Another Shot
6:30
AM
And here we are
again. State of the Union number four is
tonight. A big part of me can't help but
wonder if this is it, the last one. As I
contemplate the reality of the situation I hear Jed turn off the shower and get
out of the tub.
I should get up and at
least have breakfast with him before he heads over to the West Wing. But I am way too comfortable here in
bed. I got a good night's sleep for the
first time in a while. This cast has
really got to go. It is getting more annoying
by the day. I tried to convince the
doctor to cut me loose but he held up my latest x-ray and vetoed that idea
quickly. Unfortunately, I had to agree
with him as I took a look at the picture of my yet unhealed ankle.
Jed wanders out in his
bathrobe and walks to the little fridge in the corner to grab an ice pack. He sits on the couch and turns on CNN while
he holds the ice against his right thigh.
A bottle of Betaseron sits on the table warming up. For a change he remembered to take it out of
the fridge before getting in the shower.
"You take some
Advil?" I call from the nice warm bed.
"Jeez Abbey, I
didn't even know you were awake." he calls, sounding quite startled.
"Did you?"
"What? Yeah, I took Advil."
He turns his attention
back to the TV for another minute or so.
He's ignoring me at the moment but I'm used to it.
For the past 8 months
I've made him give himself the majority of the Betaseron injections. He rotates the sites so the only ones I give
him are the ones in the butt. At which
point he likes to make some joke about me being a pain in the ass.
He was less than
enthusiastic about learning to do them himself.
When he was first started on Betaseron he tried to do it himself but he
was just too squeamish. After a couple
days of watching him nearly hyperventilate I just started to do them
myself.
So back in May, after his
MS was made public I put my foot down. I
can remember that conversation as if it were yesterday.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Oww" he yells
as he pulls his arm back and rubs the spot where I have just injected the
Betaseron. "Hope you're a little
more gentle with your paying patients." he mutters as he gets up.
I roll my eyes and shake
my head a little as I clean up. He goes
into the bathroom to look at the arm in the mirror.
"Oh, that's going to
bruise." he hisses.
It takes all my energy
not to go off on him yet again. It's
been 3 days since the Press Conference and let's say, I'm just getting
started. We've spent hours yelling and
going back and forth over the past 3 days.
Nothing is getting accomplished and we're just pissing each other off
even more.
Now that we are both
pretty worked up it's time to drop my little bomb.
"Jed, it's time you
did this yourself." I say as I lean against the doorway to the bathroom.
"Do what?" he
asks with a mouth full of Colgate.
"The
injections."
"No way
Abigail. I can't. I won't."
"Josiah, you can and
you will."
"But everyone
already knows you give me the shots, what's the big deal. The cat's out of the bag, the jig is
up."
I roll my eyes again and
cross my arms, letting him know I mean business.
"Yes, the secret is
out. I'm about to get crucified and
pardon me if I don't feel like continuing the very action that got me in this
mess in the first place."
"I can't do it. I tried, remember?"
I remember all too well
but I try to push the memory of my husband about to pass out from
hyperventilating from my mind.
"You're going to
have to learn." I shoot back in a tone that leaves little room for
argument. "So you have 48 hours to
learn how to do it."
"You'll help me
won't you?" he asks as he wipes his face and moves to sit on the counter.
The look on his face
tells me he honestly thinks I would just shove the vial and syringe at him and
leave him alone. Against my wishes I can
feel my heart breaking at the sight of him sitting there, terrified.
"Jed, of course I'll
help you."
And so 48 hours later we
are sitting on the edge of the tub. He's
managed to fill the syringe and wipe his thigh without passing out. So far, so good. His hands are relatively and surprisingly
calm at the moment. With a deep breath
he pinches up a little skin on the top of his leg with his left hand. He's concentrating so hard he's biting down
on his lower lip.
"Honey, you can do
it. Just take a deep breath." I say
as I try not to look him in the eye.
