What a Day...and Evening.

“Oh, uh… my huhband…” she stuttered in a panicked search for English words.
I rose from my chair to see what was happening. Erik was already at the screen door, smiling at first, but now his face twisted in confusion and worry. He opened the door, stepping outside and onto the warm veranda as she scurried toward the gate of our house.
“…My huhband. Uh, he fall. Help. You help me. Oh…” She spoke in a rushed urgency. It took a second to sink in.
“Your husband?” Erik asked.
“Is he hurt? You need help?” I added.
“You help me, please. Help.” She tugged at us with begging eyes. Her face, in a panicked desperation, was framed by her hair still pulled into a loose chiffon from work.
“Okay, okay. We’re coming.” Erik said as he followed her across and up the street to her house.
“Come on!” He shouted over his shoulder as I stood, shocked, for a millisecond. Dazed and trying to grasp what exactly was happening, I froze momentarily in thought. Shook by his call, I dashed into the house and grabbed my phone. Running barefoot up the road, my teacher skirt flipping in the wake of my dread, I reached the house. The woman was frantically opening up the backdoor of her car and pulling things out. She was wild with flustered immediacy. Erik stepped in to help and she grabbed my wrist, “You come. You help me. My huhband. Help.” I had no idea what I was stepping my bare feet into. We flew through the doors of the house in a surreal out-of-body experience and stopped as we entered the kitchen, heavy with earthy smells. I paused when I saw her husband lying on the floor. His body was sprawled, belly up, behind the pale blue kitchen table. With only a white cotton undershirt on, his lower half was exposed-- blue shorts tangled around his ankles. She quickly threw a dish rag onto his exposed genitals as she reached for me to come closer. Time froze. The sound of my breath echoing in my ear as I looked for his chest to rise in time. I automatically began to assess the situation, scanning the area for any piece of furniture or evidence that could whisper what had happened into my ear. My God, he was foaming at the mouth. His body, slightly shaking, had lost control and bodily fluids surrounded him as he gyrated uncontrollably. His shirt was soaked in urine, sweat and saliva. Feces trailed down his leg. I focused on the foam frothing in a yellow discharge from his mouth. It had air bubbles; he was breathing.

Erik came back into the room and just as time had stopped, it begun to speed up; everything moving like lightning flashes. I stood there clutching my phone as the wife huddled over the body. What was the number for 911 here? God damn it.
“You lift my huhband. Please.” She beseeched, her mind racing with fear.
“Okay, okay. We can lift.” I said as I approached the body of her husband. I came around the edge of the table to the crown of his head as Erik went to his midsection.
“Molly, get his head.”
“Alright, I got it.” I answered as Erik heaved the man’s fluid soaked body up and into his arms. My hands slipped on his slime covered forearms and I cradled his soggy head in my hands trying to stabilize his neck. The wife whimpered as she followed us out the house with the occasional “Okay, okay.” As she tried to gather herself.
“Step.” I instructed Erik as we came out of the house and into the car-park, the man’s head still in my hands with my arm bracing his shoulders. Erik breathed heavily as he carried the brunt of the limp body. We reached the backseat door of the car and in a split second decision I climb backward into the seat, his shoulders and head resting on my chest and upper arms. The leather gripped my moist skin and I tore across the seat, forcing my skin to move with me as I pulled his body in with mine. Erik pushed him up and into the car, placing him delicately across the seat. As I reached the other door, my sense of smell kicked in and the car became a pungent tomb. I popped open the other backseat just as the wife came with a pillow. I jumped out and she quickly substituted it under his head as I walked around to Erik.
“You, come with me. Please. You come.” She called hurrying into the house, her cell phone to her ear.
“She wants us to go with her.” I looked at Erik in awe and disbelief at what was happening. Should we?
“Go with her? To the hospital?” He asked as he tried to pull the man’s shorts up a little higher to save his dignity.
“I don’t know. I guess.” I climbed into the passenger seat to assist. The woman was still milling around her house in a panic looking for things and grabbing last minute needs. Like an unexpecting husband at the moment of labor, she rushed with lost cause.
