Hand in Hand

Chapter 7

Meryl woke up in a sweat. She didn't know how long she had been asleep; but she was still in her husband's arms and as she looked at the clock on her bedside table she realized she and Don couldn't have been asleep very long, an hour at most. Meryl then carefully sat up to take inventory of how she was feeling. It took her a few minutes to get her bearings but when she did she realized how bad she was feeling: she was sweating, the room was spinning, she was nauseous, her head was pounding and she realized how weak her limbs felt. It made her nervous that her concussion was making her feel the way it was. She knew Don told her to wake him up if she felt worse; but she didn't want to worry him. She felt awful that he was so worried when she got sick to her stomach when the kids were there; she didn't want to cause him ANY MORE worry or stress than he had already been experiencing. She felt like they finally got their sea legs back after everything; and then the damn paparazzi struck. She wanted to take care of her family, not the other way around. She saw her medicine on her bedside table, she wasn't sure how and when it got there. She didn't even remember taking any; so she figured it was time to take some. She squinted her eyes as she looked at both bottles and took what she thought the instructions said as she spoke softly. "Please kick in before Don and the babies need me. It's just a concussion. I've been through worse." She closed her eyes and snuggled back up to her husband trying to breathe through the nausea. Before she knew it, she had passed out.

***

Don slowly woke up when he heard that the alarm on his phone going off, signaling it was time to wake Meryl up and check on her. He quickly turned off the alarm in fear it would wake up the babies who were sleeping in the same room just as they always did. Don knew Meryl told him not to worry about waking her up through the night to check on her, because he knew she didn't want him to wake up through the night; but he would do anything for her which is why he had set his alarms for every two hours to wake her up. He turned on the lamp and looked at his wife, something wasn't right. She looked different than she normally did while sleeping. He went down and kissed her cheek as he ran his fingers through her hair. "Baby, wake up." Don watched as she didn't stir. "Sweetheart, as soon as you wake up you can go right back to sleep. I just need to check and make sure you're okay." Don noticed she didn't even stir; so he pressed his lips hard to hers, no movement. He then kissed all over her face and rubbed her stomach like he knew she liked. "Come on, baby, I really need you to wake up." Nothing. Don's heart started to beat faster and faster. He pressed his forehead to hers to try and watch her breathing; he was concerned that it looked like she was barely breathing. He didn't want to shake her to wake her up because of her concussion; and he tried all his tricks he learned over the years worked to wake up his wife and nothing worked. He placed his fingers on her wrist as he monitored her pulse and it worried him how slow and weak it was. He was terrified. He didn't care if she eventually thought he was overreacting when she woke up, he was terrified, and he wanted to make sure she was okay. He grabbed the phone on his bedside table and dialed 911. "Yes, my name is Don Gummer. My wife is 63 years old and suffered a minor concussion earlier today and was released from the hospital but I can't get her to wake up. Her pulse is very slow and it seems like she is barely breathing. I need an ambulance at 92 Laight Street in the Penthouse. I will tell our doorman to let you in. We are in the bedroom on the top floor at the end of the hall. Please, hurry."

"Mr. Gummer, you said your wife is breathing." The dispatcher said. "Do you know how to do CPR if she stops breathing?"

Don took e deep breath as he couldn't keep his eyes off his wife. "I do; and I will if I need to. Please, just hurry." Once Don hung up from the call he kissed his wife again, with still no response from her. "Baby, help is coming. I'm not leaving, love. I'm just going to make sure the diaper bag is together and check on the babies. I'm only going to be a few feet away." Don was hesitant to take his eyes off his wife but knew he also needed to get the babies together. He was relieved that the babies were asleep. He grabbed their blankets and placed it on the diaper bag he placed in the chair by the door. He then slipped into jeans, t-shirt, sweater and his shoes. He then grabbed a bag and placed Meryl's shoes in them. He was afraid her body would get cold since she was only wearing pajama pants and her nursing tank so he grabbed one of his sweatshirts and went over to her putting it on her limp body. "Here, baby; I don't want you to get cold when they take you to the hospital. So, this would be a really good time for you to wake up and tell me that I'm overreacting. I know how much you hate the hospital, we both do. So just wake up and tell me that you're okay." Don watched his wife for any movement and there wasn't any. "Okay, baby, let's make sure you stay warm. I need to call downstairs to whoever is posted on the door tonight, I think it's Ross; and then your brother. I'm staying right here with you. I'm not leaving your side."