keep coming.

The wheelchair stops moving. “Okay, young lady, we need you to stand up now and get in the bed that’s just to your left. I’ll help you. Don’t move too fast; we don’t want you falling.”

I continue to cry softly, but the sobbing goes on hold as I concentrate on following her directions, this nurse who maybe is the one who laughed at me. I’ll bet she wouldn’t be laughing if it were
her
eyeballs at stake.
Jerk
.

I hate everyone now. Why did this have to happen to me? I must have done something really wrong to someone to get this kind of karmic punishment. I hear Leah’s voice in my head, schooling me on the what-goes-around-comes-around lesson. She was always worried about the balance of the universe in her life. I’m starting to think she was right about that stuff. I need to make amends fast. I should probably start with the nurses who are trying to help me.

“Thank you,” I say. “I appreciate your help.” My tears finally stop.

There are hands all over me. I think two of them are Jeremy’s when I hear him speak just next to me. “Here you go. Just come towards my voice. I’m on the other side of the bed. I’m going to help you up.”

“Sir, we can do it. Just step back.”

“No, I’m helping. She needs me.”

“It’s okay if he helps,” I say, my heart warming at his protective tone.

I settle onto my back on the bed, but a nurse holds my shoulder. “Don’t lie down. We need you to stay sitting up.”

“Good,” I say, breathing a sigh of relief. “Because it was bugging my eyes to lie down.”

“That’s the pressure. We’ll get rid of that for you soon.”

“Are you going to stick a needle in my eye?”

“The doctor will be right in to examine you, don’t worry.”

I turn my head to face where I think Jeremy is. “I think that means
Yes
.”

The woman pats my hand. “No one’s going to stick a needle in anyone’s eye. Just relax.” She squeezes me once. “I’ll be right back to start an IV.”

“I hate IVs.”

“Haven’t met a single person who liked ‘em yet,” she says, and then her squeaky footsteps fade out.

“I’m going to call my brother now.” Jeremy sounds nervous. Concerned. I wish I were in a better position to comfort him.

I nod, afraid of what I’ll say if I speak. I’ve never felt so needy and weak. All I want to know is
Why
? Why did this happen to me? What did I do wrong? Is this the universe telling me that I shouldn’t be painting anymore? I sure have gotten enough signs of that lately. The idea is positively depressing. Without painting, I’m not even sure who
I
am. It’s been a part of who I am my whole life.

I let my head slump down to my chest and focus on breathing past the pressure building behind my eyes. Jeremy’s voice filters in as if I’m dreaming it.

“James, hey. It’s me. Jeremy. Yeah, I know, but listen, I have an emergency here, and I need your help.”

Silence, and then a sigh.

“No, it’s not about me, all right? Just listen, Jesus. You know that girl, Sarah, the one you loaned the cabin to? Yeah, I met her. I’ve been with her for the past few days.”

“I know; it was a great place to hide. But that’s not why I’m calling. I came back early this morning to Manhattan to talk to you guys about everything that’s been going on with me, but before I could get there, I got a call from Sarah about an emergency she was having.”

Silence.

“No, not with the cabin, a medical one. I’ve brought her to the closest ER, and the nurse said something about detached retinas.”

Silence.

Jeremy leaves the area and drops his voice, but I can still hear him. My ears have superpowers now that my ability to see has been taken away.

“She can’t see anything and the whites of her eyes are blood-red. Seriously. Like demon-eyes or something.”

I reach up and touch my eyelids again.
Demon eyes?
Oh my god! That’s worse than I imagined! I start crying all over again, knowing in my heart that I’m going to be blind forever. And with demon eyes to boot. I’ll never get married. I’ll have to live in some kind of residence home with around-the-clock nurses. I won’t even be able to play checkers with the other patients, because I won’t be able to see the board. Not that they’d want to play checkers with a demon-eyed woman. I wonder if my tears are saline or blood. My life is utter shit. And for a while there, I thought it couldn’t get any worse.
Wrong! Wrong again!

“All right. Okay. Yeah, I’ll call you as soon as the doctor comes in. They said he’d be here soon.”

Silence. Then Jeremy’s voice is clearer. Closer. He’s next to my bed again. His fingers find mine and hang on. I don’t return the pressure, though. I know he just feels sorry for me. I don’t want him to think I’m going to hold him to any more than necessary. He’s just a Good Samaritan, that’s it.

Someone pushes a curtain sideways, making the metal parts zing across their track. “So, who do we have here? I don’t have any paperwork yet, if you can believe that.” He sounds way too chipper to be looking at a demon.

“I’m Sarah Booker. I don’t live around here.” I have no idea why I said that part about where I live. My mind is short-circuiting.

