The Invisible Black Woman

By the time I walked into the ER, I managed to stop crying. I imagined my nose was giving Rudolph a run for his money, but at least I managed to stop the tears from falling. I walked up to the check-in area and spoke to the lady behind the plexiglass.

“Hi, my husband was brought in by ambulance. He should be in the back.”

“What’s the name?”

I gave her his full name and date of birth.

She punched in the details into the computer, scanned the screen—meanwhile I prayed the hardest I ever prayed that her facial expression wouldn’t give away the worse.

“Yes, he’s in the back, but he hasn’t been assigned a nurse yet. As soon as he’s situated—give it about 10 minutes—I’ll send you to the back.”

I could have given her a bear hug then and there.

One, the fact she was allowing me to go back was a really encouraging sign. Again, blessing and a curse to have worked at a hospital for as long as I did.

She didn’t tell me to have a seat and someone would be right with me. These are all the things I reminded myself that kept me together. He may not be doing great, but he’s still here and that would have to be good enough for now.

Exactly 10 minutes later, I went back to the check-in area.

“What’s the name again?”

I gave her his name, she gave me the room number, and I headed back.

I made my way around the corridor to the room and gave myself a pep talk all the way there. I reminded myself that no matter what, I needed to be calm, strong, and keep my panic on the inside.

When I finally made it to the room, hoping for the best and expecting the worse, hubby was a sight for sore eyes. Despite being hooked up to an IV, oxygen monitor, blood pressure cuff, and oxygen, he was conscious. He looked at me and recognized who I was, confirmed by the weak yet goofy smile I have loved for two decades. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Hey, you.”

“Hey.”

His labored breathing told me he still was not at all out of the woods.

I looked at the monitor to see his vitals. His blood pressure was too high and his heart rate wasn’t doing any better either.

By then I had fully come to grips with the realization that this was December 2021 the sequel, but much much worse. At least then I got to drive him to the ER myself. He also didn’t need oxygen and he was struggling but nowhere near like this.

“Who’s this beautiful young lady here?”

Alexis, his nurse, looked at him to answer. It seemed a cruel thing to do—to expect him to answer—but I knew this was just one of the ways they checked to see just how poorly a patient was doing. Could they talk at all? Barely? It all went in the chart.

“That’s—that’s my wife,” he said weakly, then took a few gulps of air.

It seemed Alexis had seen enough to conclude he needed a break, so she turned to me.

“So what brought him in here today?”

“Well, he was having trouble breathing and felt a heaviness on his chest.”

“Has this happened before?”

“Not this bad,” hubby weighed in.

I continued to fill her in.

“He had a blood clot in his lung in 2021.”

“But nothing since then? Did anything happen to bring this on?”

“Yeah. He just had a procedure done. He had to stop taking his blood thinners to prep for the procedure.”

No one ever tells you how absolutely terrifying it can be to live with someone on blood thinners or a blood disorder. Sure, they caution you, but nothing ever prepares you for the first or second or third or fourth or fifth time a small cut turns into way more than you bargained for.

I’d gotten in the habit of being overly cautious when it came to hubby and knives or anything sharp. The only compromise I begrudgingly allowed is him using a razor to groom his beard. Extremely begrudgingly. But, figuratively knocking on all the wood in the universe as I say this, he’d done well in that department. Anything that could be a potential hazard was quickly removed from his path. Yet accidents are unavoidable. The first time it happened, when he cut his leg by bumping it against a sharp corner, I wasn’t prepared for the amount of blood. Like, at all. And it was in the middle of a snowstorm. So I got creative. I had him lie down with his leg elevated, while I scoured the web for home remedies to stop bleeding in a pinch. As fortune would have it, cayenne pepper was a solution listed. And, which Caribbean do you know that doesn’t keep that well in stock?

When I told him the plan, he looked at me super skeptical—but seeing as though we didn’t have a whole lot of options, he went with it. I poured a generous amount over the wound and applied pressure. Sure enough, the bleeding stopped after a few minutes.

The place of the mishap looked like a bonafide crime scene. I couldn’t believe that he lost as much as he did and didn’t wind up any more than just a bit woozy.

I promised to never ever be caught unprepared again, so I stocked up on clotting gauze from Amazon. We have had to use it more than once; it has come through every time.

“They told us there would be a risk of blood clots with this procedure, but the scan showed nothing. I think it’s because it had already migrated.”

By it, I meant what I was sure by now was a blood clot in his lung.

“Do you know what caused the blood clot?”

“No, we don’t.”

When he was discharged three years ago, he was referred to see a hematologist to trace the origin of the clot. Apparently there is testing they can do that tells them whether you are susceptible to clots or not. Though we didn’t yet know the cause, I was certain the cause of the clot was the vaccine he took. It was one of the adverse effects listed. His ex-cardiologist didn’t seem to put much stock in that. One of many reasons he is now his ex-cardiologist, but that’s a story time for another day.

We were supposed to see a hematologist, but the hematologist we were referred to—despite the number of times I called—never called back. It took two additional tries to two separate hematologists, the last only calling after I complained to the referring doctor, before we got an appointment on the books.

“We do have an appointment to see a hematologist in about a month.”

“Okay, great.”

Alexis gave her notes a once-over, looked at his vitals, then told us what was next.

“So we’re going to do a chest x-ray, so we can get a picture of what’s going on.”

Hubby and I nodded in unison.

“Once we get the x-ray, we’ll go from there. We have done some labs and your troponin levels are elevated, so we’ll want to check them again.”

Troponin is a cardiac enzyme that when high enough, points squarely to heart attack.

“What’s that?” asked hubby.

Bless Alexis for being sensitive enough to not just blurt out exactly what that is.

“It’s a cardiac enzyme and in your case it’s slightly elevated. That means your heart is working hard right now. We want to see that number at zero and it’s just not where we want it to be. So we’re gonna check it again.”

“Okay.”

All things considered, especially since this wasn’t our first-choice hospital, I was encouraged by the care staff so far. The last thing anyone needs or deserves when they or a loved one are in the hospital are medical staff who hate their job. I have encountered more than my share. I was grateful that everyone that stopped by at least appeared to not hate their job entirely.

“All right, so the doctor’s gonna get that order in for an x-ray so we can see what all’s going on in there.”

Less than 15 minutes later, a technician came to our room with a portable x-ray machine.

“Do you need me to step outside?” I knew the answer would be yes, but I didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable by asking me to step outside.

“Yes, please. It won’t take long.”

“No problem.”

I stepped outside of the room, but left the curtain cracked enough so I could peek in. I watched as he took several pictures of his lungs while asking him to take some deep breaths in and hold it.

When he took the last film, I snuck a peek and felt my shoulders slump as I gasped silently.

It was going to be a long, long night.