Loss - by Summer Lee

Darkness. Absolute darkness. Not a sound except the humming of the engine filled her ears. In the forty years of Evelyn Smith’s life, she had never driven on such a tortuous, deserted road nor known the feeling of such fear. 

Zoom. Another sound cut through the humming. Evelyn’s fear now bloomed into sheer terror. Out of the corner of her eye, a flicker of light rushed toward her. A shiver of panic ran down her spine as she tried to react, but it was too late. Screech! Within a millisecond, a driver high on meth rammed into her. Everything spun around and blurred before going pitch black. 

Beep, tick, tick. Evelyn slowly aroused to the faint sound of machinery. Brightness. Absolute brightness. She struggled to open her eyes as the light forced her eyelids back down. The stench of cleaning products saturated the air. 

“Where am I?” she asked herself.

She nudged her eyes open and glanced around to find a man in a white coat scribbling on a clipboard. The man looked up from his papers and locked eyes with her for a moment. She no longer felt fear, but those fatigued eyes did not fill her with comfort.

“Ah, good to see that you’re finally awake. My name is Dr. Wiley.” 

“What’s happening? The last thing I remember was driving and hearing a loud sound,” she interrupted.

The doctor looked over at his notes before replying, “Yes, you were in a bad car accident. When you arrived here, your right leg was severely injured.” 

Just as he said that Evelyn felt something strange about her right leg. She tore away her sheets to find that her right foot and most of her lower leg were missing; the remaining part of her right leg was sealed with staples. As her eyes turned to the doctor, a sense of horror overtook her. Noticing this, the physician quickly started to discuss her current condition. 

“The injury caused severe loss of blood flow to your leg. We tried very hard but couldn’t save it. If we hadn’t amputated it, you would have died,” explained the doctor while struggling with his discomfort. 

Babble, babble. She watched his mouth move, but the words no longer made sense. Her mind went numb. Evelyn felt her stomach do cartwheels as she stared at her leg in dismay. Her heart began to race while her body bathed in sweat. Her mind languished in a state between disbelief and despair. Hyperventilating, Evelyn franticly asked the doctor, “What’s going to happen to me?”

The doctor paused, put aside his clipboard and his discomfort. Gently, he sat beside her, and locked eyes with her once again.

“You’re going to be ok,” he consoled. His words started to make sense again. “This kind of injury takes time to recover. While you’re in the hospital, we’ll help with healing your wound and treating any pain. Then, you’ll be transferred to a rehabilitation hospital where the therapists will teach you how to become independent by taking care of yourself and ambulating. We have better technologies now to help achieve this. Ultimately, we will get you a prosthetic limb.” 

At the utterance of these words, Evelyn’s ears perked up with a faint sliver of hope.

“Prosthetic? So, that means I could walk on my own again and go back to my old life?” 

“Yes,” the doctor replied. “It might take some time and adjustment, but that is possible.”

She gained her courage, took a deep breath, and proclaimed, “I plan to work very hard to recover and get my life back."

“I know you will,” smiled Dr. Wiley. 

After about a few days at the hospital, Evelyn was transferred to a rehabilitation hospital. Her favorite place by far was the rooftop, where she would watch the birds fly around whenever she felt homesick. Her townhome was small, but comfortable given her modest salary as a lab technician. In her back patio resided a bird feeder frequently visited by a family of cardinals. Every morning, her avian friends with their royal rouge coats would greet her with a fanfare of whistles. During these times, her mind would fall into a spiral of sadness while remembering her life before the injury. 

“If only I could go back in time,” she thought to herself. Most agonizing of her sorrows was her longing for her right leg. Taking a simple stroll around the park, going to the bathroom without assistance, or even shaving her right leg, were all distant memories that she yearned to get back. She eventually brought back her courage. “Just hold on,” she said to herself, “Once I get better, all will be ok.”

She eagerly attended her therapy sessions putting in full effort. Finally, her hard work was starting to pay off. Within a month she was able to hop around with a walker for balance. Shortly after, she was ambulating with crutches. Evelyn believed that she would soon qualify for a prosthetic leg.

“Great job Evelyn! You’ve made a lot of improvement and progress!”, the physical therapist beamed.

“Thank you! Do you know how much longer until I get my prosthetic leg?” Evelyn inquired.

“I believe you are ready for one now, but your insurance is causing a delay.” Not fully registering what the therapist just said, Evelyn stared at her blankly.

“What do you mean?” Evelyn asked. 

“Well, your insurance company has been giving us a hard time on approving the prosthetic, but don’t worry we’ll be on their backs until they approve it.”

Evelyn forced a smile, but feelings of surprise and fury swirled inside her.

“All these years I’ve been paying health insurance premiums that I never really used,” she thought to herself. “Now the one time I actually need help, they’re giving me a hassle instead of paying their part.”

The next day, while blissfully watching some birds glide around, Evelyn’s therapist rushed over to her.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Evelyn asked.

“Hi, something urgent regarding your situation has come up. Could you come with me to discuss it?”

“Um, sure,” Evelyn replied, concerned. 

As they walked down to the meeting room, an unsettling aura of tension surrounded Evelyn. The therapist then turned to her and spoke.

