HOME IN SAFE

Dr. Duran was super excited. He walked into Lapel’s room with a bounce in his step. The nurse followed in. He looked at the chart one more time. The numbers were looking good, no fever spikes in the last week. The last blood test which took almost twelve weeks to culture finally came back negative. This middle age robust lady who could barely move, could not keep anything down her throat, sick on every organ in her body reacted to everything he could think off under the sun. The other doctors told him, when he consulted them that she was holding onto life by the last string of hope.

Lapel was now seated on a chair, a plate with orange peels and an empty yoghurt pack, the evidence he needed that she was getting her strength back. The nurse strapped the blood pressure cuff on her left shoulder and turned the monitor to face the audience. They waited with baited breath as the cuff swelled up, all their eyes set on the screen that was running numbers erratically as though in a lottery ticket before revealing the lucky numbers 149/87. Nods and smiles.

“Lapel you have done really well despite how sick and mysterious your symptoms were,” he reported.

She listened with a grin.

“You look as good as new.” For the first time since she had been in hospital, she laughed heartily.

“How would you feel about going back home?”

“She feels alright about it. They were all startled by the groggy voice behind them. A tall man dressed in an overall with paint marks splurges walked into the room. The air suddenly thickened with the smell of alcohol.  

He turned to face this stranger who was snorting and rubbing onto the back of his head,

“Hallo,” Dr Duran introduced himself, “And you are…”

“Her better half. Name is Agnel.”

“Really, Dr. Duran slipped the words out of his mouth and caused a stir in Agnel’s face. Meaning what doctor?”

He quickly explained, “forgive me, I have just never seen you before in the last month she has been here,”

Cause I have been busy. His face was flushing as he shot his eyes to Lapel’s direction, “I told you this didn’t I?”

Lapel nodded quickly. 

“Been working two jobs now that she is here. Need her to come back, make some home cooked meal for the boys and get some laundry done,”

Dr. Duran butted in, “she cannot be doing any of that, she has not gotten her strength back,”

“I thought you just said she was looking as good as new,” Agnel reiterated his sentiments before.

That was just a good way to put it,” Dr. Duran said.

Agnel was rubbing the back of his head faster, twisting his neck to all sides, Lapel looked anxious and reached her hand out in the air as though she believed she could touch him in reassurance.

Dr. Duran was thrown into a whirlwind, he was thinking fast and slow at the same time. Lapel would not survive at home if she had not fully recovered and he dreaded what was waiting on the other side.

He could not keep her there if she could recover better at home but not like this

He said the first thing that came to his mind, “she will need rehabilitation,

Agnel looked puzzled, “I thought that was for stroke patients,”

Technically we don’t know if she could have had one because she had the funny movements when she was brought into hospital so she does fit the description,”

Dr. Duran could see his face coiling in a flash back moment. He expected him to protest but the words came out of Lapel’s mouth with a feeble voice that shot through the air

“No I want to go home,”

The room was tense. The eyes were locked in. Bated breaths. The forces were strong and they were pulling in all directions.