Sunday, April 20, 2014

Chapter 18

After dropping everyone off at school, Richie returned back to his hopefully pregnant wife. He had made a quick stop to pick up some donuts for a morning snack and had driven home straight away.

Now that Daniel was out of the hospital, his mother had gone home to her house. Construction had finished and she had been very excited to go home. They would go visit her very soon.

When he walked back into the house, putting away his car keys and shoes, he noticed how quiet it was. Perhaps Sarah had taken Daniel upstairs after he had left.

He walked into the kitchen to get a drink to go with the donuts when he heard sounds coming from the living room.

Closing the fridge again, he turned around and went to check out the sound.

Unlike he had expected, Daniel was sitting in his playpen building a house out of his soft blocks.

He also noticed Sarah laying on her belly on the couch, a pillow over her head.

"Sarah?" He asked confused. "What's wrong?"
"Shhhh." She urged him to be quiet.

Trying to be as quiet as possible, he walked over to her and sqautted down next to the couch. Gently, he laid his hand on her back and started stroking.

"What's wrong?" He repeated.
"My head's killing me."
"Headache?"
"Everything hurts, every sound, all the lights. It hurts." She complained.
"I'll get you something."

On his way back to the kitchen, he quickly checked on Daniel but he seemed perfectly fine with the house he had built.

Once in the kitchen, he found different kinds of painkillers. Knowing Sarah couldn't take them while pregnant, he quickly started reading the instructions to them. Which weren't helpful at all because they all suggested a doctor's opinion. He wanted his wife to feel better now, not in an hour after he got off the phone. Besides, they didn't know if Sarah really was pregnant.

Picking up the instructions, he looked for one that was specifically for head aches and migraines.

Finally he found an appropriate painkiller to help his wife. He already felt bad it had taken him so long to find them.

He took a small bottle of water from the fridge, a cold pack and the donuts too and brought it all back to the living room.

"Can you sit for a second?" He whispered.

A few seconds later, Sarah managed to sit up and take the pill that was handed to her. She drank most of the water and wanted to lay down again but she was grateful for Richie closing the curtains as she drank.

He returned a second later and sat down where Sarah had been laying her head under the pillow.

"I was laying there." She said, not appreciating he had taken her spot.

Richie placed the pillow in his lap and patted it.

"Lay down," He said, reaching for the coffee table, "eat something first."
"I can't eat, it hurts to just sit up. I just want to lay down again."

Putting down the donut, he picked up the cold pack.

"Lay down." He instructed again as he patted the pillow.

This time Sarah listened and moved to lay down with her head on his lap.

Once Sarah was settled, she weakly smiled up at him before closing her eyes.

Her eyes opened in surprise when she felt the cold on her forehead but closed them again as it felt good.

"Since when do you get migraine attacks?" Richie asked, still whispering.
"I don't know. Hormones?"
"Maybe." He agreed.

A few minutes later he felt somewhat relieved to notice Sarah had fallen asleep.

He felt bad for her and hoped a nap would help her to feel better. He never liked seeing his wife in pain, especially this badly. Profusely he hoped that this wasn't going hand in hand with pregnancy. Nine months of pain like that would be too much to bear, he knew that without having felt it.

If it wasn't a sign of hormones and pregnancy, there were a number of causes. His mind immediately thought of the worst cases.

Those simply couldn't be true, Sarah was healthy, there was no reason to think that one migraine could have such drastic causes. It was a one time thing.

Trying to forget that train of thought, he looked at Daniel in his playpen who was rebuilding his block house. Seeing Daniel sit there as he laid the black perfectly on top of each other, made him feel very proud.

A week out of the hospital and he had made such progress. What did doctors know anyway?

1 comment:

  1. migraines are a terrible thing to have - specially when you have little ones to deal with. i never had a man that was that understanding or compassionate. great chapter.

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