[Hospital Fic] Making a Good Day
Title: Making a Good Day
Characters: Yukimura, his mom, and one of his ICU nurses
Rating: T/PG-13, for hospital/medical situations and a bath, I suppose
Warnings: Hospital/ICU stuff
Summary: Every morning in the ICU, Yukimura Seiichi's mother and nurse give him a bath. Sometimes you settle for whatever small comforts you can get. Set early in his December hospitalization.
Note: I wrote this up while studying for nursing boards over the summer, so it's one of my older pieces. Yukimura is on a ventilator in this piece - this happens in about 10-20% of Guillain-Barre cases. Since Yukimura has such a long recovery time, it's easiest to jump to the conclusion that his case was pretty serious.
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Everyday at about nine in the morning, shortly after the morning news is over, Nurse Nakata and Yukimura-san give Seiichi a bath. It is a quiet time, a short slice of the day when the curtains of his ICU cubicle are all drawn closed and there are no interruptions by respiratory therapy or the lab or medical students desiring to see the hospital’s perfect example of flaccid paralysis. For thirty and sometimes forty-some minutes there are only the sounds of the ventilator hissing and pushing air, water dripping as washcloths are squeezed out, and the voices of his nurse and mother as they talk. It is the only time the two women are completely at ease with one another, despite the fact that it is also one of the times of the day when Seiichi himself is most uncomfortable. Their collective actions have settled into a pattern over the past two weeks, a predictable and reassuring series of tasks in the midst of uncertainty.
Yukimura-san arrives in the ICU just as the national news reporters are discussing the merits of visiting the ice rink before bidding their viewers good-bye. She has her pink coat and scarf draped over one arm and a thermal mug of piping hot green tea from Obaasan in her hand. In her opposite hand she carries her familiar floral tote, the one covered in pastel pink and yellow primroses to match her coat. She always looks a little tense, this waify woman in pressed slacks and department store blouses and sweaters, a little worried.
Nurse Nakata is already filling a plastic basin with soapy water at the sink just outside Seiichi’s cubicle when Yukimura-san arrives. She is shorter than Yukimura-san, but sturdier and probably stronger. Her white cap is perpetually perched on the back of her head, pinned in place to her short bobbed hair. She smiles when Yukimura-san arrives and silently walks into Seiichi’s small room with her while carrying the steamy basin.
“Good morning, Seiichi,” Yukimura-san greets her son as she lays her bag and coat and scarf on the sole plastic chair reserved for visitors. Her greetings are always soft and intrinsically soothing, never exuberant like her daughter’s or forcefully cheerful as her husband’s are. She steps over to the bed, smoothes stray stands of hair from her son’s forehead, says words to him that Nurse Nakata doesn’t try to hear. She finds one of his limp hands amidst the white sheets and yellow blanket, his fingers already thinner than they were two weeks ago. Seiichi makes no attempt to wrap them around hers - he can't. It is the frightening course of this disease, leaving him with almost nothing to move. She takes his unresponsive hand in one of her own as she turns her attention to his nurse. “Did he have a good night?” she asks, the way she always does. She glances at her son again. Seiichi looks tired. He always looks tired now.
“A good night for him,” Nurse Nakata replies while placing a stack of white hospital towels and clean sheets at the foot of the bed. She doesn’t hide the apologetic note in her voice. “The night nurse said he slept on and off; they increased his pain medication a little but it's back down now.” She reaches behind herself for a pair of gloves, rubbing Seiichi’s shoulder before putting them on. “We can just never get you comfortable, can we?” Seiichi glances at her briefly before closing his eyes. It’s a rhetorical question.
Yukimura-san places Seiichi’s hand back on the bed and steps over to the TV to turn it off. The drone of morning talk show voices ends as she turns to pull blue drapes across the glass wall and sliding door that face the nurses’ station. When she returns to the bed she accepts the washcloth Nurse Nakata is holding out to her, pausing to smooth her son’s hair again. Seiichi has already half-closed his eyes. “You’ll feel better after," she says softly, knowing that the bath isn't his favorite part of the day. "Maybe have a little nap before they come to do therapy.”
Nurse Nakata has already picked up Seiichi’s left arm, his elbow in her hand. Even at thirteen, his arms are longer than hers and his wrist flops against her forearm while she goes about her work. Yukimura-san copies the nurse’s actions with her son’s right arm, smoothing the washcloth up and down. Seiichi’s arm is pale and thin despite years of tennis and sunshine, despite the hours the physical therapists spend moving it through motions he would easily be able to do himself if life was even vaguely fair. It only took two weeks for years of lean muscle to begin to waste away. The medical people call it atrophy. Seiichi calls it wrong.
“When Seiichi was little he used to fall asleep in the bathtub,” Yukimura-san announces while patting his arm dry. She is not as seasoned to the task of bathing someone else as Nurse Nakata and she has dripped water on the sheets and Seiichi’s hospital gown. It is best not to mind too much. She watches the nurse search for a bottle of lotion in a basin of personal care supplies. “It scared me so much that I only let him have a little water in the bath.”
Nurse Nakata does not laugh. She wonders if Yukimura-san mentions the story because this is Seiichi’s bath or because his presence in the ICU frightens her at least as much as those episodes. “That would be scary,” she acknowledges while squirting lotion into her palm. She rubs it between her hands before picking up Seiichi’s arm again. “This smells so much nicer than the hospital lotion; where did you find it?”
