Jackson resisted the urge to roll his eyes, for truth be told Hannah disliked Devon rather intensely. She’d told him several times that she found his girlfriend both pretentious and a big phony, and that he deserved much better. But Devon had always been nice to Hannah, frequently bringing her little presents from the fancy boutique and gift shop that she owned in an upscale downtown Phoenix location. The fact that the presents were far more suited to a woman of Laura’s or even Candace’s age seemed to have escaped Devon’s notice.
“They just started the infusion a few minutes ago.” At Devon’s blank look, he explained further. “The infusion is sort of like a transfusion, I guess, except that instead of blood it’s bone marrow.”
Devon shuddered delicately. “Eew. Sorry I asked. You know I have something of a weak stomach, Jack. I always have to close my eyes during the gory parts of a movie. Needless to say, I could have never, ever been a nurse. Between the needles and the blood and all the other nasty stuff, I wouldn’t have lasted a day.”
Jackson tactfully didn’t reply, though he could have added in a snarky tone that there were a whole lot of professions in which Devon wouldn’t have lasted a day. She was certainly smart enough, even had a bachelors degree in English Literature from an expensive private college in southern California. What she didn’t seem to have was any particular ambition in life, other than to marry well, have the requisite number of children, and then become a socialite like all the other women in her family had become.
His parents seemed to like her well enough, and his mother had asked him less than a month ago if he was serious about Devon. Jackson had shrugged off the question at the time, telling Candace that with Hannah’s precarious health it was hard to think of much else. His answer had seemed to satisfy Candace, enough that the subject hadn’t arisen again.
But now, with Devon more or less insinuating herself into the family circle, Jackson wondered grimly when his mother’s inquiries about the state of their relationship would re-surface.
And as Devon eagerly began to chat with his mother - who’d returned to the waiting area moments ago - and occasionally Laura, he cursed her untimely arrival beneath his breath, knowing that there would be no easy way to call or text Scarlett under the circumstances to see how she was faring. Knowing Scarlett, however, he thought with a half-smile, she was bound to be raising some sort of hell in another part of this hospital.
***
“Ah, so you’re finally coming around, are you? Must have been quite a nap there, we had some trouble waking you up.”
Scarlett reluctantly opened one eye with the greatest of effort, feeling as though there was a fifty pound weight on the eyelid. “Hmm?” she mumbled sleepily.
The chirpy, overly cheerful nurse laughed. “Guess they must have given you an extra big helping of the sleepy stuff. You’ve been out of the OR for almost three hours, and you’re just now waking up. Barely. Let me get you a little apple juice, see if some sugar might help wake you up a bit more. Be right back.”
Scarlett closed her eye with a low groan, wanting nothing more than to drift back into the best nap she’d ever had in her life. She felt lethargic and weak, too drained of energy to even open her eyes. But the nurse was back in an instant with the promised apple juice, and was already helping Scarlett to sit up.
“Oh, God. Dizzy,” she croaked, clutching for the metal rail of the hospital bed as the room began to spin wildly.
“Easy there,” urged the nurse, helping Scarlett to recline back against the pillows. “Let’s try cranking the bed up instead, see if that helps with the dizziness.”
It did, though barely, and only because she kept her eyes tightly shut. She was still largely out of it, feeling as though she was in a waking dream state, awake but nowhere near fully aware. Her mouth felt dry, and her throat hurt as she swallowed. Even though it had probably now been more than twelve hours since she’d had anything to eat, the mere idea of food made her feel queasy. Having something to drink, however, sounded like heaven.
“Here. Drink it slowly,” cautioned the nurse, whose name badge read Connie.
Scarlett accepted the plastic cup of juice, and obediently took just a small sip. But the second it hit her stomach, she was shoving the cup back into Connie’s hand and covering her mouth desperately.
“Sick,” she croaked. “Going to be sick.”
Connie managed to shove a plastic tub under her mouth just before she vomited profusely, her body heaving with the effort it took. She was shaky and dizzy afterwards, her head lolling back limply against the pillows as Connie gently wiped her mouth off with a damp cloth.
“Well, that’s not good,” declared Connie matter-of-factly. “Looks like you might be experiencing a bad reaction to the anesthesia. I’m going to page Doctor Parks, let him know what’s going on with you.”
But after Scarlett threw up several more times, continued to feel dizzy, and then began to shiver almost uncontrollably, and Doctor Parks didn’t respond to his page, Connie hastily summoned a resident to examine her. The young female doctor proclaimed that Scarlett was indeed having a bad reaction to the anesthesia, and had her hooked up to an IV drip.
“We’ll keep you here in recovery for awhile longer,” she informed Scarlett, “until Doctor Parks can take a look at you. But since it’s already mid-afternoon I’m going to guess he’ll want to admit you overnight.”
Scarlett scowled at this news, though she’d already figured that out by herself. She was weak and dizzy and shaky, and doubted she would be able to stand up, much less walk. The dreadful nausea had finally started to subside, but her stomach still felt torn apart and unsettled, and the mere thought of food was enough to make her gorge rise anew. And now that she’d been more or less awake for close to two hours, the effects of whatever pain meds they had given her were wearing off, and the site of where they had extracted the bone marrow was throbbing like crazy. In another hour, she feared the pain and discomfort would become intolerable, and she could only hope that Doctor Parks would be able to prescribe some other meds that didn’t make her sick as a dog.
It was more than an hour later by the time David made an appearance, and by then the pain had grown so intense that Scarlett was clenching her fists and biting her tongue so that she wouldn’t start crying. Her brow was slick with sweat and she had to keep shifting side to side in the narrow bed to find a semi-comfortable position.
David frowned as he felt her forehead with the back of his hand. “You’re clammy, though not feverish,” he pronounced. He picked up one of her hands then, gently prying her fist apart. “And from the nail marks you’ve made here I’m going to guess you’re hurting pretty bad right now.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” hissed Scarlett. “To be more blunt, Doc, it hurts like fuck.”
David chuckled, and it occurred to her then how exhausted he looked. “Well, we can’t have that, can we? Let’s give you a little something to take the edge off, though I can’t give you a very high dose. Sounds like you had a rotten reaction to the anesthesia from what I was told. I would have thought you’d remember that from - well, from the other time you were in the hospital - and let us know ahead of time so we could have given you a different type of medication.”