“Here, just close the door.” Realizing that it wasn’t going to work I picked his legs up and held them into the car, “shut the door.”
“You got him?”
“Yeah, go.”
He shut the door and the wife came out. “Okay, okay. You come you come with me.” She said to us as she circled the car hemming and hawing, her hand to her forehead in despair.
“Umm. Okay.” I said as a million things raced through my mind, “Call ambulance?” I asked thinking that it would be better if she didn’t drive in this state of mind.
God, shouldn’t we call the ambulance? What the fuck’s the number? What the fuck’s the number. Oh, God, why don’t we have the number? Go with her? Is it safe? Should I go? Should I follow? No, someone should be with her. But what if she can’t drive right now? Wear my seatbelt. She needs someone. Should I go? Just go. I need to go with her.
“Do you want me to drive you to the hospital? I asked as she threw a pile of towels over her shoulder onto his exposed body.
“Nono. With me. I am a police woman in Pang nga. No problem. I am a police, please. You come wit me.” She floundered as she dug through her purse, “Where are my keys? Oy, my keys. Where are? Where are?” She yelped as she hustled back into the house to find her keys.
Erik pulled up on the motorbike, “Why don’t you call 9-1-1?” he asked.
“Because I don’t know the number!” I howled back at him.
“We’ll follow her?”
“Okayokayokayokay you comewithme.” She said as she pulled my arm with a nervous chuckle.
“No, she wants us to go with her.” I called to Erik in the road.
“With her?”
“With you? In the car?” I double checked.
“okayokayokayokay.mmmmm.” She answered.
Okay.” I said to her. “She wants me to go with her.”
As she locked the front door to her house I said, “I borrow your shoes.” And I slipped on a pair of red wedges.
Climbing into the car, unsure and scared but with Erik behind me, I was worried. God, was I worried.
“You come. Yeah. He okay?” She equally half asked to me and to herself.
I fastened my belt and turned to her husband. His belly rounded up to his chest and the foam at his mouth was gathering in a pool by his neck. His legs quivered and his right arm slightly shook. It was the first time I thought: seizure. My God, he’s having a seizure. I took one of the thrown rags and began to wipe his mouth so that the foam wouldn’t block his breathing. This was probably the last place I wanted to be, but she needed someone.
“He okay? He okay?” she cried, fumbling at the gear shifts.
“He’s okay. He’s okay. Breathing. Good.” I soothed as I watched his quaking body and gently wiped the spittle that oozed from his white crusted lips.
“I am police woman in Pang nga. I gone for one week. He, oh. Don’t know, don’t know. He okay?” “He’s okay.” I repeated as I watched his convulsions. Please, stay with me buddy, I pleaded to myself as I glanced out the rearview window at Erik pacing behind us. She turned down winding roads, passing cars as I attended to her husband wedged between the two front seats and rotated behind.
“Your husband okay behind?” She asked of Erik.
“Yes, he’s there. Don’t worry. It’s okay.”
Traffic jammed up at intersections as it was a busy time of day. Cars in Thailand usually find themselves bumper to bumper while motorbikes weave between the lanes. Erik scooted ahead yelling, “Hospital!” as we tried to maneuver through oncoming traffic.
He miraculously stopped all cars at some points and we cut through, only to find another clogged up motorway. My attention focused on the husband. He began to choke and chortle and without thinking, I unbuckled my belt and whipped around to adjust his head. I turned it to the side, draining out the pooled up saliva and lifting his head back on the pillow, but I quickly removed it as his tongue slipped back. Re-clearing his airway I propped his head with chin up and removed all the built up guck. Oh, god. Stay with us. You’re okay. You’re okay. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. I coached as we wheeled through intersections. Trapped at a light, I could see the sweat roll down the wife as she began to get panicked and restless hitting the steering wheel with the heel of her hand.
“He’s okay. Okay.” I told her as my face screamed otherwise out the window to Erik. I stared at him, tears coming to my eyes. The husband was slipping, he began to quake more violently, and I didn’t know how much longer he would make it. Please get us there. Get us there. Be there. Be there. Erik whizzed ahead and got the attention of a traffic patrolman and the officer stopped traffic to let us through. We were close. If he could just hold on a little bit longer…
We were within spitting distance of Wichira Hospital when traffic became impassable. Erik tried to clear the way, but traffic had no idea of the severity of the situation. The wife panicked and took a turn.
