4. Dumbstruck

“Madame? Madame… “We rushed to the fence. I could not see people’s faces; they were standing away from the light. There were about four of them speaking in broken English:

“He is not here. He is in l'hôpital Saint Roch. Do you know where it is? Do you have car?” I shook my head no to both questions.

“What’s wrong with him? Is he ok?” I asked. 

“We don’t know. We don’t know anything. Only that he is in l'hôpital. Sorry. Good luck.” As if electricuted, we almost ran to find a taxi. I almost spaced it out that first, I needed to take the kids to the apartment.  Oh, no! Nadia’s sobbing. How I wanted to cry too, but I tried to convince her (and myself)that Daddy is probably just dehydrated and they are putting IV’s in him. It is a common thing among the endurance athletes. By now, he must be sitting in the hospital, waiting for us to pick him up. Don’t cry, my sweetheart. After a few silent steps I hear her calm and confident voice:

“He is ok. If not, the doctors will help him and he will be fine. I just said a prayer and got an answer that he’ll be ok. I know it.” I clanged to her words, they gave me such hope. And not once later will I remember this surety in my child's voice. I believed her.

We walked home fast. It must have been after midnight when we approached the building. My Mom was on the balcony waiting for us: “Where is Scott?”

“In the hospital.” My small voice carries the sad news through the dark empty streets.

My Mom was in shock from our story. After the kids were in bed, I started searching for Saint Roch Hospital phone number in the yellow pages. Got it! I dial, I wait, while worrisome music is playing in my ear. Then, a doctor picks up the phone and starts speaking to me in an agitated and urgent sort of way while my world begins to crumble like it never did before.

“Yes, Scott Thompson is not ok. We are working on him right now. His temperature is 41 degrees and he is in coma. His kidneys are bad, he is very critical.”

I asked him if I could come now.

“Yes, you... you must come now!”

Critical? Must come now? Is there a risk of him dying tonight? I hang up and started searching for taxi phone numbers. The first few numbers I called, they spoke exclusively French to me. English was not even an option. I could not understand why they were so angry with me:  that I was speaking English, or that it was 1am, or both? I finally got lucky getting hold of an English speaking girl, who sounded very sleepy. She was kind enough to agree to give me a ride BUT it had to be no earlier than 8 in the morning.  Ok. I am so tired and wrecked emotionally to plead with her. I walk the hall back and forth covering my ears with hands, trying to supress the doctor’s concerned voice echoing in my head, making me tremble inside and out. I go to my Mom’s, fall next to her on the bed and cry my fears to her. My poor Mom, like she had not had enough to deal with in her own life.

I follow her advice and try to fall asleep, but can’t. This is what a nightmare is. You are so tired and exhausted you can’t function, yet so tense that there is no way you can relax and get that knot in your chest to melt away and let you fall asleep. It was the most horrible night I have ever lived through. I was crying, praying, and then for a moment drifting off to sleep, when another wave of a new reality would flood me with despair and again I was in tears. My brain, trying to overcome my fears, would keep on sorting out all possible outcomes and options for dealing with them, which only sent me back to my fears. What to do, how to live, unfamiliar town and country, how long are we staying here, what about the kids? What about Scott? What if he dies?!  

The next morning I don’t even look in the mirror, I know make up would not help me, and who cares anyway? I leave my Mom and the kids in the apartment and go down to meet my taxi ride. She is here right on time. She is Mira from England; she runs her own taxi service called “A Friend in France.” As she listens to my story, she changes in her face and I can tell she feels bad for not coming last night. But she insists to not only drop me off by the hospital but take me inside and translate for me. Mira’s become my first friend in France.

After some waiting they let me in. Scott is in the Intensive Care Unit of Saint Roch Hospital. I see him lifeless, in coma, no reaction to my voice or touch. Even no reaction to many bags of ice covering his body. I grab his cold hand and tears burn my eyes.  Flashbacks of Scott’s Dad dying in the ICU 6 years ago are drilling through my head. “This is different,” I keep telling myself, ”he’ll wake up.” But how could this happen to my strong healthy husband? And what exactly happened to him?! Somebody, tell me! The nurse could not give me any update. The doctors were about to do their morning rounds, after which I could come back and discuss Scott’s condition. “Until then you must leave, s'il vous plait.” I wandered around in stupor trying to remember my way back to the hospital which is in the middle of Nice. It’s an old building, looking somewhat rundown. Mira said it’s because French people have a 100% medical coverage guaranteed by the government. They don’t pay anything when it comes to health care, so hospitals don't have extra money to look nice. “But the care is really good here,” she says, and adds “even better than in Britain." I sure hope so.

When I come back in an hour and a half, like they told me, I wait impatiently by the ICU door. The doctor greets me in good English. It is the same doctor I heard on the phone the night before. He is young and very serious. He leads me to the room, designated for talking to relatives. It is so depressingly yellow and cold there. So, please, tell me good news, doctor.

“The situation is very, very serious,” he starts. “What we think happened is when Scott was running a marathon, he collapsed from a severe heat stroke. When we picked him up he was comatose and had a very high fever. His kidneys are not working well. Because he was not able to breath on his own for some time, we are really concerned about his brain. The scan showed that he's got a brain swelling. All of these things are life-threatening.”

I summoned some courage and breathed out: “Do you mean people die from it?”

“Yes, depending on a person, 40% die from a heat stroke of that kind. He is young and healthy, so we have hope. He is stable right now, but in a very critical state.”

How do you live with that? I was closing my eyes slowly trying to fight back tears. The nurse came out and handed me the plastic bag with Scott's clothes, shoes and a tracking band. I left. I needed to find Scott's bike. I don't know how, but I found a booth, one of the few still standing, with Scott's bike in it. I exchanged it for the tracking band. People were asking me about how Scott was feeling, but I was numb with horror. There were also bags with his wetsuit, bike shoes, helmet, energy bars and … water! He didn’t eat or drink during the stupid race!!!

After the sleepless night and in the heat of the day all the stuff I carried seemed so heavy. I finally made it home where I shared with my family what I learned and what I saw. Everyone became quiet. We kneeled and prayed. Then we read from the Ensign. Eyes were searching for some prophetic promise of a happy end but tears were choking that hope with fear. “It is true” – we read, “We live to die and we die to live again. From an eternal perspective, the only death that is truly premature is the death of one who is not prepared to meet God.” That was not comforting. All I cared about was Scott’s recovery. Tell me, God, that he will live. Tell me that everything will be all right. And soon! Because I am not prepared to handle life on my own. I need my husband!!              

I really had no clue what to do but wait. And oh! what a torture it is to wait for the unknown in the unknown place for an unknown period of time. It’s not at all like “waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.” It was waiting pierced with pain, paralyzed with fear, enveloped in a cloud of uncertainty. I was dumbstruck; I could not think straight or act normal. I could not eat or sleep. I was holding on to the walls to keep me from falling as I tried to help my Mom to take care of kids. I felt like screaming and crying and was only saving that for later when kids are in bed and don’t have to witness my breakdown. I really thought that we were at ground zero, and things would start looking up from then on. I was so sure that if we kept exercising our faith, saying our prayers and keeping the commandments, God would fix everything and we'll get better news tomorrow. 

Only it is not exactly how God works.