Naked Beneath

PUBLIC BETA

Note: You can change font size, font face, and turn on dark mode by clicking the "A" icon tab in the Story Info Box.

You can temporarily switch back to a Classic Literotica® experience during our ongoing public Beta testing. Please consider leaving feedback on issues you experience or suggest improvements.

Click here
lovecraft68
lovecraft68
21,960 Followers

The "whys" were racing through my head. Not that anyone deserves this, but well, let's be honest, we all know some people who if it were going to happen wouldn't be bad candidates for a painful death, but my wife was not one of them. She was a good person, a gentle soul who wanted to help others and she had this. Was this her faith rewarded, was what my bitterness always brought me back to.

When we went back to the doctors we were told the cancer had not metastasized. Despite their size and the fact some of the tumors were estimated to be five years old-yes going back to the year her sister died and dad was diagnosed- they had not spread. She needed surgery right away on the right one to make sure they saved it, and then the left would have to be taken.

Still a serious situation, but it was not in her lungs, the issues there were caused simply by her kidneys no longer being able to function correctly due to the tumors. Sounds bizarre to think we'd be excited about two major surgeries coming up, but in comparison to what we'd seen in the past, this was about the best news we could get.

My wife's first surgery had a complication. It was supposed to be done robotically, but the position of the tumors coupled with some issues stemming from a previous surgery my wife had on her abdomen years ago caused them to have to open her up, rather than go in with the small robotic machine.

The doctor had issues and at the end what was supposed to be three small puncture wounds turned into 30 staples. This led to a lot more pain and a longer healing process, but the good news was he had been good on his word; she still had 80% of her kidney.

But her surgeon was still concerned about taking the left. My wife's cancer was rare, bilateral and a strange strain of it, a break down in the genetic code no one had seen before. That, as I will always tell her, is not the way to be special. But it turned out to benefit us.

His concern was her body was going to keep producing these tumors. She would be monitored and when they appeared would be allowed to grow for a while to make them easy to remove, but it would take a little of her kidney each time and with her only being in her late thirties, the one kidney might not last and eventually she would be on dialysis.

Many doctors have egos the size of a house and if they couldn't do something, no one could. But this one got on the phone with the NIH and said he had a case for them. The NIH is federally funded and is a research hospital, give them something interesting and they are all over it and my wife's cancer had them excited in a bit of a morbid way. What do I mean by morbid? My wife had to sign a waiver stating they could keep the tumors.

Because you know, I was going to sell them on e-bay or something.

We traveled to Maryland, an eight hour drive and stayed for two days of tests and were told by the top Urological surgeon there, one of the best in the world, he would save the same amount of her kidney as the local surgeon had saved of her right and robotically, he guaranteed it. Normally cocky is not an attractive quality, but if this guy was as good as he said, he could brag all he wanted.

It seemed the pitcher-who at this point I was getting to where I had this visual of a tall Skeleton in a black baseball uniform with red eyes and throwing flaming fastballs-was about to be knocked out of the game. One successful surgery down and a miracle in the works for the second. Relief couldn't begin to describe how we felt, how happy we were.

On December Fourth we drove back down with the surgery scheduled for the Eighth. The NIH has a beautiful family lodge about a quarter mile from the actual hospital and we had a room until the Eighth, then I had to stay somewhere for a couple of nights, then could get back into the lodge.

The plan was surgery the eighth, discharge the fifteenth. We'd be home a week and a half before Christmas. Plenty of time for her to rest up enough to be able to enjoy the holiday. A week in the hospital and all this shit would be behind us.

We were there nineteen days

The surgery began at 8am and after watching them wheel her into operating room I went and sat in the small waiting room. Many of us have been there and its nerve wracking no matter how common the procedure we worry.

The NIH is not a typical hospital and there were only six surgeries that day. As the day went by the doctors would come out and find the family and tell them everything was all set. At three I was the only one left in the room and by five pretty much looking to climb the walls.