He takes another breath
and with a swift motion, inserts the needle, pushes down the plunger and pulls
it out. I let out the breath I didn't
realize I had been holding.
"I did it." he
says proudly holding up the empty syringe.
"Yes you did."
I take the syringe and
kiss his cheek.
"Abbey, I did
it." he repeats, sounding like a kid who just hit a homerun.
"Yes, Jed. But now you have more important things to do
like run the country." I remind him, trying to find that happy medium
between the pride I feel for him at this moment and the fact that I am still
pissed as hell at him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He tosses the ice pack on
the couch cushion and fills the syringe with practiced ease. He injects it without even a flinch.
After about 2 months of
giving himself the shots he was a pro at it.
It is second nature to him now.
Something he just does every other morning. It has gotten to the point where he doesn't
even care who is in the room at the time.
I think most of the Senior Staff has witnessed it at least once.
The only one it ever
bothered was Josh. But I was in the room at the time and grabbed the smelling salts
in a hurry. Jed already had an ice pack
out so I just tossed it to Donna who came over to walk Josh back to his
office. He ended up with a pretty big
bump on his forehead and a bigger wound to his ego. Poor Josh, he took a huge amount of teasing
that day. I'm still not sure he's lived
it down.
Jed is still sitting on
the couch, watching CNN, distractedly rubbing his leg.
Suddenly aware that I
have been watching him, Jed looks up and smiles broadly.
I motion for him to come
sit on the bed. He sits down
indian-style next to me. I hold the ice
against his leg for another few minutes.
The ice helps the swelling and the pain at the injection site. The Advil helps to ward off the flu-like side
effects that plague him every once in a while.
He's pretty good about remembering to take the Advil half an hour before
the injection but tends to forget the second dose 6 hours later. I can always tell when he's forgotten to take
it. He'll drag himself back to the
residence at night with that "death on a Triscuit" look about
him. I'll tease him about forgetting to
take it, help him into the shower and afterwards, rub his back until he falls
asleep.
"Don't
forget..."
"I already have big
bottle of Advil sitting on my desk." he grins.
"Good. You ready for tonight?"
He takes a deep breath as
he stretches out across the bed, his head resting on my thighs. I reached down to brush back a stray lock of
hair that's fallen across his forehead.
"I think so."
he answers in a voice that sounds like he is trying to convince himself of that
fact.
We stay that way for
another 20 minutes or so until Charlie calls from the West Wing to let Jed know
Leo is waiting for him.
"You'd better get
going, Leo's waiting." I say as I caress his cheek.
"Yeah."
He gets quiet again and
his face takes on a sad look. I can tell he's thinking about how this could be
his last State of the Union.
"Have faith,
Jed." I whisper as I squeeze his hand.
"I'm trying."
3:20
AM
The speech was a success
and the celebration is starting to die down. I'm on one of the couches in the
Oval Office, enjoying the relative peace and quiet of this hallowed room.
Jed is on the other
couch, sound asleep. He had been going
non-stop for 21 hours and things finally caught up with him. He's only been out for about 10 minutes,
which is about 9 minutes longer than it took him to fall asleep once he stopped
moving long enough for his body to relax a little.
He did great
tonight. I'm realizing just what this
job means to him. You'd think I would
know by now but I guess I really didn't fully understand it. And it's weird, there was this defining
moment where everything just clicked together, it was just a feeling that's
been building for a while now. Seeing
him up there, standing before Congress and the nation, something just clicked
and it became crystal clear why he wanted to run again.
It's not even something I
can put into words. I just saw the
desire and the drive in his eyes. I saw
the passion with which he spoke the words of Sam and Toby. I saw it in the way he smiled and modestly
accepted the applause at the end of the speech. He was where he belonged. I saw it in the way he celebrated with the
staff. The way he collapsed on Leo's
couch next to Toby with a piece of apple pie somewhere around 2 in the
morning.
He deserves another shot
and there is no way I can take that away from him.
Let's just hope the
voters of America saw what I saw tonight and that
they remember it come November.
THE END
