thirty minutes the entire night.
I was relieved when the sun blinked through the window
and take my place. The doctor would be in soon and we’d learn
if he could go back home. He’d be more comfortable at home,
even if we weren’t. Despite the torture chair, nurses were available
for those frightful moments we had no training or understanding
to face. There was an emergency backstop if we hit a spot we
couldn’t handle.
He clutched the bed rail, still, and leaned his head against
the shiny bars. The bed was angled up how he liked it, but with
the way his thinned body slid down balling up at its crook and his
contortion against the railing with the disheveled sheets piled at his
feet, he looked a wreck. “Lewis, do you want to try and turn over?
Do you want to try and roll over?” I asked.
beat this decision upon him, “I guess so.”
He turned his torso and wrapped his arms around my neck. There
was surprising strength in those arms, and he pulled hard. There
was no strength in his legs, however, and I couldn’t get his hips to
follow through. I stopped the effort, rethinking how to go about it.
“Let’s try again,” I said and positioned pillows at the ready
to wedge him over as he turned. It was a remarkable effort on
his part, and he was too tired to object. He pulled, substantially
weaker this time, and I jammed the pillows at his back and beneath
his hips. It wasn’t enough, and for all his frailty, I was unable to
simply roll his weight over by myself. He collapsed amidst the
pillow backing, spent.
“Let’s take a break,” I said. “Rest a bit, and we’ll try to get
you the rest of the way.”
pillows and unable to clutch his railing. A cough perked up, strong
and deep from the bowels of his lungs. “We’ll take a break for
a second,” I repeated and sat back down in the torture chair. I
was beat myself. The sun shone brightly in the room, its beams
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