We knew the house. We knew the situation.
The little white house on Miramar Street had fallen on hard times, economic and otherwise. Our patient and her husband had both been out of work for months. Bills were going unpaid. What little money they received from public assistance went to buy groceries and put a few gallons of gas in the family car.
For most families this would be stressful enough. Unfortunately, for this particular little white house, two parents without work was only the beginning of their nightmare.
Molly was a regular. A patient, a person, that we couldn’t help but love. Every week for the last nine months we had picked her up once or twice for her regularly scheduled appointments that would help her and her family deal with the crappy card that she had been dealt.
Breast cancer.
Something else that Grace and I had in common with her.
It had ravaged her body to the point where she couldn’t take care of herself on her own. Not without help. Not while the cancer spread uncontrollably, with no mercy in sight.
We found her slumped over on the floor near her neatly made bed, bruised and bloodied to the point where I barely recognized her. Her wheelchair, complete with stickers of Dora the Explorer and rainbows was sitting inches away. She was holding a white washcloth to her swollen forehead while blood ran freely from her split bottom lip.
She was sitting on the floor just inches away from their bed. The same bed she shared with her husband of nine years. The same bed covered with a large quilt that was adorned with baby clothes from her little ones. Her sister pieced it together by hand three years before. She had shown it off with pride the third or fourth time I had taken her to a pain care appointment.
It took a minute for everything to register. We knew where we were. We just didn’t recognize her.
“Molly?” Grace and I gasped simultaneously.
She looked up and the smile that we had grown so used to seeing was replaced with a look of someone who truly believed she was broken. She was run down. Beat down. Her normally bright and shiny voice, the one that had made me smile so many times was replaced by someone who truly felt defeated.
“Just go away. I’m okay.”
My hand instantly flew to my mouth. Sitting there in a new pink winter jacket was Molly.
Our Molly. Our girl.
The one that we’ve taken to countless pain management appointments and ER visits. The same one who fed us, and joked with us, and in general just made us smile every single time we took here ANYWHERE. Considering the fact that she was in so much pain, that’s saying something. She was someone that we would never refer to as a “frequent flier”. She too special for that. We loved the time we spent with her, we looked forward to watching her show off her beautiful little ones and her handsome husband.
They were her entire world.
I couldn’t understand… I didn’t get what was going on. “What happened, Molly? Did you fall?” I instantly caught my breath as it hit me. Suddenly, I knew she didn’t fall, don’t ask me how I knew, I just did.
I knew.
I knew, Grace knew, and Christ knows that Molly knew. I felt like an idiot for opening my mouth before listening.
How fucking DARE he.
“Where’s AJ and Allison? Where’s Aidan?” Grace was my hero, springing into action. Asking questions and taking care of Molly while I stood there literally slack-jawed and shaking in my boots still trying to take everything in.
“They’re at his Mom’s. He took them south for the weekend. I’m really… Leave me. I’m okay.” Molly was struggling to push Grace away.
Grace was having no part of it. She was stopping Molly’s bleeding and making her comfortable while I tried to control my breathing in order to calm down. I’m not proud of that fact. The truth is that I was identifying so much with my patient, our Molly, that it was more than I could handle at that point.
She didn’t need a lecture. She didn’t need anyone to judge her. She didn’t need anyone barking orders at her. That was not what she needed.
I sat down next to her and I ran my right hand up and down her back while we bandaged what we could and wiped away her tears. And we listened while she fought to explain what happened.
“I fell.”
“I walked into a door.”
“No, I really did fall.”
“I did this.”
“It was my fault.”
“I don’t know when to just keep my mouth shut.”
“No, really, it was me.”
“It’s my fault we’re in this situation…”
And finally, “Girls, he’s a really good guy. This isn’t him.”
**********
Nothing we said to her made one bit of difference.
I know.
I’m sure the card I handed her with the phone numbers that would help her was torn up or burned before I shifted the ambulance into drive. I’m pretty sure that whatever I said to her, even as someone who has been there, went in one ear and out the other.
I’m sure she’s hiding, still. Suffering in silence.
I just wish she knew that she was worth more than that.
Because she is.
And if you’re in the same situation, you are too.
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