Yukimura-san takes the bottle as she replies, “I’m not sure; I asked my husband to choose some.” The hospital stuff seemed like a blend of baby oil and old people and it took less than a week to decide that there was no reason for her son to smell like that. She rubs the lotion up and down Seiichi’s arm and around his wrist and knuckles, moving his hospital ID bracelets out of the way. The room begins to smell less of antiseptic and powdered gloves and more like hand cream mixed with sea air. “I think Tousan did all right, don’t you, Seiichi?”
Seiichi, who has been preoccupying himself with trying to remember what the living room at home looks like, glances at his mother and nods slightly. The nurses have told him several times to use one blink for yes and two blinks for no, but he can still move his head a little and isn’t going to replace commonplace gestures with something else unless he must.
“I have a story for you, Yukimura-san,” Nurse Nakata announces after placing Seiichi’s clean and lotioned arm on a towel. While she tells Yukimura-san about her fiancé’s assumption that laundry detergent could be found in the same section of the department store as shampoo the two women take on the daily chore of untangling Seiichi’s hospital gown from the various tubes and monitor wires all over him. Yukimura-san doesn’t like them, but she’s grown accustomed to them and knows what each one is for. The endotracheal tube for the ventilator in his mouth and nasogastric tube for medicine and tube feedings in his nose. The PICC IV in one arm for more fluids and medicine and blood draws. The foley catheter to drain urine. Blood pressure cuff, oxygen saturation monitor, and heart monitor "just to make sure he's okay." She even knows the abbreviations, having heard them too many times. She watches Nurse Nakata gather all of the colorful heart monitor wires together in a bunch, moving them to one side. It was better when the only abbreviations and acronyms she needed were for radio stations and food ingredients and bus stops.
“I wish there were a window in here,” Yukimura-san comments while carefully lifting the blue ventilator tubing so that she can wash Seiichi’s neck and shoulder. There is obviously no room in the cubicle for a window though - the head of the bed is against the only outside wall, the space above it crowded with monitor screens flashing lines and numbers. There is no place to look to find out if it is rainy or sunny or snowing. “It’s depressing.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Nurse Nakata observes, glancing around the room. These rooms are functional in design, intended for ill adults who will be transferred to other units in a few days’ time. It is not an unattractive room - the walls are a neutral cream color and it is tidy and clean, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t boring. Aside from several cards taped to one of the side walls and a drawing of a rainbow done by Seiichi’s younger sister there is nothing particularly cheery in site. The Yukimuras are worried visitors - it is something that the ICU seems to do to the families of the patients here. Decorating a cramped hospital room hasn’t exactly been their primary concern. Nurse Nakata dips her washcloth into the sudsy basin again. “Does Seiichi-kun have friends?”
“Oh, Sanada-kun!” Yukimura-san brings a hand to her mouth, looking regretful. “I’m sorry, yes. Tennis friends. Sanada-kun and Yanagi-kun. I haven’t phoned Sanada-kun for over a week. It slipped my mind.” It is true. There have been relatives to update, teachers to explain things to, meetings to cancel, laundry and dishes and wilting plants. A daughter who doesn’t want to go to school and a husband who has migraines when he gets home from work. She turns her attention to Seiichi, who is considerably more alert than before. “I’m so sorry, Seiichi. I’ll phone him when we’re finished with your bath; it’s Sunday. He and Yanagi-kun have probably been wondering about you.”
Nurse Nakata is already done washing Seiichi’s chest and she moves to the end of the bed to find the fresh gown she brought in with the clean linen. She unfolds it, waiting for Yukimura-san to finish. “When you call, why don’t you ask Sanada-kun if he’d like to talk to Seiichi-kun?”
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of that,” Yukimura-san smiles, but she looks slightly upset as she folds the towel she has been using in half. She watches as Nurse Nakata tugs the hospital gown into place, carefully pulling it over Seiichi’s shoulders and around his arms. This one is a faded green color, but it is a change from the usual blue and white. She notes that Seiichi looks particularly awake and is more focused on her than on what Nurse Nakata is doing. “I promise I’ll ask him to talk to you, Seiichi,” Yukimura-san assures her son, which earns her another one of his weak nods. She sighs and looks at his nurse. “They spent so much time together, always tennis, tennis. Obaasan got so mad.”
“Oh?” Nurse Nakata is grinning at Yukimura-san, waiting to hear more. She steps back to the end of the bed and sorts out the sheets, folding them up to Seiichi’s knees. She peels off one of his socks, the Nike swooshes on either side curling inside-out over her thumbs.
“Yes!” Yukimura-san nods emphatically, taking Seiichi’s socks from Nurse Nakata to bring home and wash. It is some small comfort to her that Seiichi can still wear his own socks while his school uniforms and casuals and even pajamas and underclothes remain at home. “It irritated her so much to have three boys in the house all holed up in the living room looking at their magazines and making little diagrams when her vegetables needed weeding and the pond needed to be cleaned out. It’s half frozen now.” Nurse Nakata is still smiling and Seiichi hasn’t lapsed back into whatever private bubble he seems to prefer to inhabit so she continues. “Don’t tell your grandmother about this conversation, Seiichi! She’s so bad-tempered sometimes. We took her to one of Seiichi’s games once and all she did was complain about having to wait to see him play. Then she was mad because he only played for twenty minutes. He won!” When she looks at Seiichi again he is staring at her; she assumes it is because he's interested in what she's saying. Seventeen minutes, he thinks, It was only seventeen minutes.
