CHAPTER 1: THOMAS
Thomas wanted a view. He wanted to see. The floor of the hospital where he was being treated had windows that faced east and windows that faced west. The east facing windows looked out over a vista that stretched at least 5 miles from right to left and 3 miles straight ahead. There were multiple urban streets, an interstate highway, railroad tracks, a river and a view of one the nighttime city hotspots. Plenty to look at, plenty to see. Looking at the view confirmed that the city was alive. The trade off was that the room was smaller. It was a room that would have been considered a private room in its past. On this floor, all of the rooms were private, except that the west facing rooms were originally semi-private rooms and were somewhat larger.
Thomas’s view, out of the west facing rooms, was of adjoining hospital buildings of various architecture and construction. The buildings included the original hospital structure that was constructed as part of the WPA program. The red brick and copper roof structure with a visually interesting personality stood in contrast to the concrete walls of the other buildings that created a non-descript canyon. Another building had what looked like to be a light blue rope light along the top edge that lit up at dusk and stayed on until dawn. He thought it to be of decorative intent, but wondered if it was also intended to help Medevac pilots to find the adjoining building where the landing pad was located. It didn’t matter much. By the time the sun reached the point in the sky when it would shine directly into his room, Thomas would lower the blinds and take a visual siesta from the scene until the sun went beyond the man-made horizon. He would then raise the blind and keep it there until right before he fell asleep for the evening.
The view Thomas most wanted to see, he missed. Fourteen days after his admission for chemotherapy that required a stem cell transplant to “rescue” his immune system, Thomas would be infused with various blood products including whole blood, platelets and plasma. It was a non-invasive process with minimal risks, but there was always the possibility of his body rejecting the new guests in his system. At this point in his life, he was at his most susceptible to infections and viruses. Although he was alert and felt reasonably well, he literally was as close to death’s door as he had ever been in his life. A sobering thought for sure, but he looked at it as there was nowhere to go but up from here.
The infusion process would start somewhere around 11:00 PM and continue through the night. Thomas had accepted that it would be a restless night, but as he had nowhere to go the next day, he could make up for lost sleep during the day. He normally settled in for the night shortly after the 10:00 visit from the nurse when she would administer the prescribed medications, including his sleeping pill.
The next time his eyes opened, the nurse wakened him to take his vital signs.
“How we doing?” he asked the nurse.
“Not long until we are finished,” she replied.
“Are you taking my vital signs early because there is a problem?”
“No, it’s 4:15 and that’s the normal time I do it.”
“Seriously, I’ve slept through five hours of you changing infusion bags?”
“Yes sir.”
“A miracle,” he thought to himself.
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