Chapter Seventeen: Leaving Three West
Around the time Steve’s chemo was given, he got a new nurse named Audrey. Audrey had been a rehab nurse and knew how to handle patients like Steve. She was a powerhouse of energy and would burst into the room with a big smile and big plans for Steve’s day. She didn’t allow Steve to feel bad. She made sure he got a shower, something he had been wanting for a while. She got him up and into a therapeutic chair more often and made sure he went outside every day. She took Steve on as a personal project by requesting to be Steve’s nurse each day that she worked. Steve began to really respond to this motivation. He looked forward to seeing her each morning because he knew things would get done for him, and when things got done his day flew by and he was able to forget about some of his misery. We all began to depend on Audrey. She was Steve’s salvation. She gave him hope that he would be able to live a normal life again.
We were moving closer to our final days in Three West. Steve was healing. And, even though he was still having rough days, his body was getting stronger and his life was no longer in danger. He was off almost all medications. The doctors’ and nurses’ hard work had paid off and now Steve was ready to enter into the next phase of his process. It was now time to focus all of our energy on rehabilitation.
As our days in Three West began to wind down, Steve’s family and I were excited about finally being able to leave Flagstaff Medical. We had wanted this day to happen for a long time. But, just like every new move he had made in the hospital, this one was full of joy and anxiety.
I had lunch with Steve’s mom a few days before our final day in Flagstaff, and during lunch I told her I was afraid to leave the hospital. We had been here for a long time and it felt safe to me now. I had been thinking back to the first week we were here and how scared we all were, and how I had wanted Steve to hurry up and heal so he could walk out the front doors, get into our car, and go home. But, now the prospect of leaving made me begin to dread saying goodbye to the safe environment that had saved Steve’s life and was making him well again. I was afraid of not having the constant, good care that was so readily available. To add to that, we had witnessed so many miracles with Steve’s recovery that I wanted to keep feeling what that felt like. I was afraid to go back to a life where miracles ceased to happen. Typical of each new change, I was clinging to the one that felt safe and familiar.
Steve’s mom told me she felt the same way and was glad I had voiced how I felt. She was also feeling lost and so was his sister. We had formed such a strong bond with the nurses and doctors; even the cafeteria workers had become friends since most of our meals were eaten there. The hospital had become our life. Going out into a world that had changed drastically for all of us during Steve’s reconstruction felt raw and overwhelming. We had all been “hospitalized” and gone through our own kind of reconstruction. The three of us had walked a path together many people don’t walk, We had cried when hope felt lost and laughed with relief when hope was found again. We had let our intuition guide us when life looked its messiest. We had depended on each other for strength and support, and we had surrendered our need to control as the flow of this powerful new life swept us up in its wake. Because of what we had experienced, and how we had changed from the experience, we vowed we would put into practice everything we had learned when we returned home. We knew it was now time for all of us to live a bigger life.
Later that same day, the three of us decided to take Steve on a stroll through the hospital to show him where he had been for the last six weeks. He didn’t remember most of it, so he wanted to see the places we had talked about. The nurses put him in his wheelchair and we headed to the cafeteria. We wanted to show him the place we spent most of our time. He wanted to smell the foods we had told him we liked, even though he still could not eat any of it. After the cafeteria, we went to the second floor to show him the room he had stayed in when he began to wake up and feel life again. We said our hellos to a few nurses there and then made our way down to the first floor ICU. He wanted to see the halls we had walked with such heavy hearts each day as we made our way to his bedside.
As we approached the first floor ICU, a nurse turned the corner into our hall and was walking towards us. A big, excited smile began to spread across her face as she let out a little cry of recognition. It was Meredith, one of the giggling nurses that had taken Steve out on his first adventure into the sun. She hugged him while laughing and told him, with tears pouring down her face, that she couldn’t believe it was him and how well he looked. She didn’t think she would ever see him again, but was so very glad she was. She left saying how proud she was of him, and to keep up the good work.
Dr. Murphy, the doctor who told us how Steve would die that very scary night, was the next one to see him. We wheeled Steve around a corner just as Dr. Murphy was leaving the ICU. His face lit up with a huge smile as he looked at Steve in disbelief. He also had tears in his eyes as he hugged Steve and told him how happy we was to see him. He then said to Steve, “You weren’t suppose to live! I’m so glad you did. You are a true miracle!” We all had tears as we told Dr. Murphy that Steve was being released soon and then thanked him for all of his hard work to make Steve well. We went back to Three West feeling complete. It was now becoming time to say our goodbyes.
After our scenic trip through the halls of Flagstaff Medical, the nurses in Three West started calling Steve, Miracle Man. We asked them why and they told us that the ICU doctors were calling him that. Word had spread fast through their cafeteria community and Steve was now Flagstaff Medical’s latest miracle. It was a name that was going to stay with him for a while.
Father’s Day was two days before we were scheduled to leave the hospital. To honor that day, we gathered family and a few close friends to celebrate Steve for being the wonderful father he has always been to my children, who had certainly become his children. We gathered in the courtyard that had become Steve’s outdoor haven. It was a beautiful early summer day with a big, cloudless sky; The perfect day for celebrating a man who had endured so much to still be with us.
Soon we would be gone. The hospital that had saved our lives, given us a masters’ course in miracles, offered us support, and showed us love would someday be a distant memory.
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