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THE MORPHINE BUTTON

 Grace who’d lost her thick white hair to chemo, lays bald in the stark-white hospital bed wincing with pain which feels like someone was pushing a knife into her spine. The TV drones from the other side of the curtain; an IV pole is pushed next to her bed. A thin wire leads to the morphine button in her right hand. The hospital intercom calls respiratory therapy; a cart clangs in the hall beyond her view. She holds the call button for the nurse in her left hand. She tries to move her leg and feels like a red-hot poker is jammed into her hip—she wants to scream out but she pushes the morphine button instead.

She closes her eyes and imagines herself back thirty years ago when she swam in a tree-lined lake with her husband. She tries to avoid images of his funeral. She switches to playing “Candy Land” with her granddaughter and tries to remember how she would squeal when she won.  She pushes her memory back further, to when she was first married and how she and her husband decided to try every position in “A Joy of Sex.” She smiles, moves her arm slightly and winces. She’s afraid of the stabbing pain so takes only shallow breaths—the morphine isn’t doing enough.

The night nurse, a short, plump woman in blue polyester, her name tag askew, comes in all smiley and cheery, asking, “How are we this evening?” and then not waiting for an answer, proceeds to check the water bottle and seeing it full admonishes, “Dear, you’ll have to drink if you want to get better. You know hydration if very important.”

Grace sputters sarcastically, “We, are in terrible pain. I can’t move. How the hell do you think I can get to the water?” And not waiting for an answer, tells her again that she is in agony and needs to increase the morphine drip.

“But dear,” she says cheerfully, “if we give you too much it could make you go into respiratory distress and that would be dangerous and we wouldn’t want that now would we?”

“Who cares,” Grace snaps, “I’m dying anyway and if the morphine kills me, so what? All I want,” she groans, “is to take the edge off the pain.”

“Well, dear,” the nurse is now more serious, “I’ll have to ask the doctor.”

Grace pleads, “Yes, call him, please call him; I’m in agony; I’ll sign what ever he needs.” She calls out, “I just,” she tries to hold back her sobs, “I just, want to,” her voice breaks and tears fill her eyes, “take the edge off the pain!”

They increase the dose and the next morning Grace opens her eyes, winces at the pain, smiles and laughs, “At least the pain tells me I’m still alive.” She reaches for the morphine button.