You Fight For All The Wrong Reasons

Trey was out of sight faster than I could blink. “Mitch! Whoa, Mitch, you okay, buddy?” There was a pause, filled with the coughing erupting from Mitch’s lungs. “Hey, could I get some help down here?”

I answered Trey’s cry, sprinting down the flight of steps as fast as I could. I could hear the sound of four other shoes trampling down the stairs behind me. Someone flicked on the light.

Whatever the light had revealed to Trey’s eyes scared him. His eyebrows shot up, and I could see him swallowing a string of nervous words that would only cause more panic. He tried to control the situation. “Alright, um, okay…” He looked up at us, fear clearly displayed on his face.

“Guys. I’m not a doctor. I don’t know what to do.”

I ran over to the other side of the room to see what had frightened Trey.

Something frothy and pink was splattered all over the blanket that had once been covering Mitch. It was tinged with something red. Blood?

Mitch coughed again, his entire body shaking from the spasms racking his chest. The same pink frothy stuff oozed through a gap in his fingers. I watched, horrified, as the pink froth was now replaced with a dark red liquid.

Coughing up blood could not be a good sign.

I looked at Christina. Doctor’s daughter. She had to know what to do. But her expression was a mirror image of mine, searching my own face for an answer.

She stammered two words that began to unravel the mystery. “Pulmonary edema.”

I stared at her, confused. “Is that what this is?”

She nodded. “It makes sense.”

“Okay. Pulmonary edema.” I tried the words out on my own tongue. It made an ugly, sinister sound. “What do we do about it?”

The tiny bit of hope that had come from that tiny bit of knowledge vanished. “I don’t know. I think…I think we just wait it out.”

“What?!” My eyes flew back to Mitch, who was keeled over, still hacking.

“Well, we can’t give him oxygen!”

“We seriously need your dad here.”

“I know.”

The next minute was the scariest minute of my life. I stood there, rooted to the spot, watching Mitch’s coughing escalate, and hoping for a break in the clouds.

Finally, it began to slow, with pauses in between coughs, until it finally stopped altogether.

The only sound in the room was the sound of Mitch’s lungs fighting for a gasp of air. His chest heaved, his breath grating against the walls of his throat.

“Mitch.” Trey was leaning in close to Mitch’s face. “Mitch, talk to me. Say something.” Their noses were almost touching.

“I need to know you’re okay.”

Mitch gasped, nodded, and raised his hands as if he were trying to express something that he couldn’t with the absence of air in his lungs. When words finally did come out, they were a jumble. “I’m here. Yeah. I’m okay.”

“Oh my God.” The whole room seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Are you alright?”

“You really scared us, Mitch.”

Mitch smiled weakly. “Sorry.”

“Mitch, you’re really sick.” We all turned to Christina. “And, I really hate to scare you, but if we don’t treat you, I’m not sure how much time you’ll have.”

A strange look crossed Mitch’s face. “Well, um, then your dad had better get back here ASAP.”

“Yeah.”

“Whoa, wait.” Mitch scanned all of our faces and read our horrified expressions. “I’m not going to…die or anything. Right?”

“I don’t know, Mitch.” It was nothing but honesty.