CHAPTER EIGHT
Swaddled
“So I was hibernating?” Dan asked as he scraped the last bit of egg onto a piece of toast with his fork. “Like a bear?”
Clara nodded. “I know it sounds unbelievable, honey, and, trust me, I didn’t want to accept it, either. But there was simply no other explanation.”
“Whoa!” Dan said, looking to his mother with wide-eyed marvel. “So what happened next?”
He might well have been asking Clara for a recap of the latest blockbuster movie rather than nine months in his own life. “I mean, how did I get from a hospital in Indianapolis in June to my bedroom by the following March? Seems like I’m still missing quite a bit of information here, Mom.”
Clara poured another serving of orange juice into Dan’s empty glass.
“You’re right, Dan. There’s more,” she said. She sighed and then launched into the rest of the story.
Two more weeks had passed, and Dan’s condition had not changed one whit, but Dr. Parks had still been reluctant to intervene. He believed as long as Dan was stable, they should continue to give his body the chance to heal itself. Clara and David pushed hard, though, and eventually sought a second opinion. When the second doctor was more aggressive in his treatment ideas, Dr. Parks consented to try some sort of hormonal therapy if the Hodges would call off their hired gun. David trusted Parks and wanted him to care for Dan, so the Hodges agreed, but with the understanding that they wanted to take any and every action necessary to bring their son back to consciousness.
After several weeks of hormonal therapy, augmented by periodic adrenaline shots and other revival attempts, Dan was still unresponsive. While these measures did boost his heart and breathing rate temporarily, they never brought him close to consciousness, according to EEG readings, and he soon slid back to his slow baseline pulse and breathing rates. It appeared no matter what doctors tried, Dan wanted to remain asleep.
These results bolstered Parks’ resolve to let Dan work through his condition naturally, and he resisted further suggestions from the Hodges that they try new techniques. The second-opinion doctor agreed nothing seemed to be helping and so he flopped his recommendation to match Parks’. When a third and fourth, this latter brought in from Chicago, also concurred further treatment may do more harm than good, Clara and David finally had relented and accepted the fact Dan would not be forced into consciousness. They eventually settled into a routine of visiting their son as much as possible, with Clara spending most days at the hospitals and David coming on weekends and most nights.
By late summer, Dan had turned 19, and the insurance company at HBM began to make noises about discontinuing coverage for the boy’s care. Their argument was that he was out of high school, well past legal age, and should therefore be responsible for his own care, while David and Clara contended Dan was a dependent child who should continue to be covered under David’s policy. As cool fall breezes blew across the brilliant Indiana landscape in October, the issue reached a tipping point, and the Hodges were forced to hire a lawyer in order to stay their coverage while the legal wrangling played out.
Two weeks before Christmas, the two sets of legal counsel worked out an agreement, though David and Clara had little input into the decision. Under the new arrangement, the insurance company would cover expenses for Dan to receive three in-home visits per week from a nursing center, and he would be covered for any medical emergencies which arose. No longer would he be able to stay in the hospital, though, with constant monitoring. The agreement was to take effect on January 1, 1974, but Clara decided she would have her son home for the holidays.
So, on Christmas Eve, Clara and David drove to Methodist together, checked their son out of the hospital, and brought him back to Pickens County for Christmas.
The rest of the winter had passed just like the previous six months, with no discernible change in Dan’s condition. In addition to the three weekly nurse visits, Dr. Parks made regular stops at the Hodges house to check on his patient and to run a few rudimentary tests. There had been no medical crises in the three months since Christmas, and blood tests showed the same markers of hibernation that had been in play since April. Parks had told the Hodges early on they would see a small uptick in Dan’s hormone levels not long before he woke up, but his numbers had not budged at all by the New Year.
His hair would start growing again, too, Parks told them. Clara had insisted on sprucing up Dan’s appearance during his first week in the hospital, which entailed giving him a close-crop haircut and a clean shave. Neither his hair nor his beard had grown at all from that day until they brought him home for the holidays.