I didn't have to be alone. A couple of people offered to come down to sit with me. Her mother, my sister, but I said no, I'd be fine. My mother in law would have made me nervous. The woman had lost a daughter to cancer already and her remaining daughter was having surgery number two.

No, I had decided I would handle this alone. I'd handled everything life had thrown at me so far and many times alone because that was always my choice. I was strong, I was tough, hell, haven't you heard? I was a bad ass. Nothing would ever break me.

Naked arrogance.

Finally at six a nurse came out to say things were going well, they'd removed most the tumors, but it was taking longer than anticipated. The rule was I was only calling a couple of people, our mother's and a couple of friends and they would call everyone else. So I let them know all was well and resumed calmly wearing a hole through the carpet and challenging the Guinness world record for drinking coffee.

At nine pm, her surgeon came out and said it was over and all was well. The reason it took so long was he had promised her he would do it robotically and even though he could have done it faster had he gone in like the previous surgeon he'd given his word. At that point I was sure ego was involved as well, but he said it was successful, saved 85% of her kidney.

I did not have a room at the lodge that night so slept down the hall from ICU where they were moving her. I had wanted to see her briefly, but they insisted it would be better if I didn't just then and wait until the morning I wasn't happy, but let it go and they said to come in as early as five, she should be awake by then.

I showed up just before that and went into her room. Not sure what difference a few hours would have made because she couldn't have looked any worse. My wife looked as if she had been in a car accident. Her legs were wrapped in those big white pads that squeeze them to keep circulation going and I couldn't count the number of wires and tubes going in and out of her.

Her face looked as if she had ridden an elevator with Ray Rice. Both eyes not only blackened, but so swollen you could barely see her eyelids among the swelling. Her face was badly bloated and she wasn't awake.

The nurse then dropped the first of what would be several bombs on me. The surgery had gone so long they had pumped close to twenty to pounds of fluid into. That was cause of her facial swelling, but the issue was her throat was so swollen they were afraid to pull the breathing tube out because it might close and she could die.

Of course they cannot have you awake with a breathing tube in you so they were now keeping her unconscious. I asked how long and the answer was until the next day. I wandered out, made my couple of calls and said all was well, this was a precaution. But my gut told me that wasn't true, there was something wrong.

I stayed with her most of the day, trying to not keep looking at her face and telling myself not to get carried away; they had said a day, what was one more day? And she was cancer free. That would be my mantra for myself and others as time went on down there, cancer free.

I had a room at the lodge that night and left her at midnight and did some laundry at one am because I couldn't sleep and there was something about doing that mundane chore that gave me a sense of normalcy. I managed a couple of hours sleep before walking back to the hospital again the next morning to find her still asleep.

As I had the day before I met with the team of four doctors. Three were the surgical team, the fourth the ICU attendant. They told me they were keeping her out that day and perhaps the next. Her throat was still swollen and the issue was they were trying to drain fluid, but also filling her with necessary ones and were losing the balancing act.

They also mentioned fear of some other complications and that's when the attendant uttered the words "Medically induced coma". And more disturbing expressions like , "possibly" and "not sure" I sat there listening to them, but in the back of my exhausted mind I envisioned that crazy reaper dressed as a pitcher and two words flowed through my mind.

Batter up.

In these situations it would be my wife handling this; the questions, the options, sitting there with a notebook writing down every word and grilling the doctors as if she were a homicide detective. It's how she handled her sister and father's situations and her mother's surgeries; my wife was organized and tenacious. She never just sat there and nodded, which was what I was doing.

I quit high school and although I would not consider myself unintelligent, I have a habit of feeling that way in certain situations/ Low self esteem I suppose. I'm sitting here with four doctors, all the best of the best and asking them to keep repeating themselves like I was either deaf or flat out stupid. Stunned and tired was the more likely explanation, but it felt more like the former.

When the shit hit the fan in the past, the wife had the plan and I put it into action. She was the mastermind, I was the hired goon. Now here she was unconscious and I was sitting here alone. But that's what I had wanted, wasn't it?