“Wichira Hospital?! Right there!” I demanded.
“No, Mission, better. Thai Hopital.” She cried the sweat beading on her neck. I put my hand on her shoulder as I leaned over to the back seat, my other hand holding her husband’s mouth open and the tongue down. God, don’t be far, I begged.
We finally made it to the hospital after watching the red traffic light count down until it turned green, every second an eternity. When we reached the front door of the hospital, the EMTs came out and put him on a stretcher and whisked him inside. “You stay wit me?” She whined.
“Yes. Of course. We stay.” I told her, “no problem.”
“Thank you, thank you.” She called as she stumbled into the hospital to find her husband. “You stay.”
Erik met me inside in the waiting room. Sullen faces looked at the two farang that had entered with the hysterical Thai woman, both smelling like feces. Erik went to the washroom to clean his shorts while I sat in a blue, plastic, bowl chair watching the wife’s purse as she talked with doctors.
“My huhband. He go to Wichira Hopital. Seri-os conditon. I am police woman in Pang nga. Not home for one week. My huhband, oh.” She got up to check again.
She called her family from her cell phone and told us that they were going to meet her at the next hospital. The doctors and nurses got ready to transport the husband and I watched as they placed him onto the stretcher. All three of us walked to the ambulance and she stood confused and not knowing what to do.
“You go. I’ll drive your car to Wichira Hospital.” I told her. Hesitant at first, she gratefully went with her husband, “oh, thank you thank you.”
I pass Erik climbing on his bike as I stride to the car. It smells incredible and I try to put the windows down but only the back two obey. As I climb in I have to push the seat back to adjust to my legs and grip the shifter in my left hand- left hand- no problem. I pop the car into 1st as the ambulance whizzes past me and follow it into the street. Trying to find the blinkers, the windshield wipers swish on as I switch to the left lane. Erik whizzes past me and yells to turn on the blinkers. I would if I could find them. I quickly glance around and finally push on the hazards and turn off the wipers following the ambulance and honking my horn. Realizing that I don’t have to rush, I slow down and go carefully. Entering Wichira, Erik calls to me to park in a spot he had just seen someone pull out of. I reverse into it in one fluid motion. We enter the hospital and find ourselves surrounded by signage that is all in Thai with no idea where they could have gone.
We ask the front desk,” Do you know where the people on stretcher,” they stare blankly at us, “ambulance from Mission Hospital, just came in…” they continue to stare. “Uh, woman, man sick. Hospital came in here.” We mimic to them and they have no idea. “Okay, thank you. We tell them as we decide to venture on our own. We end up passing by a door just as the wife turns down the hall and she waves to us. Giving her back her keys, we ask about his condition.
“Can you stay wit huhband? I have to…uh, um…” she gestures signing and we tell her yes of course. A little while later he is wheeled out of Tomography and brought down to Emergency. We follow the four, white uniformed staff and stretcher and meet her on the way. She clutches my hand, “Now, you good friend. Good friend. Thank you.”
“No, problem, ka.” I tell her quietly, “You okay?” I ask
“Ka. Okay.” She answers while squeezing my fingers as we walk behind her husband’s stretcher. He is wheeled into a private room in the Emergency area and she tells me to sit. I do, as does Erik, and we wait. Her husband is on oxygen which a nurse is hand pumping into him as another holds an I.V. high into the air. We sit as she talks to the doctors and two people walk in and greet her. It is her brother and sister in law whom she called earlier. They have come to meet her. We introduce ourselves and they thank us. Now that they are there she is okay and we are thanked and told we can go. We leave with warm wishes, “Now, you good friend. I come to your house to visit you. I will come and tell you.” She tells us as she walks us to the doorway of the hospital.
“No problem. We hope he is okay. Good bye, ka.” We wai as we make our way to the motorbike. Climbing aboard, I look toward where we had departed. They wave as they turn to walk inside and we breathe a surprised sigh of relief with a tinge of worry as we wheel back toward home.