The King's Nurse [Elvis]

Chapter 1 - Birthday Phone Call

Hello again, everyone! This story has been sitting in my Wattpad drafts for quite some time, and now, I'm finally going to post it. It's a jump ahead from my last story since that story took place before Elvis became famous. Here, we're focusing on the very end of his life and his illness. Just as a disclaimer, some facts may be off, but I'm going to do my best to match Elvis's history. My main source of information on him for this story will come from my previous knowledge of him and what I find in the 600-page Elvis encyclopedia that I own. Anyway, enjoy! 😊

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"I'm sorry, did I hear you correctly, Midge?"

"Indeed, you did, Karen. So, what do you say?"

My hand clutched the light-blue telephone tightly as I sat on my bed around 9 o'clock on a warm June evening. My family was just over for my thirty-fifth birthday party, and the day ended with this phone call by the head nurse at the hospital I worked at in inner Memphis, St. Joseph's Hospital. My heart raced with shock, and my mind demanded that I respond to the woman who I had known for about ten years and was my superior for that long.

"Be Elvis Presley's personal nurse? At his home? You're being serious, right? Or is this just a prank you all at the hospital are pulling on me since I officially passed the point of no return?"

The point of no return was, according to my fellow nurses, age thirty-five, when a woman wouldn't be likely to find a husband if she was single her whole life. That was me since I hadn't had the desire for marriage since I started my nursing undergrad when I was twenty, aside from one instance. I officially became a nurse at twenty-five and worked at St. Joseph's ever since.

"You have the experience with being an in-home nurse, and you're the best," Midge told me. "That's why you were recommended for the job. Mr. Presley's father and close family have seen your resume after they contacted us last week, and they said that they wanted you for the job. And... it may have something to do with the fact that Gladys Presley, Elvis's mother, worked at our hospital once upon a time."

"But..." I pressed my lips together. This was Elvis Presley, the superstar of the world, and a man I had been a fan of since I was fourteen years old when I first saw him on TV in 1956.

"You're the best of all the nurses," Midge said again, trying to coax me. "Will you at least think this over?"

My mind still tried to wrap around this incredible situation. "He's my favorite star..."

"Yes, and you have done well with other celebrities that you had to treat."

"But an in-home nurse to the King of Rock 'n' Roll!"

"I know. You have read the papers, so you know that he has been in ill health for the past few years. His family is desperate since they believe he may not have much longer to live if he continues down the road he's on. If not dying, he's going to be blacklisted from hospitals, and doctors could be fired for giving him more prescription medications. Those medications, as well as complications with his heart and colon, are not promising."

Tears burned my eyes. Elvis... dying? I didn't know he was that bad off. That broke my heart. "Well, there isn't much to be done about his heart and colon."

"Yes, but the drugs can be dealt with."

"The doctors shouldn't have given him the drugs in the first place."

"That's it. There's that hard, no-nonsense attitude. It will prove useful for Mr. Presley. He knows what may befall him, he just needs someone to prevent him from taking any more pills. The man can be stubborn from what I've heard."

I ran a hand through my hair after blowing air out of my mouth. "Wait, so the family basically wants me to ween him off the pills? He's taken them most of his life, and you know how addictions can be."

"Yes, and that's where you come in."

I forced my mind to think clearly and really break down this situation. "So, I basically have to babysit him?"

"Yes, essentially, and make sure he doesn't indulge in any more drugs. You are to watch that and keep track of his health, including his heart. When he seems stable enough, you will be relieved of your duties. This could be a months-long assignment."

This was all way too insane. I fell back onto my pink blankets, the phone still to the right side of my face, and the curly cord stretched from its machine on my nightstand. "I really can't believe this. They want me to live at Graceland and be Elvis's nurse?"

"M-hm. I know you'll be professional about it, despite your infatuation of him. You know what happened in your last in-home nurse assignment."

I winced. That situation became a red mark on my record. "Which is why it's odd that they want me."

"Because they know you're one of the best, and I reassured them that you will keep a level head and do your job, as well as be a friend to Mr. Presley. The poor man is in really bad shape. You were at his last concert, so you know what I'm talking about. He needs help, and quickly."

Indeed, I did know what she was talking about. After all these years of going to a dozen of his concerts since 1957, it broke my heart to see him struggling there on stage. His singing voice was incredible and passionate, but his physicality and his slurred speech was definitely a cause for concern. Everyone in the audience could see he wasn't well, and the papers had always made a note of his ill health, ever since he had an accident in 1968 when he fell in his bathroom, hit his head, blacked out, and took pain pills as a result. He got hooked to those, and he partook of opiates ever since. Before then, it was sleeping pills and other de-stressors.

My female mind told me not to do this since I knew I would lose it in his presence because I had been his fan for two decades and wouldn't be able to think straight when around him, but the nurse part of me told me to help a very ill person desperately needing to get well and to put all that other stuff aside.

I made my decision.

"Okay, I'll do it," I said. "When do they want me there?"

There was a pause for a moment, then Midge said, "They are expecting you tomorrow morning at nine at Graceland. They have your picture. And you won't officially get the job until they talk to you and trust you, and you will talk with Mr. Presley and make sure he knows that you mean business. He doesn't want a nurse since he thinks he's okay, but you're there to tell him otherwise."

"I thought you said he knows what's going on with him."

"He does, he just doesn't want to believe it."

I gulped. This was actually happening, and on my thirty-fifth birthday. I would be meeting my all-time favorite star, and since I would be living there, we would become close. But as his nurse.

I would be Elvis Presley's private nurse. Well, focus was imperative in this situation. He was my favorite star, so I would be heavily distracted by my affection for him. I just had to focus on what I was there to do, not let it end up being a situation where I fall in love with my patient. I wanted to be known as the nurse who cured her patients, not one who fell for them. I didn't want to be a cautionary tale for other nurses. Well, I became one, anyway, with my last and only red mark.

This would be the ultimate challenge in my whole nursing career.