That’s what I was, gobsmacked.
I thought about eating live scorpions, or smearing cattle dung all over my body. Maybe I’ll become a Whig, I thought, or take up phrenology. Every one of those things made more sense than what he’d said to me.
“Could you repeat that?” I said.
“You’ve been lying in this bed, unresponsive, for…” he consulted a chart. “Three years, two months and five days.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“You know me better than that.”
I did. But it still didn’t make any sense.
“Why am I so lucid?” I asked.
“Psychosomatic comas are different than those caused by direct physical injury.”
“Come again?”
“You didn’t suffer any physical trauma to the brain or brain stem. Basically, your brain took a three-year vacation.”
The room seemed to swirl around me as the significance of my situation hit home. There were a million questions I probably should have asked. But the first thing that popped out of my mouth was “When can I get up?”
In the movies, when the beautiful starlet opens her eyes and comes out of her coma, she does so in full makeup, with every hair in place. By the end of the scene she’s out of bed, drinking champagne, dancing, and lives happily ever after. In real life it’s not as easy as you think to get out of a hospital bed after three years of hibernation.
While Dr. Howard explained all this, he addressed some other aspects of my medical condition. He said there’d be weeks of tests and physical therapy before I could safely be released. He said I could get off the feeding tube, and they would gradually introduce real food into my diet, and see how I responded.
That means Kimberly was half-way through college! Afaya could have blown up the airports years ago. Callie, Quinn, Alison…could all be dead by now. And what had happened to Kathleen? I must have scared her to death being unconscious all this time. And Addie must be what, eight years old?
And Darwin. Why hadn’t he killed me already? His people could have waltzed into this cracker box medical room and snuffed me faster than Monika Lewinski blowing out the candle on a one-candle cake.
I had to get up and out of here before Darwin got the news of my resurrection. I had to get my cell phone working, had to make some calls and get some help. I didn’t want to involve Kathleen in all this, but I had no choice. Unless the world had turned completely upside down during the past three years, Darwin would know my condition within hours, and my life expectancy would be about as long as a Twinkie in Kirstie Alley’s pantry.
“Donovan, thank God!”
I looked up and saw Lou Kelly entering the room, followed closely by Nurse Carol.
“Nice haircut,” I said.
“Wait till you see yours!” he said.
“Lou. Turn your back to the doctor and look at me.”
He shrugged. “Okay…”
“Have I been in a coma?”
He nodded.
“How long?”
“Three years, give or take.”
