Alicia looked up to see all of the eyes in the room on her. She gulped and didn’t know what to say or do except hold the man’s head in her arms as a doctor took his arm and quickly gave his another dose of anesthesia, except this time it was only to dull the pain, not to put him to sleep. The man didn’t move or even flinch as the long needle pricked his skin. He only lay on the bed with doctors still holding his limbs down looking up at her. No one in the room moved away from him until he visibly relaxed and his rapid breathing slowed. One by one, they left the room, talking quietly to each other, until Alicia was left standing at the foot of the bed with a doctor who was busy writing the man’s condition on a yellow pad of paper.
"He seems to enjoy your company." He doctor said quietly.
"He must have me confused with someone else." She replied.
"Even though that may be the case, I would like for you to stay with him. The anesthesia we give him doesn’t have much of an effect on him and your presence has some sort of effect on him. We can’t have him moving around since he might rip his stitches. Do you understand?"
Alicia nodded. "Is there anything else you want me to do." She quickly said as the doctor prepared to leave the room.
"The gauze needs to be changed. If you have any problems, find me and I’ll come as soon as I can." With that said, he turned and left the room, quietly closing the door behind him.
Alicia turned back to the man who had closed his eyes. His even breathing told her that he fell asleep. She went to a cabinet full of medical bandages and pulled out a long roll of clean white gauze. Walking back to the man, she set the gauze aside for a moment, she reached for his head, carefully and slowly unwrapping the gauze and putting it into the nearby trash can. That done, she carefully wrapped the fresh bandage around his head, finally securing it in place with a piece of medical tape. The whole time he had talked quietly in his sleep. His words couldn’t be understood, as if he wasn’t talking in English, but she did hear him whisper the word ‘angel’ a lot.
With that done, she pulled a chair up to his bedside and sat down with her hands clasped in her lap and looked at the man.
"Goodness . . . he must be seven feet tall!" She thought as she got her first good look at him. She had heard that they had to bring in a bigger bed for a patient. It must have been him.
She sighed and looked aimlessly around the room before picking up a nearby magazine and casually flipping through its pages. She was about halfway through before the man’s eyes suddenly flew open and let out a long soft groan, again going wild upon the bed. Throwing the magazine in the air, Alicia threw herself across his chest in a desperate attempt to still his movements. The man, for some reason, stopped moving and seemed to relax at her touch. Looking up at the man, she saw that his eyes had again closed, as if nothing had happened. She moved away from him to pick up her chair that had tipped over in her attempt to get the man to calm down. When she had her chair back on the ground and had re-seated herself, she pulled the chair as close to the man’s bedside as it would go. She noticed that even though his eyes were closed, his eyebrows were slanted downward, as if he was in a great deal of pain but didn’t want to show it. She smiled gently and reached toward his hand, remembering that when she was in nursing school, she had once been told that physical touch was a way to heal some forms of pain. She carefully slipped her hand under his and he instantly seized it, entwining his thick fingers through hers. She had been surprised and looked up at his face, expecting him to be awake, but he remained asleep. It was amazing though. Even though he was asleep, his grip was tight, but not painful, as if he was afraid that for some reason she would leave his side. Alicia smiled again and picked up another magazine, sitting it on the bed and slowly read each page. She wasn’t really reading the words, just letting her slightly out of focus eyes run over the lines. She was going to fall asleep and she knew it, but she tried to fight it off, which just made it worse. She finally gave in and brought her other arm up to lay on the bed for a pillow before her eyes closed and drifting of to sleep. The room was quiet for a few minutes as the two of them slept, but it didn’t last for long since his eyes slowly opened yet again, and this time they stayed open . . . and saw his beautiful angel sleeping at his side.
Copyright 1999 by Lady Serria