Page 94 of Don't Tell Me How to Die

“Yes,” I mumbled. “Hospice... bad blood... no charge... take me.”

I slumped to the back seat, consciousness slipping away. I heard the cab door shut, and then we were moving.

The driver was talking, but none of it registered. And then there were more voices, hands lifting me up, gently setting me down. I felt the strap go across my chest, and then I was rolling, first gazing up at the blue sky, then squinting at high ceilings with bright white lights, and I could hear a woman asking me my name, and I tried to say Maggie, but I don’t know if she heard me.

I don’t even know if I was able to say it.

FIFTY-SIX

When I came to, I was in bed in a hospital gown.

Wrong hospital, I thought. I should be in Alex’s hospital, not this one. I should tell him where I am.

“Nurse,” I yelled out, not bothering to look for a call button.

“Can I help you?” a voice crackled back through the intercom.

“Can I have my phone please, and can I get out of here? I’m feeling better.”

“I’ll page your doctor,” she said.

My doctor?Just what I needed—another damn doctor.

“What I really need is my phone,” I said.

No response. The faceless helpful voice was apparently done helping.

I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, there was a man standing next to my bed. Dark hair, dark eyes, white coat, clipboard.

“Mrs. Dunn,” he said. “I’m Dr. Brubaker.”

He was in his late forties, too old to be a resident. At least my doctor was a real doctor.

“I feel better. Can I go?”

“Can we talk first?”

“There’s not much to talk about,” I said. “It’s hot as hell in the city. I must have passed out.”

“It’s a lot more than the heat, Mrs. Dunn. I have your blood work here.”

“Well, then I guess my little secret is out. Can I go home now?”

“I’d prefer you didn’t.” Brubaker looked at the chart on his clipboard. “I have to tell you, I’ve never seen numbers like these before. If they get any worse, you will be dead within a few weeks.”

“I know that. I mean I didn’t know about the few weeks, but I know about the dying part.”

“Youknow?” he said, as if he’d checked my IQ and found that number more horrifying than my blood count. “And are you doing anything about it?”

I shook my head.

“Who’s your doctor? I’d like to talk to him or her if I could.”

“Don’t call my doctor. He’ll only agree with you. He wasn’t happy about the fact that I turned down the opportunity to look for a medical miracle in a haystack, but it wasn’t his decision. It was mine. Just let me see the blood test results. I’m tougher than I look.”

He sat down on the bed so I could look at the chart.

It was a blur of codes, medical terms, acronyms, and numbers, and in my condition, I couldn’t make sense of it. For the next ten minutes Brubaker patiently took me through it line by line, number by number.

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