“Twenty minutes is good, right?” Nurse Nakata questions while supporting the deadweight of Seiichi’s lower leg with one arm. She knows that he played tennis before getting sick - it has come up in conversations with both his parents several times, and even his younger sister mentions it on occasion. It is hard to picture the Seiichi in this room playing tennis though - Nurse Nakata has to make an effort just to dig out his personality from beneath the little nods and weary glances.
Yukimura-san washes her son’s leg quickly in order to catch up with the nurse. Like his arms, his legs are quickly becoming almost stick-thin. She wonders just where the muscle is disappearing to. It is sometimes hard to believe that he isn’t starving here in the hospital but she has seen the nurses hang his tube feedings herself. She thinks of the slice of Christmas cake her daughter insisted on putting in the freezer for him and hopes the nurses are right when they insist that Seiichi is going to be well enough to eat his own birthday cake in a few months. She shifts her thoughts back to tennis. “Twenty minutes is very good. You will…you will have to come and watch a game when Seiichi is better, Nurse Nakata.”
“I will,” Nurse Nakata smiles, but it is no longer her amused smile. It is a smile that makes no definite promises, and Yukimura-san knows that she will come to a game if Seiichi is able to play again. The neurologist has already explained that Seiichi’s case of GBS is severe and there is no way to predict how long his recovery will take or how complete it will be. The doctors offer no absolutes. Wait and see, they say, One day at a time. The nurse begins to massage lotion around Seiichi’s ankle. Even though Seiichi can hear everything the two of them say, she tilts her head. “It’s going to take awhile.”
“I know,” Yukimura-san says softly, picking up the lotion bottle. Nurse Nakata tends to try to keep their conversations light most of the time. The nurse asks her about her daughter and husband, about Seiichi’s likes and dislikes. Yukimura-san has never considered herself a very talkative person, unless the subject of her mother-in-law comes up, but she answers Nurse Nakata’s questions and asks her own. In return, the nurse tells endless stories about her schooling, her family, her fiancé and wedding plans. Yukimura-san recognizes that today the nurse has left a door open by not changing the subject when she begins to sound a little down. She does not hesitate to step through. “I worry so much.”
“Everyone does.” Nurse Nakata smoothes lotion up towards Seiichi’s knee. The scent of sea air fills the room again, reminding her of testing samples in the bath supply shop in the mall. She glances at Seiichi’s face and is a little surprised to see him looking at his mother critically. She had expected him to close his eyes and ignore the conversation, passive again. The nurse turns her attention back to his mother. “There’s nothing wrong with worrying sometimes.”
“Sometimes.” Yukimura-san glances up for a moment, again wishing for a window. Somewhere to look to avoid the nurse's gaze, Seiichi's gaze. She’s taken too much lotion and she futilely tries to spread all of it over her son's skinny leg. She dabs her slimy fingers on a discarded towel. There are things she wants to say and questions she wants to ask but she isn’t sure how to convey them in a way that won’t make her cry. She stays quiet instead.
“It will be okay,” Nurse Nakata says firmly while putting on a clean pair of gloves. She pauses to say something to Seiichi before folding back the sheets over his lap, then turns her attention back to his mother. “It will be hard, but it will be okay.”
Yukimura-san starts to fold her arms over her chest but ends up almost hugging herself instead. She wants to say that she is not just perpetually worried but scared, that she doesn’t know what’s happening, that her not-perfect-but-still-happy family doesn’t need a trial by fire medical problem to bring them closer together. What comes out is, “I wish I could hug him.”
“That’s one of the worst things about this, isn’t it?” Nurse Nakata pauses in her work to glance up. It is easy to see that Yukimura-san is the sort of mother who probably showered her children with hugs and kisses when they were small, who occasionally needs to touch them to make sure they are real. It shows in the way she smoothes her son’s hair and holds his hand, the way she lets her daughter sit on her lap when they visit together. The nurse finishes and pulls Seiichi’s gown down around his knees before removing all of the excess linens from the bed. “We’re going to roll you onto your side now, Seiichi, so your mom can do your back.” She sees Seiichi glance up towards the ceiling in some kind of unenthusiastic agreement and rubs his shoulder. “When we’re all finished I’ll get you a warm blanket.” She says the words warm blanket the same way other people say candy and prize and present, as though it is some kind of special reward for enduring a bath. Seiichi is not won over. If he's had a warm blanket before, he doesn't remember it and it probably isn’t worth getting excited about.
Turning Seiichi is never pleasant, and Nurse Nakata finds herself apologizing every single time because he always tends to wince at some point or another. “I’m sorry,” she says while patting his shoulder yet again, despite the fact that there is no way to make the change of position any more careful or gentle than it is already. She looks over at his mother. “Take your time today, Yukimura-san. As long as Seiichi stays comfortable on his side, you might as well let him have a nice backrub.”
While Nurse Nakata holds Seiichi on his side, Yukimura-san washes his back for him. It is the last part of the bath and usually she tries to finish quickly so that he can finally get tucked back into bed. Today though, she follows the nurse’s instructions and works more slowly. It reminds her of rubbing his back when he was younger, smaller. Seiichi has not needed or sought out that sort of comforting for a long time. As she smoothes her hands out over his shoulders, Yukimura-san tries to remember the last time her son cried or came to tell her that he couldn’t sleep. More than a year ago, probably. Three weeks ago she would have said that it was bittersweet, seeing her growing son become more independent, spend less time at home, consult and confide in her only on rare occasions. Now…well, it is different.
