Evidence of Mercy by Terri Blackstock Page B

couldn’t imagine ever having problems being upright. “Try me,” he said.
    They finished strapping him on then slowly began to tilt him up.
    He felt a cold sweat prickling his skin; his head pounded. Though the table inched upward at a snail’s pace, he grew increasingly dizzy, nauseous, weak. . . .
    â€œI’m gonna pass out!”
    Instantly, they lowered him flat again.
    â€œThat’s all right, Jake,” Allie said. “You made it to thirteen degrees.”
    Jake looked at her. “That’s all? Why did I react like that?”
    â€œIt’s called orthostatic hypotension. You’ve been lying down for a while, so your circulation is weak. Your blood pressure drops when you’re upright. We just have to keep trying it, getting a little higher each time, until you get through it. Ready to go again?”
    He wanted to scream out that he wasn’t, but instead he said, “No. I’m thirsty.”
    â€œWe can give you some ice chips,” Allie said, “but you won’t be able to keep anything else down.”
    She put an ice chip in Jake’s mouth, then allowed a few seconds for it to melt. “Ready now?”
    Jake cursed as the table tilted again. As the blood drained to pool in his feet, the world threatened to turn black.
    â€œJust get through this, Jake,” Buzz said when he was flat again. “After this, we’ll start you on traction.”
    Two hours later, they wheeled him back to his room in time for the bland lunch that awaited him, the lunch he couldn’t eat. His skull felt as if it had intercepted the pain from all the places on his body that he couldn’t feel. His stomach was empty but still threatened to turn on him, and the worst part was that for all his work, he’d only made it up to twenty degrees on the tilt table. At this rate, he’d be flat on his back for the rest of his life.
    And the traction had been another nightmare. They had hooked him to the pulleys and turned the machine on, making it pull for twenty seconds, then release for five, then pull again. . . .
    Jake’s hope as he endured the pain was that the pulleys would relieve the compression in his spine, free the nerves to function again, and bring the feeling back into his legs. But when the exercise was over, he was as numb from his hips down as he had been when he’d gotten here. It would take time, Buzz told him. Lots of time.
    And time was something he had more than enough of. He had all the time in the world and absolutely nothing to do with it but endure more torture, more terror, more disappointment.
    Yanking at the sheet the nurse had laid over him, he tried to fling it off the bed, but it was attached somewhere. Instead, he grabbed a glass of watery tea and hurled it across the room. It shattered and left a stain on the wall, but that did nothing to appease Jake’s rage.
    L ynda heard a crash as she reached the door of Jake’s room. Stepping out of her wheelchair, she pushed the door open. A tray of food flew against the wall, and plates and food and a cup went crashing to the floor.
    â€œJake! What are you—?”
    She ducked out of the way of the plastic pitcher.
    Jake’s face was red, and his bandage was wet with tears. Randomly, he reached for something else to throw. The phone book sailed across the room and then the tissue box. When he grabbed the phone he had already broken the other day and tried to yank off the cord, she dove for him.
    â€œStop it!” she cried, wrestling the phone from him and grabbing his flailing arms. “Jake, stop it!”
    He fought for a moment more, and then, sobbing and cursing, finally gave up and let his arms fall across his face.
    Lynda stood next to the bed, staring down at him, feeling helpless. Where were the people who loved this man? Where were the ones who could fight this battle with him? Was there really no one?
    But there was someone, Lynda thought, succumbing to