Simone said, “See you soon.” There was a pregnant pause while she waited to be stazed, then the plastic wrap started coming open and letting light in. What happened? she wondered. To her surprise, the Mylar was opening as if a zipper was being run around its corners, which was much quicker than the way they’d closed it using what seemed to be clips. “What went wrong?” she asked, voice trembling.
Then the flap folded back and Grace was looking worriedly in at her.
Grace had changed her clothes. Her hair was longer! “The stasis worked?” she asked.
Grace nodded, “How’re you feeling?”
“No different. Like crap that’s been warmed in the microwave and run through the blender.”
“Sorry. A lot’s happened while you were in stasis. They’re going to get you out of the box and into an infusion chair, start an IV and draw blood for labs. I’m going to try to bring you up to date while that’s happening, okay?”
Simone nodded, noticing that someone was going around the bottom of the box with a boxcutter. They flipped the cardboard back off of her and a couple of nurses helped her stand and walk over to an infusion chair. I’ve been moved to the oncology center, she realized with some surprise. The chair had more of the shiny plastic laid out on it. A nurse stood on each side of her, one putting a temp probe in her mouth and a blood pressure cuff on her arm while the other put a tourniquet on her arm and started looking for a place to stick a vein.
Grace said, “So, the first thing for you to know is that we’re having to do this earlier than planned because your brother Carl filed to have you declared dead. He’s hoping that he and Kary can collect on your will.”
“Declared dead?!” Simone said, stunned.
“Yeah. In stasis, you have no heartbeat and you’re not breathing. Those are standard death criteria.” she indicated the young woman behind her, “That’s why ’Chelle’s recording a video of you being unstazed. To prove you aren’t dead in stasis.”
“Why would he even do that?!” Simone winced as the needle went into her vein. “He and Kary were written out of the will!”
“Apparently there’s legal precedent to contest a will when close relatives have been written out.”
Head swimming, Simone said, “Dios mio!”
Worriedly, the nurse said, “BP is 80 over 50. Pulse rate’s 130 and seems irregular. Breathing is thirty per minute.”
Simone heard Dr. Jonas say, “Dammit! Flatten that chair out. Mary finish drawing that blood, then hook up the IV and give her 500 ccs of fluid. Everyone, we’re gonna staze her again. We’ll unstaze her when we’ve got our labs back and know what’s wrong.”
Simone looked into Grace’s round fearful eyes. Scared as she was, she took time to say, “Grace, it’s gonna be okay.” She didn’t say it’d be okay if she died because she knew that wouldn’t be okay for Grace.
Grace stiffened a trembling lip and said, “You’re right. It’s going to be okay. Um, while we’re recording can you confirm that you did intend to write Carl and Kary out of your will?”
Grace nodded. “I did. They’ve treated me like shit since you and I got married.”
Grace said, “And if that doesn’t keep them from insisting you be unstazed, do you give me the power to negotiate with them and award them some part of your estate so you can stay in stasis until it’s safe to bring you out?”
Simone nodded, trying to look firm, even though things were going gray around the edges. “I do.”
Then the people around her were zipping a bag up around her. The IV bag was placed on her chest and the bag was zipped shut the rest of the way. They immediately started unzipping it. “What happened?” she asked.
Grace was wearing different clothes again.
She thought dazedly, I can’t even tell I’ve been stazed.
Grace said, “The labs are back. You’re dehydrated, malnourished, anemic, and your liver’s failing. This is probably mostly due to spread of cancer into your abdominal organs… intestines, liver, etcetera.”
Simone produced a weak laugh, “That’s all?” Though she was trying to put on a brave face, she silently but fervently hoped something could be done about the litany of medical problems.
Grace looked grim. “Those are enough. They don’t think you’re strong enough for Arvinzamab right now. They’re going to feed you by vein since your intestines probably aren’t working very well. They’ll give you IV fluids for the dehydration and a transfusion for the anemia. They’ll also start a few things they can do for your liver failure. Maybe tomorrow they can dose you with the Arvinzamab.”
The nurse said, “Roll up on your side and we’ll get this bag out from under you.”
To Simone’s dismay, even rolling up on her side was hard.
The nurse said, “Here, let me help.”
On her side, she was facing Grace’s worried eyes. Softly, she said, “I’m gonna be okay, Grace.”
Grace pasted on a fake-looking smile. “You damned right you are.”
***
Gerald Horton was one of the attending physicians in the Emergency Department that evening. His nemesis, Morgan Warfield, was on that night as well. Horton had a strange case of a patient with unexplained abdominal pain. It sounded psychosomatic, but Horton was worried it might be due to pathology he just hadn’t recognized. The scans had been clean though.
Horton decided to get Warfield’s opinion, despite the fact that doing so frequently resulted in a tongue lashing for wasting Warfield’s time. But sometimes Warfield made the most uncanny diagnoses. Ones that provided unique learning opportunities. Those, unfortunately, were often accompanied by Warfield’s derision for not recognizing the diagnosis yourself. Nonetheless, he said to the resident, “Let’s go present the patient to Dr. Warfield. See what he thinks.”
The resident gave him an alarmed look. “Do