Nurse Nakata glances down at Seiichi’s face to check if he is still comfortable. His right arm is curled under him and his legs are flopped one over the other, but he appears to be all right. He has closed his eyes and seems content enough for the moment. Nurse Nakata spends thirty-some hours a week with him as one of his primary nurses, but she has rarely seen him fully relaxed or anywhere near happy. He was tense and on edge during the first few days in the hospital and has steadily become more and more passive and subdued. There is a word for it and though they cannot write "depressed" in his chart they find themselves trying to convey it more and more frequently. Patient withdrawn. Flat affect. Little desire or effort to interact with staff. His eyelids flutter just a little and Nurse Nakata realizes that maybe he’s not just tired and worn out but actually sleepy. “That must feel at least a little nice, Seiichi. You have a good mom.”
Yukimura-san doesn’t look up, but she does smile as she finishes the backrub and gets Seiichi’s gown sorted out and tied. It would be so nice if they could just leave him on his side to possibly drop off to sleep, but the bed needs new linens and that particular position won’t be comfortable enough to last an entire hour. Nurse Nakata resumes her apologizing while rolling Seiichi again, letting his mother have the guilt-free task of pulling the clean sheets into place under him. “I’m sorry, Seiichi, I promise,” the nurse says again while turning on the suction at the head of the bed. All of the moving loosens the secretions in his lungs and he invariably needs them suctioned out afterwards. Nurse Nakata goes about cleaning out the breathing tube quickly, adopting a calm tone, “We’re almost done, and then you can relax. I promise.” It’s subtle, but Seiichi has already realized that this nurse only makes promises when she feels particularly bad about what she has to do to him. He isn't sure if it's more to reassure him or herself, however. The nurse draws the sputtering suction catheter out of the tube smoothly, announcing, “All done.”
“Isn’t that better?” Yukimura-san sits down next to the bed when Nurse Nakata finishes, leaving to empty the bath water. She pushes Seiichi’s hair away from his face and then picks up the washcloth again. She carefully wipes around the tubes and tape near his nose and mouth, no longer so intimidated by them. It will be a relief when Seiichi can get rid of the breathing tube. The nasogastric tube in his nose is somewhat nauseating, but the breathing tube is large and awkward and they can’t even clean his teeth properly. It prevents Seiichi from eating and talking and smiling. Yukimura-san knows, however, that for now it also keeps him alive. She sets the washcloth aside and searches for a comb. Seiichi’s hair has gone somewhat dull and lank from the powdered hospital shampoo they brush through it, but she still tries to make his bangs stay up with her fingers, musing, “Your hair could really use a regular wash, Seiichi…”
“Bring his shampoo with you tomorrow,” Nurse Nakata instructs pleasantly as she comes back into the room with the empty plastic basin and a white blanket. She catches Yukimura-san’s pleased look and peers down at Seiichi with a little grin of her own. He doesn’t look particularly excited, but she continues to smile anyway. “Your mom is right, your hair does need a real wash. It will feel good too. And look, I remembered your warm blanket.” The nurse turns down all of the covers that she and Yukimura-san just spread over Seiichi a few minutes ago and unfolds the new blanket over him. She pulls it all the way up to his shoulders and tucks it around his feet a little before surveying her work. “I think that’s good.”
“If it feels that nice I think we should get a blanket warmer for our house,” Yukimura-san states as Seiichi closes his eyes. Even with the breathing tube in place he has a relaxed look, as though he’d be willing to stay right where he is for a good hour or so. It is a good feeling, and perhaps warm blanket should be used in the same fashion as prize. It is as though the heat is melting into his whole disobedient body, seeping into the achy spots in his back and hips and legs. Seiichi might even be willing to use the word cozy to describe the feeling.
“Warm blankets are my favorite.” Nurse Nakata smiles, and Yukimura-san decides that she looks very pleased with herself. She is pleased. The nurse grins down at Seiichi, who still appears to basking in the toasty warmth, and then at his mother. “Do you want one too?”
“I couldn’t,” Yukimura-san shakes her head, but Nurse Nakata insists that it’s okay, just this once, it’s a Sunday. The nurse returns only long enough to hand her the blanket and open the curtains before crossing the hall to begin charting at the nurses’ station. Seiichi’s bath and hence their quiet and uninterrupted interactions are over for the day. In an hour or so the respiratory therapist will come, and then the physical therapist’s Sunday assistant, and so on.
From her desk at the nurses’ station Nurse Nakata can see Yukimura-san sitting on the visitor’s chair near her son’s bed. She has the warm blanket pulled around her shoulders, one leg curled under herself, and the telephone resting against her ear while she pats one of Seiichi’s arms. It is the most relaxed the nurse has ever seen either of the two and it is nice.
“Did something happen?” Seiichi’s father asks when Yukimura-san speaks to him on the phone. “You sound happy.”
“Not really,” Yukimura-san admits, the warmth from the blanket still seeping into her shoulders. “The nurse and I just finished Seiichi’s bath. She said to bring his shampoo tomorrow." She glances at Seiichi, who still has his eyes lightly closed. "He’s actually relaxing right now, believe it or not. I should go, I promised him I’d phone Sanada-kun.” She shifts her position, wrapping the blanket tighter. “Maybe it’s just a good day.”
Back at the nurses’ station, one of Nurse Nakata’s coworkers walks past and grins, “Why do you look so happy, Nakata-chan? Did your fiancé call?”
“Hmm? No.” Nurse Nakata glances up from her computer with a questioning look and then shrugs. “Yukimura-kun actually had a good bath. His mom seems a little more relaxed.” She sits up a little straighter, smiling. “It’s just a good day, I guess.”