I was the rogue, the lone wolf, the person who needed no one and would get by as I always had. But over the last decade plus that had altered; I needed no one, but my wife, she was my rock, the one person I trusted and the one who truly understood me. Now she was lying there in a coma and I was alone.

I made the calls, stayed calm said it was a speed bump, just a matter of time, all her vitals were good and hey, cancer free? Got that right? Cancer free! I answered their questions vaguely and when it came to "how are you holding up?' my answer was "I'm good, I'm always good"

Someone would have come down had I asked, but I'd made my bed and I would lie in it. My mind, which at that point I'm sure was firing on half its cylinders at best saw this as the ultimate example of just the two of us. She had always said it didn't matter what life threw at us as long as we were together.

Well not sure we were together at the moment with her in her current state, but that was what I locked into. I took a walk down behind the lodge where they had built a nice little park for families to enjoy and at one in the morning stood there and screamed obscenities into the night air.

All the what the fucks and how this be happening to her and why did she deserve this and most of all where the fuck was this God she had spent her life talking about as if he cared? When I was done I sat down, took a deep breath and locked in.

Mentally I went back to how I'd been in my younger days, when I was a trouble making asshole. Back then I was cold and calculating, nothing upset me, nothing got in my way. I did anything I had to anyway I had to. I was emotionless, a machine with only a goal of self survival. That's what I defaulted back to.

Stripped of everything but core survival instincts.

It was all I had left to cling to was the former me, the one I had buried years ago and for the very person now lying comatose in a hospital bed. She would never want that old me back, but she couldn't very well see me right now, could she?

I had no intent to be crazed or aggressive, just get by' just get through and emotions, the ones she had taught me to feel and express rather than bury were not going to be of help here. I went back to the ICU and spent the rest of the night there and Wednesday morning was told she would not wake up that day.

Nor did she wake up Thursday or Friday.

I stayed with her most of the time and twice a day they would lower her meds and let her wake up to ensure she was responsive. Twice a day I watched her open her eyes and I would say her name and she would look at me.

She had packed Alicia and she was there at the foot of her bed and I showed her to her and she grimaced around the breathing tube in attempt at a smile. Then they would put her back to sleep. I understood why they had to do it, but it seemed cruel. The nurse assured me that she would not really remember anything.

We'd brought her poetry books and I sat by her bed and read them to her. I was in that self induced numbness and my voice was smooth and calm as I read. Yet in the back of my mind I had a response to each sentence I read. For all her words praising and thanking God my mind sneering "Really? This is his love, this is his caring? This is faith rewarded?"

But I held that snark inside and just read the words, poem after poem, never hesitating. My voice never breaking even though some of them dealt with death and the final reward at the end. It would occur to me later on that I had emulated my wife's strength for her sister in that I spoke calmly and read her own words of faith and love to her despite my turmoil.

One of the nurses commented that I was an amazing man. I told her not really, I was simply the result of spending time with an incredible woman who deserved no less than the best I could do. I don't think she would have considered me amazing if she knew I was internally mocking every word I read.

Although I was helping my wife and doing the right thing, I felt like a hypocrite, these were not my beliefs, but hers. But there comes a time when for those we love we will whore ourselves in any way we need to and if me reading messages I didn't believe would sooth her wherever she was at the time then I was fine with it.

In the times I wasn't with her I wandered the massive NIH and saw many people who looked like me; bloodshot eyes with dark circles beneath them; moving slowly as if they were in a dream and with a look of shock on their faces.

The NIH is a place of miracles, the best doctors in the world are there and the Government pays for everything as everyone is there for research. There is no insurance bureaucracy, no billing issues and no rules. The doctors there are top in the field and innovative and do not hold to 'you can't do that' they will try whatever it takes.

Sure they may have some ego involved, but all the doctors I dealt with had real compassion and the nurses were straight out of Hollywood with their bedside manners. There was not one person I dealt with that didn't seem as if they truly cared about every one of their patients. We were damned lucky to be there. Got that, lucky, not blessed, lucky damn it.