In her heart, Clara never lost hope her son would someday wake up, but she was discouraged and felt like she might have lost him for good. She and David had settled into as normal a routine as they could and were at least somewhat resigned to the idea Dan might be with them, asleep, for the rest of their lives.
—
As his mother finished her story, tears building in her eyes, Dan was stunned but sympathetic to his mother’s plight. He wasn’t surprised she felt guilty about his accident and hibernation, but he wanted to relieve her angst as much as he could.
“It’s OK, Mom,” Dan assured Clara. “Look” — he graced her with his cheesiest smile — “I’m fine. See? You did everything you could to bring me back, and, well, here I am! Besides, you should have known I’d wake up soon. The baseball season starts next week, and I always come alive on Opening Day.”
“Thank you, Dan, for trying to make me feel better,” Clara said, “but it’s so hard for a mother to stand by helplessly while her child struggles.”
“I know, Mom.”
She walked behind his chair, slipping an arm around his chest while he continued to eat.
“Oh, Dan, I can’t tell you how happy and relieved I am to have you back,” she said and “It feels almost like the day you were born!”
She kissed the top of his head, and he reached an arm back to pat her shoulder.
“But, honey,” Clara continued. “We don’t really know what this means yet, so I want you to take things slow and easy, OK?”
“OK, Mom,” he agreed.
“And we’re going to have to go see Dr. Parks just as soon as we can. This afternoon if he’s available,” she said.
“OK, Mom, that’s fine,” Dan said.
She held him tight for a few seconds more, stalling, just enjoying the quiet moments they had together. Finally, she said, “And Dan?”
“Yeah, Mom, what is it?” he could sense there was something she wanted to say.
“I have something else to tell you, son,” Clara said.
Dan’s heart picked up and, for the first time, he realized David wasn’t there. He stood and whirled toward his mother, grabbing both her arms in his hands. “Is it Dad?” Dan asked, panicked. “Did something happen to Dad?”
Clara was startled by Dan’s sudden movement, and she shook her head to clear her thoughts. “What? Oh … no! No, your father is fine, Dan,” she told him. “He’s just at work. I called and left a message with the receptionist, but I don’t know when she’ll deliver it to your dad.”
Dan’s body relaxed and he let out a huge sigh. “Oh, thank goodness,” he said. “But what was it you wanted to tell me, Mom?”
Clara was about to respond when a car door clanged shut in front of the house.
“Who’s that?” Dan asked, but he didn’t wait for the answer, hurrying to the front door.
On the street in front of the Hodges house stood a dingy green Oldsmobile sedan, with four doors and plenty of rust around the wheel welds.
“Who is that?” Dan repeated as Clara joined him in the entry way.
At that moment, the driver’s side front door swung open, and a brown penny loafer clomped on the pavement, attached to a dainty ankle. As the driver exited the car, Dan followed the leg up a curvy young body and nearly exploded out the door when his gaze landed on a plump but beautiful face.
<
br /> “Gabbie!” he called, but then realized she couldn’t hear him through the door. He opened the latch and ran out into the yard, with Clara following close behind.
“Hold on, son,” Clara called to him, but he didn’t hesitate. “Dan, STOP!”
Dan was just a few feet from Gabbie, who was fussing with something in the passenger’s seat and had not yet seen him. He spun to face his mother with his arms outstretched and said in an exasperated voice, “What, Mother?”
“Dan,” she started again, “I know you’re anxious to see Gabbie, but you need to look at me and listen to what I’m saying … right now.”
He raised his eyebrows to indicate he was listening and wanted his mother to hurry up, but then someone gasped behind him.
“Dan, I didn’t realize you were already out here!” It was Gabbie’s voice.
Dan spun around to face his girl, and Clara reached for his shoulder to stop his turn. She was too late.
Dan’s jaw dropped open and his vision went white at the edges when he saw Gabbie standing there, just a foot way from him in front of the old jalopy … holding a baby.