END
Yay for warm blankets...my favorite.
Characters: Yukimura, his mom, and one of his ICU nurses
Rating: T/PG-13, for hospital/medical situations and a bath, I suppose
Warnings: Hospital/ICU stuff
Summary: Every morning in the ICU, Yukimura Seiichi's mother and nurse give him a bath. Sometimes you settle for whatever small comforts you can get. Set early in his December hospitalization.
Note: I wrote this up while studying for nursing boards over the summer, so it's one of my older pieces. Yukimura is on a ventilator in this piece - this happens in about 10-20% of Guillain-Barre cases. Since Yukimura has such a long recovery time, it's easiest to jump to the conclusion that his case was pretty serious.
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Everyday at about nine in the morning, shortly after the morning news is over, Nurse Nakata and Yukimura-san give Seiichi a bath. It is a quiet time, a short slice of the day when the curtains of his ICU cubicle are all drawn closed and there are no interruptions by respiratory therapy or the lab or medical students desiring to see the hospital’s perfect example of flaccid paralysis. For thirty and sometimes forty-some minutes there are only the sounds of the ventilator hissing and pushing air, water dripping as washcloths are squeezed out, and the voices of his nurse and mother as they talk. It is the only time the two women are completely at ease with one another, despite the fact that it is also one of the times of the day when Seiichi himself is most uncomfortable. Their collective actions have settled into a pattern over the past two weeks, a predictable and reassuring series of tasks in the midst of uncertainty.
Yukimura-san arrives in the ICU just as the national news reporters are discussing the merits of visiting the ice rink before bidding their viewers good-bye. She has her pink coat and scarf draped over one arm and a thermal mug of piping hot green tea from Obaasan in her hand. In her opposite hand she carries her familiar floral tote, the one covered in pastel pink and yellow primroses to match her coat. She always looks a little tense, this waify woman in pressed slacks and department store blouses and sweaters, a little worried.
Nurse Nakata is already filling a plastic basin with soapy water at the sink just outside Seiichi’s cubicle when Yukimura-san arrives. She is shorter than Yukimura-san, but sturdier and probably stronger. Her white cap is perpetually perched on the back of her head, pinned in place to her short bobbed hair. She smiles when Yukimura-san arrives and silently walks into Seiichi’s small room with her while carrying the steamy basin.
“Good morning, Seiichi,” Yukimura-san greets her son as she lays her bag and coat and scarf on the sole plastic chair reserved for visitors. Her greetings are always soft and intrinsically soothing, never exuberant like her daughter’s or forcefully cheerful as her husband’s are. She steps over to the bed, smoothes stray stands of hair from her son’s forehead, says words to him that Nurse Nakata doesn’t try to hear. She finds one of his limp hands amidst the white sheets and yellow blanket, his fingers already thinner than they were two weeks ago. Seiichi makes no attempt to wrap them around hers - he can't. It is the frightening course of this disease, leaving him with almost nothing to move. She takes his unresponsive hand in one of her own as she turns her attention to his nurse. “Did he have a good night?” she asks, the way she always does. She glances at her son again. Seiichi looks tired. He always looks tired now.
“A good night for him,” Nurse Nakata replies while placing a stack of white hospital towels and clean sheets at the foot of the bed. She doesn’t hide the apologetic note in her voice. “The night nurse said he slept on and off; they increased his pain medication a little but it's back down now.” She reaches behind herself for a pair of gloves, rubbing Seiichi’s shoulder before putting them on. “We can just never get you comfortable, can we?” Seiichi glances at her briefly before closing his eyes. It’s a rhetorical question.
Yukimura-san places Seiichi’s hand back on the bed and steps over to the TV to turn it off. The drone of morning talk show voices ends as she turns to pull blue drapes across the glass wall and sliding door that face the nurses’ station. When she returns to the bed she accepts the washcloth Nurse Nakata is holding out to her, pausing to smooth her son’s hair again. Seiichi has already half-closed his eyes. “You’ll feel better after," she says softly, knowing that the bath isn't his favorite part of the day. "Maybe have a little nap before they come to do therapy.”
Nurse Nakata has already picked up Seiichi’s left arm, his elbow in her hand. Even at thirteen, his arms are longer than hers and his wrist flops against her forearm while she goes about her work. Yukimura-san copies the nurse’s actions with her son’s right arm, smoothing the washcloth up and down. Seiichi’s arm is pale and thin despite years of tennis and sunshine, despite the hours the physical therapists spend moving it through motions he would easily be able to do himself if life was even vaguely fair. It only took two weeks for years of lean muscle to begin to waste away. The medical people call it atrophy. Seiichi calls it wrong.
“When Seiichi was little he used to fall asleep in the bathtub,” Yukimura-san announces while patting his arm dry. She is not as seasoned to the task of bathing someone else as Nurse Nakata and she has dripped water on the sheets and Seiichi’s hospital gown. It is best not to mind too much. She watches the nurse search for a bottle of lotion in a basin of personal care supplies. “It scared me so much that I only let him have a little water in the bath.”
Nurse Nakata does not laugh. She wonders if Yukimura-san mentions the story because this is Seiichi’s bath or because his presence in the ICU frightens her at least as much as those episodes. “That would be scary,” she acknowledges while squirting lotion into her palm. She rubs it between her hands before picking up Seiichi’s arm again. “This smells so much nicer than the hospital lotion; where did you find it?”