But they can't save everyone. Sometimes they lose the war and just try to do their best to ease those final days of the people that are beyond what they can do. At all hours of the night the halls were full of wandering souls. People who looked as if they were survivors of a war. Ghosting around with haunted looks on their faces.

Between the hospital and the lodge I would hear people talking about their situations. Some telling of how doctors around the world had written off their loved one, but guess what? They were being saved here as they spoke. Talk of miracles and gratefulness, of hope and joy.

But also stories of loss and failure, of people who were past help and were dying as the person sat there speaking of it. I heard of a four year old who the doctors said probably had no more than a couple of days left. Heard the boy's mother crying as she spoke of it and saw the father sitting there looking as if he'd seen the devil himself. In a way I suppose he had.

I was still calm on the phones, "She'll wake up when they say it's safe." "She'll be fine." "No, I don't need anyone down here, I got this." Of course I had it, I always have it, right? The only hard moment I had on the phone was when my mother in law-who was more upset than everyone else because of her other daughter-gave me the

"You promised me you'd bring her back to me." She then burst into tears and finished with, "Bring my baby back to me, she's all I have left." No pressure people, none at all.

The next morning a doctor I had never spoken to before announced they were going to do a tachometry on my wife. Put a hole in her throat so they could safely remove the tube. My first response was 'come again?'. He explained that people cannot stay on breathing tubes forever, that all the movies and TV shows were people are on respirators for months or years is Hollywood BS.

The tube causes infections and my wife was now showing signs of pneumonia so they needed to do this. I asked to speak to the team. All week I'd sat down with these people and discussed what was happening and I had never seen him before and until they all told me this had to be done, the answer was no.

He said he had operating space already booked for a half hour from now and that was all he could get for the day. At that point I hadn't slept in days and informed him that he could take that space up himself if he thought he was going to slice my wife's throat. I'd been calm, and cool and professional and courteous all week, I'd been a good boy, but my nerves were shot and I'd about had it at this point.

Fortunately the ICU attendant had just come on duty and came over and asked what was going on. I explained the latest update and said it was the first I'd heard of it. He backed me saying it was the first he had as well and he wanted to discuss this.

I need to stop and talk about this guy. I'd love to give his name, but obviously cannot, but let's just say he was one of the big heroes of this tale. This guy was "House" but with a personality. He was the best of the best. He spoke and even the top doctors sat and listened, they practically fawned over this guy and he had been on my wife's situation like white on rice.

He pulled me aside and said he wanted to wake her yesterday. He said she was more than ready, but the rest of the team was going by protocol. They were playing it safe, but her infection was real and it was now or never, wake her by doing it naturally and removing the tube or go the route of the trach and having her unable to speak for a week or they could do me a favor and stick a tube in there so she could sound like the fucking Marlboro man.

He did warn me that if he were wrong and her throat closed they would have to do the trach and there is always the risk they would not be able to do it in time. He said I needed to decide and didn't have much time because this needed to be done.

I remember looking around like a cornered rat wishing to hell there was someone to talk to-but hey, I was the lone wolf right? I looked at my wife still hooked up to enough drugs and IV's to fill the damn room and as I looked back at the doctor I hesitated.

My mind which I am more than willing to admit was not functioning properly presented a disturbing image to me.

Standing there, looking like Ghost Rider in a baseball uniform and tossing his little flaming ball in and out of his glove and grinning away at me was my personal Reaper. I defaulted to what I'd known my entire life, the only way I handled extreme situations. I got pissed. Want to smirk at me, bitch? I'll take my best swing at you.

I was going to ride the tiger on this guys gut feeling and how strong I knew my wife was.

They wanted me out of the room for this as a precaution and I refused to leave. They told me to leave again and the doctor-who I refer to as mister cutthroat-mentioned they would have me removed. I said good luck with that and there was no way I was leaving. I had to be there for her. Had to be the first thing she saw when she awoke so she would know she would be okay.

lovecraft68
lovecraft68
21,960 Followers