“Evelyn, as you know, you have been making excellent progress. Unfortunately, your insurance company feels that you no longer qualify to stay at our rehab facility. As a result, we will be forced to discharge you to your house in a few days.”

Crack. Just like that, Evelyn’s entire recovery plan shattered before her. All the worries that she had buried underneath her thoughts once again rose to the surface. Her breath became heavy as she tried to process what she was just told. After some time, Evelyn finally found her voice.

“What’s going to happen next? What about my prosthetic leg?”

Understanding Evelyn’s distress, the therapist explained, “We’ll be taking you with us for a visit to your house tomorrow. Once there, we’ll evaluate to make sure you have everything you need to manage at home, especially since you live by yourself. Your prosthetic leg, unfortunately, will not arrive until later. I know this is not ideal, but we can still make it work by having you continue with therapy as an outpatient. We can have you fitted and trained on the prosthetic leg once it arrives. Your insurance will cover all this.”

“Wait a minute,” Evelyn interjected, “how will I get there? I don’t have anyone to drive me.”

“We do have services that can drive you to your appointments and therapies, but you will have to pay for those out of pocket since insurance does not cover them.”

“I’m not sure if I have enough money to afford that. Are there any free options?”

After thinking for a minute, the therapist replied, “Not to my knowledge.”

Since she was so focused on her recovery, Evelyn completely forgot that she should have been receiving disability pay from her company. Although she felt relief at this thought, she also felt sadness for others that were not as fortunate as her and didn’t have the money to continue with their recovery. 

“Actually, now that I think about it, I should be able to handle that until I can get my prosthetic leg and get back to work.” 

Her therapist smiled. “Glad to hear that.”

That night, as Evelyn stared at the ceiling, she decided that maybe returning home wouldn’t be so terrible. After all, she could manage to move around on her crutches, and she truly did miss the comfort of her home. A lullaby of sounds from the birds in her yard played in her mind as she drifted off to sleep. 

The day of Evelyn’s discharge finally arrived. A blend of apprehension and excitement weaved inside her. She thanked her therapists that were part of her care. 

Once she reached home, she was greeted by the familiar face of her blue townhouse. Beyond its brown fence, her small yard was slightly overgrown with weeds popping out in some spots. Her bird feeder was completely bare, and the flowers on her front deck looked a bit parched. The house itself was small. Evelyn had lived here since she got out of college, so the blue paint now had some splotches of brown, and her rusty gutters had bits of leaves and branches resting in them. One may say that it’s far from perfect and appears unruly from the lack of constant care. Nevertheless, the sight of her home, no matter how raggedy, melted Evelyn’s worries away. 

Cheep, chirp. When Evelyn opened the door, the serenade of the cardinals outside and the aroma of a faint vanilla candle that would constantly burn in her house greeted her. She noticed all her equipment such as the walker, wheelchair, and shower safety gear were already set up as promised during her home visit with the therapists. As she hobbled over to the bathroom, she realized how lucky she was to have a full bathroom downstairs. In fact, she recalled her therapist saying how some patients were forced to move out of their homes if they couldn’t access their bathrooms on the second floor. Even though she could use her downstairs bathroom, all of her bedrooms were located on the second floor. During the home visit, her therapist concluded that the first floor had enough room to add a hospital bed until she could use the stairs.

On her kitchen table laid a mountain of mail that accumulated during Evelyn’s absence. Sighing, she slowly started sorting through the pile.

“Junk mail, bill, junk mail, bill, bill, bill.”

Evelyn was taken aback by the amount of bills she received from the hospitals, doctors, and others involved in her care. Although her insurance did cover a portion, she still owed quite a bit. On top of that, she still needed enough money to pay for her transport for appointments and therapy sessions. Not to mention, the payments necessary for food and food delivery. Originally, she was supposed to get her food through a community service called Meal-on-Wheels. However, due to understaffing and underfunding issues, she was placed on a waiting list. 

“Great! Now I get to be on a hunger waiting list.” Evelyn sarcastically remarked to herself. “How does that even make any sense?”

With all these aspects combined, the amount of money she owed fell far out of her measly budget. Evelyn propped open her laptop to check her bank statements. As she stared at the screen, she deeply sighed. Even in conjunction with the money she got from her company’s disability program, the bills and expenditures would send her straight into debt. 

“Oh my God!”, she blurted, “Am I going to have to sell my house?”

A thought that would have never crossed her mind, but now may become her unavoidable reality. She started to breathe heavily as she stared at her amputated leg. A pit of sorrow engulfed her while nausea emerged from her stomach. Her mind began to wonder.

“What might have happened if my insurance let me stay at the hospital longer? Would I have been able to get my prosthetic and not be in this predicament? What if there were more groups like Meals-on-Wheels, but focused mainly on food for the disabled? What if there were agencies that could provide caregiving at home for the disabled at no cost?”

Evelyn’s head pounded with these questions. Thoughts of her home being forcefully stripped away caused a wave of doom to crash upon her. For the first time since the accident, the reality of losing her leg punched her. Even the melody of her feathery friends could not ease her pain this time. Suddenly, an avalanche of tears gushed forth. She had no one to turn to. No one to understand what she was going through. That light of optimism that once kept her going against all odds had now finally extinguished. All that remained inside was darkness. Absolute darkness.