Yukimura-san takes the bottle as she replies, “I’m not sure; I asked my husband to choose some.” The hospital stuff seemed like a blend of baby oil and old people and it took less than a week to decide that there was no reason for her son to smell like that. She rubs the lotion up and down Seiichi’s arm and around his wrist and knuckles, moving his hospital ID bracelets out of the way. The room begins to smell less of antiseptic and powdered gloves and more like hand cream mixed with sea air. “I think Tousan did all right, don’t you, Seiichi?”
Seiichi, who has been preoccupying himself with trying to remember what the living room at home looks like, glances at his mother and nods slightly. The nurses have told him several times to use one blink for yes and two blinks for no, but he can still move his head a little and isn’t going to replace commonplace gestures with something else unless he must.
“I have a story for you, Yukimura-san,” Nurse Nakata announces after placing Seiichi’s clean and lotioned arm on a towel. While she tells Yukimura-san about her fiancé’s assumption that laundry detergent could be found in the same section of the department store as shampoo the two women take on the daily chore of untangling Seiichi’s hospital gown from the various tubes and monitor wires all over him. Yukimura-san doesn’t like them, but she’s grown accustomed to them and knows what each one is for. The endotracheal tube for the ventilator in his mouth and nasogastric tube for medicine and tube feedings in his nose. The PICC IV in one arm for more fluids and medicine and blood draws. The foley catheter to drain urine. Blood pressure cuff, oxygen saturation monitor, and heart monitor "just to make sure he's okay." She even knows the abbreviations, having heard them too many times. She watches Nurse Nakata gather all of the colorful heart monitor wires together in a bunch, moving them to one side. It was better when the only abbreviations and acronyms she needed were for radio stations and food ingredients and bus stops.
“I wish there were a window in here,” Yukimura-san comments while carefully lifting the blue ventilator tubing so that she can wash Seiichi’s neck and shoulder. There is obviously no room in the cubicle for a window though - the head of the bed is against the only outside wall, the space above it crowded with monitor screens flashing lines and numbers. There is no place to look to find out if it is rainy or sunny or snowing. “It’s depressing.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Nurse Nakata observes, glancing around the room. These rooms are functional in design, intended for ill adults who will be transferred to other units in a few days’ time. It is not an unattractive room - the walls are a neutral cream color and it is tidy and clean, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t boring. Aside from several cards taped to one of the side walls and a drawing of a rainbow done by Seiichi’s younger sister there is nothing particularly cheery in site. The Yukimuras are worried visitors - it is something that the ICU seems to do to the families of the patients here. Decorating a cramped hospital room hasn’t exactly been their primary concern. Nurse Nakata dips her washcloth into the sudsy basin again. “Does Seiichi-kun have friends?”
“Oh, Sanada-kun!” Yukimura-san brings a hand to her mouth, looking regretful. “I’m sorry, yes. Tennis friends. Sanada-kun and Yanagi-kun. I haven’t phoned Sanada-kun for over a week. It slipped my mind.” It is true. There have been relatives to update, teachers to explain things to, meetings to cancel, laundry and dishes and wilting plants. A daughter who doesn’t want to go to school and a husband who has migraines when he gets home from work. She turns her attention to Seiichi, who is considerably more alert than before. “I’m so sorry, Seiichi. I’ll phone him when we’re finished with your bath; it’s Sunday. He and Yanagi-kun have probably been wondering about you.”
Nurse Nakata is already done washing Seiichi’s chest and she moves to the end of the bed to find the fresh gown she brought in with the clean linen. She unfolds it, waiting for Yukimura-san to finish. “When you call, why don’t you ask Sanada-kun if he’d like to talk to Seiichi-kun?”
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of that,” Yukimura-san smiles, but she looks slightly upset as she folds the towel she has been using in half. She watches as Nurse Nakata tugs the hospital gown into place, carefully pulling it over Seiichi’s shoulders and around his arms. This one is a faded green color, but it is a change from the usual blue and white. She notes that Seiichi looks particularly awake and is more focused on her than on what Nurse Nakata is doing. “I promise I’ll ask him to talk to you, Seiichi,” Yukimura-san assures her son, which earns her another one of his weak nods. She sighs and looks at his nurse. “They spent so much time together, always tennis, tennis. Obaasan got so mad.”
“Oh?” Nurse Nakata is grinning at Yukimura-san, waiting to hear more. She steps back to the end of the bed and sorts out the sheets, folding them up to Seiichi’s knees. She peels off one of his socks, the Nike swooshes on either side curling inside-out over her thumbs.
“Yes!” Yukimura-san nods emphatically, taking Seiichi’s socks from Nurse Nakata to bring home and wash. It is some small comfort to her that Seiichi can still wear his own socks while his school uniforms and casuals and even pajamas and underclothes remain at home. “It irritated her so much to have three boys in the house all holed up in the living room looking at their magazines and making little diagrams when her vegetables needed weeding and the pond needed to be cleaned out. It’s half frozen now.” Nurse Nakata is still smiling and Seiichi hasn’t lapsed back into whatever private bubble he seems to prefer to inhabit so she continues. “Don’t tell your grandmother about this conversation, Seiichi! She’s so bad-tempered sometimes. We took her to one of Seiichi’s games once and all she did was complain about having to wait to see him play. Then she was mad because he only played for twenty minutes. He won!” When she looks at Seiichi again he is staring at her; she assumes it is because he's interested in what she's saying. Seventeen minutes, he thinks, It was only seventeen minutes.
