Things are Complicated

Chapter 48 (Part 1): I'm not 6 feet under yet.

Someone was talking to me.

“You had a seizure,”

No shit, really? Me?

Prying open my eyes, I winced at the painful, white-hot light that assaulted my eyes.

“Jed? Jed can you hear me? You’ve had a seizure. You’re in the hospital.”

I never thought that I’d piss myself again - after an incident in third grade- but that’s the first thing I became aware of, my wet jeans. Mrs. Marciano’s face came into focus and she turned her head from looking down at me and up at something else. Staring at her mouth as fluorescent lights flashed over her head, I started to hear other noises. My mouth tasted like blood and my tongue felt swollen.

The noises and effort to fight off a raging headache won over against my efforts keep my eyes open and I drifted off. I must have because when I opened my eyes again, it was much quieter.

At first, I wasn’t quite sure where I was. Was I still in the California hospital? Was that snow or fog outside my window? Where is everyone?

I looked down at my hands. My right was still bandaged, my left was still scarred. What happened again?

The door opened to my left and mom peaked her head in. I blinked at her for a moment, licking my dry lips and then for some reason I started crying. Maybe it was the overwhelming confusion of not knowing where I was or what happened, but I just started sobbing- upright and head back.

“Jed?” She rushed over, arms out. “Are you in pain? What’s wrong? How much do you remember?”

I blubbered something incoherent, deep down it made perfect sense in my mind but the jumbled, garbled mess that came out of my mouth was absolute garbage. She sat on the edge of my bed and pulled me over to rest my head on her shoulder.

“Alright, alright,” she patted my back. “I know you’re upset, you had a seizure at the Marciano’s house. They brought you in and you’ve had two more seizures since you been here.”

Say goodbye to my sanity, I lost it- diving head first into straight up panic.

“What’s going on?” Mr. Hanks edged his way into the door, barely leaning over the threshold.

“She’s fine,” Mom waved a flippant hand at him. “Just a little scared.”

“Can we come in now?” Mr. Marciano leaned around Mr. Hanks to stare over at me.

“Maybe we should wait a moment.” Mr. Hanks began to back out of the room but mom stopped him.

“No, no we don’t have much time left before the operation.” She straightened me upright and grabbed a box of tissues off the night stand. “Deep breath Jed, calm down it’s alright, you’re fine.”

I blew my nose and laughed. “Fine?” I raised an eyebrow at her.

“You’re a Truman,” She gave me a steely green-eyed look. “Cancer is just a bump in the road.”

“More like a steep hill,” Mr. Marciano muttered to himself.

“Whatever, the point is you weren’t raised to just roll over and die. You’ve been fighting your whole life, now you’ve just got a different opponent.” She smoothed aside some of my hair with a soft, chubby hand. “I know I’ve never said it before, but I am proud of you for not quitting Jed. We aren’t an easy family, but we love you.”

“Wait, hold on,” Why was she telling me this? “What’s going on?”

“Today’s your operation,” Mr. Marciano informed me.