Relapse / Recovery

Mr. Mathers

"Mr. Mathers; Mr. Mathers can you hear me?"

He heard a woman's voice calling for him but he didn't recognize the voice. Her voice was all that he could hear at first but slowly the sounds started to piece together. A symphony of every day sounds. A song of life.

"Mr. Marshall Mathers. Do whatever you can to respond to me. Squeeze my hand, make a noise, do anything that you can if you can hear me."

He could hear her. He could hear her just fine, but why did it matter?

When a song is made, it's made in layers. Each layer pieced on one at a time. He had learned that from Dre. The first layer might be the drums, second the bass, third the piano, vocals, ad libs, and so on. That's how this song was made too. The first layer he could hear was this woman asking for him to respond. The second layer he heard sounded like sniffling, maybe even crying. The song was acoustic in the beginning. Then the layers of instruments started to add on: the rattling of metal equipment, scratching of pagers, the beeping of a heart monitor.

He didn't like this song very much.

As he started to come to and realize what it was that he was hearing, and why, it slowly started to scare him. The song became haunting. But it wasn't actually a song at all. It was life. The sounds of every day life.

He furled his brow and attempted to clench his fists but he didn't get very far. It didn't feel like he had moved much. He could feel hands over him, doing who knows what. It felt like an eternity that those hands were on him. They gently attempted to move his fingers. Tickle his nose. Anything to get a reaction.

Once they were able to actually get one out of him, it relit a spark in him. Movement. He could move again. It took a while for him to really figure out how but after a few minutes he was finally able to open his eyes. It didn't last long before he closed them right back though. So bright. The lights were blinding. He was able to tell by a change in color in his eyelids that the lights had been turned off so he once again attempted to open his eyes. Now he could see just what it was that was composing the music.

He was in a hospital room surrounded by medical equipment and hooked up to random machines and tubes. His family was in the corner of the room crying. Doctors and nurses swarmed around him asking him questions that he felt too tired to answer. He was too confused. He didn't want to answer questions. He wanted his daughters and Kim to come lay with him so that he could comfort them and wipe their tears. He didn't know what was going on but what he did know was that they were crying because of him. That he was certain of.

"Mr. Mathers-" a male doctor began to speak "Sir. I know this might be a lot for you to understand. Do you know where you are? You're in the ICU at the Detroit regional hospital. Your family found you unconscious in your home. We are doing everything we can to ensure that you are alright."

As the health care workers continued to test him for reactions and such he began to piece together what had happened by retracing his steps. He remembered hearing the noises and the nurses talking to him for a long time. He wasn't sure how long it actually was but it felt like a long time. He remembered feeling stuck. It was like sleep paralysis. He was awake yet he couldn't move or speak. He remembered the sound of an ambulance and other people, a man talking to him. He wanted to know who that man was. There was something the man had said. Something about it being sad what had happened to him. He said he didn't deserve it. He said he'd pray for him. He could remember hearing Alaina telling Whitney to stay back and go back into her room. He remembered Hailie coming into the room asking what that noise was. But what noise was she talking about?

Then he got it.

He remembered being in his bathroom. It was late on Christmas eve and he had stayed awake so that he could set up the santa presents under the tree. He had a bottle of sleeping pills. He wanted to hurry up and go to sleep so that he would be well rested the next morning. He knew Whitney would come into his room and crawl into bed with him in the morning excited to see what santa brought. He wanted to be rested and ready to enjoy the morning with his daughters. He was going to make pancakes and bacon and all that usual stuff for breakfast. He was going to let the girls open their presents first. Then he was going to make sure they were fed before Kim came and got them that afternoon so that they could do Christmas at her house. He had an extra little birthday surprise for Hailie seperated away from the other presents; wrapped in birthday paper instead of Christmas. It was going to be perfect and he just needed to be well rested to make sure that it was perfect and that he wouldn't be tired and would enjoy every second of it. That's all he wanted. To enjoy the morning. That's it. That's all he meant to do. He remembered the pills but he couldn't remember how many he'd taken. Not that many, right? Right? He wasn't stupid. He had taken a whole bunch of sleeping pills before during a suicide attempt years ago and that never did anything but make him throw up so what was different now?

Tears fell harshly down his face. He couldn't help it. He didn't understand. The nurses finally backed away as his crying got more violent. Kim carefully held his head against her chest. His daughters surrounded him and did the best they could to hug onto him for dear life. The only thing separating them was the width of the bed that he was on and the many tubes and wires scattered everywhere. Whitney managed to crawl onto the hospital bed but even she was careful not to actually step on anything. He felt his child's head lie on his shoulder. That just made it worse. There was no way they fully understood what was going on. Especially not Whitney. They continued to embrace even after he had finally started to calm down. He could feel himself choking on his own tears. It was hard to catch a breath. He and his family stayed like that for a while before finally breaking up. It was late. It had to be. And it was Christmas Eve right? The girls should have been in bed, not here.
Not at the hospital with their dad.
Whitney fell asleep while laying on him, he held her as he spoke to Kim. He apologized. He didn't really know what to say other than sorry. They went back and forth for a while and talked. She said that it was okay but he knew that it wasn't. She said she forgave him but he wasn't sure she meant that either. At least not yet she didn't.

"You should take them home..."

Kim looked at him concerned

"You guys need rest. Go back to your place. Let the girls do Christmas there and you guys can come back and see me tomorrow if you want. Then when I'm released, we can do our Christmas at my place." 

Kim was obviously reluctant to leave but he was right, they did need sleep. And as parents it was their job to attempt to still make the holiday as normal as they could despite what had happened. They didn't need to know what was going on. All they needed to know was the daddy was 'sick' and needed to go to the hospital. That's it. They don't need to know the dark truth. They could learn that when they were older. He hugged them each tight one more time, gave them kisses, and said goodbye and goodnight before the four of them left and he was left with his own thoughts.

A nurse came in to check on him, it was about 4 in the morning but he had technically just woken up so he wasn't sure if he was going to be tired enough to sleep. Luckily he was in a private room in the ICU. The nurse offered him a snack which he decided was probably a good idea to have. Not like he needed it. He had definitely put on a good few pounds the past few years. It really pissed him off too. But he probably did need something to eat to go against all the toxic stuff in his system. She also brought him some water and turned on the TV for him. She gave him the remote to the TV as well as a remote that would allow him to call a nurse if he needed something. She taught him the difference between when to hit if it was just an inconvenience call versus if he had a legitimate emergency and needed immediate care.

"Is there anything else I could do for you right now Mr. Mathers, while I'm still here?"

He couldn't think of anything. Not anything he needed anyways. The nurse turned and began to walk out the room.

"Wait-" he called out

She turned back towards him

"Can you tell me honestly... how bad it was?"

The nurse sighed as she walked over to where his charts were being kept. She scanned through his paperwork and regretfully explained to him that he had accidentally overdosed on a very large amount of methadone. They were surprised that it hadn't actually killed him. He could hear the empathy in her voice as she said all this and she apologized once she was done saying it. It wasn't her fault though. It was his. It was his own mistake. One he had seen coming and refused to prevent. He had refused to get help before. It was his own fault.

"Mr. Mathers. There are a lot of different programs that can help with this kind of thing. Different types that allow you to do different things. If you feel better tomorrow perhaps we could guide you through a few options."

He nodded in agreement and she went on her way leaving him alone.