“Twenty minutes is good, right?” Nurse Nakata questions while supporting the deadweight of Seiichi’s lower leg with one arm. She knows that he played tennis before getting sick - it has come up in conversations with both his parents several times, and even his younger sister mentions it on occasion. It is hard to picture the Seiichi in this room playing tennis though - Nurse Nakata has to make an effort just to dig out his personality from beneath the little nods and weary glances.
Yukimura-san washes her son’s leg quickly in order to catch up with the nurse. Like his arms, his legs are quickly becoming almost stick-thin. She wonders just where the muscle is disappearing to. It is sometimes hard to believe that he isn’t starving here in the hospital but she has seen the nurses hang his tube feedings herself. She thinks of the slice of Christmas cake her daughter insisted on putting in the freezer for him and hopes the nurses are right when they insist that Seiichi is going to be well enough to eat his own birthday cake in a few months. She shifts her thoughts back to tennis. “Twenty minutes is very good. You will…you will have to come and watch a game when Seiichi is better, Nurse Nakata.”
“I will,” Nurse Nakata smiles, but it is no longer her amused smile. It is a smile that makes no definite promises, and Yukimura-san knows that she will come to a game if Seiichi is able to play again. The neurologist has already explained that Seiichi’s case of GBS is severe and there is no way to predict how long his recovery will take or how complete it will be. The doctors offer no absolutes. Wait and see, they say, One day at a time. The nurse begins to massage lotion around Seiichi’s ankle. Even though Seiichi can hear everything the two of them say, she tilts her head. “It’s going to take awhile.”
“I know,” Yukimura-san says softly, picking up the lotion bottle. Nurse Nakata tends to try to keep their conversations light most of the time. The nurse asks her about her daughter and husband, about Seiichi’s likes and dislikes. Yukimura-san has never considered herself a very talkative person, unless the subject of her mother-in-law comes up, but she answers Nurse Nakata’s questions and asks her own. In return, the nurse tells endless stories about her schooling, her family, her fiancé and wedding plans. Yukimura-san recognizes that today the nurse has left a door open by not changing the subject when she begins to sound a little down. She does not hesitate to step through. “I worry so much.”
“Everyone does.” Nurse Nakata smoothes lotion up towards Seiichi’s knee. The scent of sea air fills the room again, reminding her of testing samples in the bath supply shop in the mall. She glances at Seiichi’s face and is a little surprised to see him looking at his mother critically. She had expected him to close his eyes and ignore the conversation, passive again. The nurse turns her attention back to his mother. “There’s nothing wrong with worrying sometimes.”
“Sometimes.” Yukimura-san glances up for a moment, again wishing for a window. Somewhere to look to avoid the nurse's gaze, Seiichi's gaze. She’s taken too much lotion and she futilely tries to spread all of it over her son's skinny leg. She dabs her slimy fingers on a discarded towel. There are things she wants to say and questions she wants to ask but she isn’t sure how to convey them in a way that won’t make her cry. She stays quiet instead.
“It will be okay,” Nurse Nakata says firmly while putting on a clean pair of gloves. She pauses to say something to Seiichi before folding back the sheets over his lap, then turns her attention back to his mother. “It will be hard, but it will be okay.”
Yukimura-san starts to fold her arms over her chest but ends up almost hugging herself instead. She wants to say that she is not just perpetually worried but scared, that she doesn’t know what’s happening, that her not-perfect-but-still-happy family doesn’t need a trial by fire medical problem to bring them closer together. What comes out is, “I wish I could hug him.”
“That’s one of the worst things about this, isn’t it?” Nurse Nakata pauses in her work to glance up. It is easy to see that Yukimura-san is the sort of mother who probably showered her children with hugs and kisses when they were small, who occasionally needs to touch them to make sure they are real. It shows in the way she smoothes her son’s hair and holds his hand, the way she lets her daughter sit on her lap when they visit together. The nurse finishes and pulls Seiichi’s gown down around his knees before removing all of the excess linens from the bed. “We’re going to roll you onto your side now, Seiichi, so your mom can do your back.” She sees Seiichi glance up towards the ceiling in some kind of unenthusiastic agreement and rubs his shoulder. “When we’re all finished I’ll get you a warm blanket.” She says the words warm blanket the same way other people say candy and prize and present, as though it is some kind of special reward for enduring a bath. Seiichi is not won over. If he's had a warm blanket before, he doesn't remember it and it probably isn’t worth getting excited about.
Turning Seiichi is never pleasant, and Nurse Nakata finds herself apologizing every single time because he always tends to wince at some point or another. “I’m sorry,” she says while patting his shoulder yet again, despite the fact that there is no way to make the change of position any more careful or gentle than it is already. She looks over at his mother. “Take your time today, Yukimura-san. As long as Seiichi stays comfortable on his side, you might as well let him have a nice backrub.”
While Nurse Nakata holds Seiichi on his side, Yukimura-san washes his back for him. It is the last part of the bath and usually she tries to finish quickly so that he can finally get tucked back into bed. Today though, she follows the nurse’s instructions and works more slowly. It reminds her of rubbing his back when he was younger, smaller. Seiichi has not needed or sought out that sort of comforting for a long time. As she smoothes her hands out over his shoulders, Yukimura-san tries to remember the last time her son cried or came to tell her that he couldn’t sleep. More than a year ago, probably. Three weeks ago she would have said that it was bittersweet, seeing her growing son become more independent, spend less time at home, consult and confide in her only on rare occasions. Now…well, it is different.
