the counseling room, Amber reached into a metal filing cabinet in the fishbowl area and grabbed a folder filled with paperwork.
“Right this way, Mrs. Carter,” said Amber, as she led Christina to a room which looked like at one point it used to be a janitor’s closet for the emergency room—very small, very cramped, and with a small round table in the middle surrounded by four chairs. Amber and Christina sat adjacent to one another in the room. Christina sat down at the table and nervously fiddled with her fingernails, clicking them on the tabletop, while Amber went back to grab a working pen. Amber came back and shut the glass door behind her. Amber sat down in a chair and opened the folder.
“Okay, Mrs. Carter,” said Amber.
“You can call me Christina, it’s okay,” said Christina.
“Okay, Christina. So welcome to the Capital Medical Center. I wish we could have met under different circumstances, but your husband is going to get the most skilled medical service in the Olympia area. Now, usually prior to receiving these services, we have this paperwork filled out, but under the circumstances that your husband Matt needs an immediate surgery, Doctor opted to get the surgery done first. So I am going to go over hospital admission paperwork with you—insurance forms, release of information forms, release of responsibility forms, as well as forms that will tell us more about your family and Matt’s family as well,” said Amber.
“Okay, that is fine. Go on,” said Christina.
Amber went over all the forms in the admissions packet to the Capital Medical Center. Christina signed all the forms out for the hospital to proceed in administering cares for Matt, including the emergency surgery. Once all the forms were filled out and Amber was finished explaining the forms to Christina, Amber organized the signed forms back into the folder and stood up from the table.
“Okay, Christina. We are finished here. Do you have any questions for me?” asked Amber.
“No, no, I don’t. I’ll just wait until the doctor comes back and updates me on what is going on,” replied Christina.
“All right then, would you like to follow me now? I can take you to the waiting area,” asked Amber.
“Sure, where are we going?” asked Christina.
“To a waiting room. You can make phone calls to family there if you’d like to.”
“Okay. Dr. Kilbowski said that Matt would probably be taken up to the third floor?”
“It looks that way, Christina. We haven’t got a room finalized yet, but it looks like they are going to shoot for room 309.”
“Okay, thank you, Amber.”
“Do you want to wait in the surgery waiting room or up on the third floor?”
“I can wait in surgery.”
“Okay, follow me then.”
Amber walked Christina to a large-sized waiting area with a child’s play section, TV’s throughout the room, and large leather chairs for people to sit and wait for the update on their loved one’s outcome to their surgery. Amber directed Christina to have a seat wherever she would like. Christina thanked Amber for her time, and Amber left, walking back through the double set of doors they had just come through and back toward the chaos of the emergency room wing of the hospital. Christina clutched her purse to her side and found a chair in the corner of the waiting area to sit in. In that moment though, Christina felt completely isolated and alone, tears began to well up in her eyes as she sat down in a comfortable tan leather seat. Her thoughts were completely consumed on the outcome of her husband Matt’s surgery. The man she fell in love with in college and shared so few of experiences with thus far, was now on an operating table with his life in the hands of a doctor—with Matt’s life in the hands of a doctor. Then Christina had the thought about the possibility of Matt maybe not making it out of surgery. What if he died? Where would she go? What would she do? Christina fumbled through her purse to find a Kleenex. She found a tissue that she dabbed her eyes and dried her face with. She then looked through her purse and found her cellphone. She unlocked it and made a phone call. The phone rang twice when it was answered.
“Hello?” said the voice on the other end.
“Hi, Mom,” said Christina.
“Chris, hi. How are you? What’s going on?” asked her mom.
“Well, I’m not doing too good. Matt is in the hospital.”
“What?”
“Matt. He was in an accident and he’s in the hospital right now.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Yeah, he was in a car accident this afternoon and they had to do an emergency surgery to stop some internal bleeding they said, but I don’t have any more information other than that.”
“Well, I will certainly pray for him. I’ll tell your dad too. How are you doing, baby? Are you okay?”
Christina started to tear up again on the phone but took a deep breath and gathered herself and said, “I’ll be okay, Mom. Thanks for your prayers. Can you let others in the family know for me please? I just need some time to myself to think.”
“Sure. I will make a call to your aunt and uncle in Gig Harbor and your sister in Selah.”
“Thank you. I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, sweetheart. Call me if you need me. Anytime…day or night, okay?”
“Okay, Mom. Thank you. Goodbye.”
Christina ended the phone call and made another call to her boss, Mr. Klemme. Mr. Klemme was more than understanding and wished her the best and hopes that her husband, Matt, would be all right. After speaking with Mr. Klemme about being gone the rest of the day and into tomorrow from work, she placed her phone back into her purse. She didn’t know who else there was to call now other than friends, and even then, what would she tell them and what could they do for her? Hearing her mom, a devout Lutheran woman, say that she was going to pray for Matt was good enough, she guessed. Christina wiped away another trail of tears that ran down the right side of her face as she leaned back in the black leather chair. Clutching her purse to her chest, Christina closed her eyes and, among the children playing in the play area, nurses and families talking out loud, and TV’s playing in the background, she fell asleep.
*****
Christina felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently. She slowly opened her eyes and looked around her. She was still in the hospital waiting room. Looking at the windows outside, it was now dark. There were less people in the waiting room now, the children all gone from the play area. The sounds of the TV were the only noise in the room. She rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands and looked in front of her to see Dr. Kilbowski standing in front of her, his arm outstretched and his hand on her shoulder, shaking her awake. Disoriented for a moment, Christina looked up at the clock on the wall that now read 8:50 p.m. It was already night. She had slept in this leather chair for nearly six full hours.
“Christina, I need to talk to you,” said the doctor, sitting in the chair next to her.
“All right,” replied Christina. Fear griped Christina in the moment. Choking the life out of her, Christina simply expected the worst—that Matt