“Well, Sarah Booker, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Doctor Lively, and I’m here to take a look at those eyes of yours.”

Of course his name is Lively. This all seems like a sick joke at this point.

“My demon-eyes, you mean?”

Jeremy squeezes my hand and whispers near my ear. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

“I have bionic ears now.” I frown in his direction.

Doctor Lively is leaning in too. His breath is more minty than anything else, thank goodness. “I’m going to put my hands on your face and lift your lids, okay?”

“Knock yourself out.” Having him here has dried my tears. His happy tone isn’t annoying like I would have expected it to be. It makes me think maybe my situation isn’t as terrible as I’d imagined.

“Well, well, well, let’s see what we see,” he says, his cool fingers prying my eyelids open, first on the left and then the right. “Tell me, Sarah, did you have any symptoms involving your vision before today?”

“Maybe. I guess I saw some ghosts out of the corner of my eyes a few times. I’ve had some headaches.”

“Ghosts, hmmm?” He’s opening my left eye wider now.

“Yes. And then a black thing, like a curtain came over me.” I laugh self-consciously. “I thought it was the Grim Reaper coming to get me.”

“I can imagine.” His hands fall away. “So, I have a diagnosis for you, which we’ll verify with some tests, but unless you’ve experienced blunt force trauma to your eyes that you’ve neglected to mention…”

I shake my head. “Nope. I was talking on the phone when it happened. I’ve done nothing physical in ages.” My face goes a little pink when I realize that I
almost
did something physical with Jeremy. Talk about a lost opportunity. Now I’ll never get the chance.

“Okay, then I suspect your retinas have detached.”

“Holy shit,” I whisper. Hearing the big boss say those words drives the point home like a stake to my heart. I’m blind. I’ll never see again. My life is over.

Chapter Thirty-Four

JEREMY’S VOICE FILTERS THROUGH MY fog of pain and confusion. Doctor Lively has shared a crap ton of information with me, but none of it makes any sense to me. All I can think is how crazy this is whole situation is. I’ve never heard of detached retinas before. No one has. This is nuts.

“Doctor Lively, my brother is a physician in Manhattan, and he asked that I give him a call when you got here so you two could talk.”

“Absolutely. And when we’re done, you’re going to need to fill out some paperwork for Sarah before we can get her into surgery.”

“Surgery? You mean now? I need surgery today?” I sound like a frightened mouse the way I’m squeaking, and I believe I feel like one too. There’s some big cat out there, just waiting to pounce and end my life.

“As I mentioned earlier, retinal detachment is when the lining at the back of your eye starts to pull away from the blood vessels.”

“But why would it do that?” What the hell! This sounds like a horror movie, not my life!

“No one knows for sure. As I said, there are factors that make it more likely, but based on your age, some of them don’t apply to you. You said you’ve never seen floaters or spots in your eyes before, right? Other than the ghost?”

“Not that I can remember.”

“Okay, well, those blood vessels are what supply your eyes with oxygen and nutrients, so we need to get your retina back to where it should be before there’s any permanent damage.”

“Permanent damage?” I hope that means I’m not blind forever. “Will you do the surgery?”

“No. We have an eye specialist who’s on his way in now. He’s one of the best trauma surgeons in the tri-state area, so don’t worry. You’ll be in good hands. You’re lucky. He comes up to this area to ski every year. You caught him as he was coming off the slopes.”

I picture this big, burly guy with a puffy snowsuit on and awkward boots. “Won’t he be too tired to work?”

“No, he’s in great shape. I promise.” He pats me on the hand. “I have other patients to visit, but I’m here if you have any more questions. Just call for the nurse if you need anything.”

“Doc, can you talk to my brother now?” Jeremy was talking in a low voice the whole time I was panicking, and I’m just realizing it now. I’m filled with gratitude that his brother would call and have a conversation about me with my doctor. Maybe it means I’ll get better service. Normally, I’d be against that kind of special treatment, but when it comes to my eyesight, I’m going to go ahead and put that self-righteousness to the side. I need all the help I can get. Me and my demon eyes.

I close my lids so Jeremy doesn’t have to look at me.

Doctor Lively is on the phone; I can tell by the one-sided conversation. Jeremy takes my hand and rubs it with his thumb.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Not really.” Part of me wants to pull my hand away and part of me doesn’t. Now I feel like he’s just here because I’m a sad case and not because he actually wants to be with me. But I want him here by my side. I feel so scared and alone.

“It’s going to be fine. James says this stuff happens and it’s totally fixable.”

“This stuff happens? To who? Old people? People with eye problems, probably. I have twenty-twenty vision.”