Nurse Nakata glances down at Seiichi’s face to check if he is still comfortable. His right arm is curled under him and his legs are flopped one over the other, but he appears to be all right. He has closed his eyes and seems content enough for the moment. Nurse Nakata spends thirty-some hours a week with him as one of his primary nurses, but she has rarely seen him fully relaxed or anywhere near happy. He was tense and on edge during the first few days in the hospital and has steadily become more and more passive and subdued. There is a word for it and though they cannot write "depressed" in his chart they find themselves trying to convey it more and more frequently. Patient withdrawn. Flat affect. Little desire or effort to interact with staff. His eyelids flutter just a little and Nurse Nakata realizes that maybe he’s not just tired and worn out but actually sleepy. “That must feel at least a little nice, Seiichi. You have a good mom.”
Yukimura-san doesn’t look up, but she does smile as she finishes the backrub and gets Seiichi’s gown sorted out and tied. It would be so nice if they could just leave him on his side to possibly drop off to sleep, but the bed needs new linens and that particular position won’t be comfortable enough to last an entire hour. Nurse Nakata resumes her apologizing while rolling Seiichi again, letting his mother have the guilt-free task of pulling the clean sheets into place under him. “I’m sorry, Seiichi, I promise,” the nurse says again while turning on the suction at the head of the bed. All of the moving loosens the secretions in his lungs and he invariably needs them suctioned out afterwards. Nurse Nakata goes about cleaning out the breathing tube quickly, adopting a calm tone, “We’re almost done, and then you can relax. I promise.” It’s subtle, but Seiichi has already realized that this nurse only makes promises when she feels particularly bad about what she has to do to him. He isn't sure if it's more to reassure him or herself, however. The nurse draws the sputtering suction catheter out of the tube smoothly, announcing, “All done.”
“Isn’t that better?” Yukimura-san sits down next to the bed when Nurse Nakata finishes, leaving to empty the bath water. She pushes Seiichi’s hair away from his face and then picks up the washcloth again. She carefully wipes around the tubes and tape near his nose and mouth, no longer so intimidated by them. It will be a relief when Seiichi can get rid of the breathing tube. The nasogastric tube in his nose is somewhat nauseating, but the breathing tube is large and awkward and they can’t even clean his teeth properly. It prevents Seiichi from eating and talking and smiling. Yukimura-san knows, however, that for now it also keeps him alive. She sets the washcloth aside and searches for a comb. Seiichi’s hair has gone somewhat dull and lank from the powdered hospital shampoo they brush through it, but she still tries to make his bangs stay up with her fingers, musing, “Your hair could really use a regular wash, Seiichi…”
“Bring his shampoo with you tomorrow,” Nurse Nakata instructs pleasantly as she comes back into the room with the empty plastic basin and a white blanket. She catches Yukimura-san’s pleased look and peers down at Seiichi with a little grin of her own. He doesn’t look particularly excited, but she continues to smile anyway. “Your mom is right, your hair does need a real wash. It will feel good too. And look, I remembered your warm blanket.” The nurse turns down all of the covers that she and Yukimura-san just spread over Seiichi a few minutes ago and unfolds the new blanket over him. She pulls it all the way up to his shoulders and tucks it around his feet a little before surveying her work. “I think that’s good.”
“If it feels that nice I think we should get a blanket warmer for our house,” Yukimura-san states as Seiichi closes his eyes. Even with the breathing tube in place he has a relaxed look, as though he’d be willing to stay right where he is for a good hour or so. It is a good feeling, and perhaps warm blanket should be used in the same fashion as prize. It is as though the heat is melting into his whole disobedient body, seeping into the achy spots in his back and hips and legs. Seiichi might even be willing to use the word cozy to describe the feeling.
“Warm blankets are my favorite.” Nurse Nakata smiles, and Yukimura-san decides that she looks very pleased with herself. She is pleased. The nurse grins down at Seiichi, who still appears to basking in the toasty warmth, and then at his mother. “Do you want one too?”
“I couldn’t,” Yukimura-san shakes her head, but Nurse Nakata insists that it’s okay, just this once, it’s a Sunday. The nurse returns only long enough to hand her the blanket and open the curtains before crossing the hall to begin charting at the nurses’ station. Seiichi’s bath and hence their quiet and uninterrupted interactions are over for the day. In an hour or so the respiratory therapist will come, and then the physical therapist’s Sunday assistant, and so on.
From her desk at the nurses’ station Nurse Nakata can see Yukimura-san sitting on the visitor’s chair near her son’s bed. She has the warm blanket pulled around her shoulders, one leg curled under herself, and the telephone resting against her ear while she pats one of Seiichi’s arms. It is the most relaxed the nurse has ever seen either of the two and it is nice.
“Did something happen?” Seiichi’s father asks when Yukimura-san speaks to him on the phone. “You sound happy.”
“Not really,” Yukimura-san admits, the warmth from the blanket still seeping into her shoulders. “The nurse and I just finished Seiichi’s bath. She said to bring his shampoo tomorrow." She glances at Seiichi, who still has his eyes lightly closed. "He’s actually relaxing right now, believe it or not. I should go, I promised him I’d phone Sanada-kun.” She shifts her position, wrapping the blanket tighter. “Maybe it’s just a good day.”
Back at the nurses’ station, one of Nurse Nakata’s coworkers walks past and grins, “Why do you look so happy, Nakata-chan? Did your fiancé call?”
“Hmm? No.” Nurse Nakata glances up from her computer with a questioning look and then shrugs. “Yukimura-kun actually had a good bath. His mom seems a little more relaxed.” She sits up a little straighter, smiling. “It’s just a good day, I guess.”
END
Yay for warm blankets...my favorite.