Hans picked me up a little more than five hours after he first called me.
He was driving a very beautiful pearl-white sports car with light tan leather interior. I remember him saying he drove Lou to the ER, and so I was really relieved that his seats still looked perfectly clean.
I didn’t even have to know Hans for more than five minutes to see that he was very particular about his things. (Basically, Hans was the German, male version of me.) And, I also could guess that Hans was likely the person who worked for Steve that might not “mix well” with Lou. (I, however, do mix well with Lou… Luckily.) But Hans was incredibly gracious to pick me up at the airport, and then take me to the hospital.
Just before my flight took off from Dallas, an ER doctor called me to let me know that they had paged the urologist on call and that they were doing everything they could to monitor Lou’s blood loss.
Something had gone very wrong.
Lou was basically hemorrhaging blood at this point, and the doctors were certain he would need surgery. I couldn’t talk to Lou — he was already in the pre-op area of the hospital, but the doctor I spoke to said he’d make sure the urologist knew I was on my way from Dallas.
I was able to give the Miami doctor the name and phone number of the urology office in Minnesota, too. I wanted to make sure that if Lou was too out of it to talk, that all of the doctors who had been treating Lou up to this point were at least talking to each other.
Everything was happening so fast, and talking to the Miami doctor made me feel really scared. I teetered between frustrated and fearful a lot that day — but fear rapidly started to edge out over any other feelings in the mix. I was trying to be calm and steady so Hans wouldn’t ask me too many questions after I slid into his fancy car. Hans was clearly very worried about Lou, and his concerns were very genuine. I wanted to express my gratitude to Hans for helping Lou, but I was stumbling a lot to try to somehow protect Lou’s relationship with this guy.
Even though it sounded like Lou passed out in a pool of blood right in the middle of his meeting with Hans and Steve, I was secretly crossing my fingers that maybe Lou would still get the job. (Seriously? I know. I’m a jerk.) But I felt incredibly desperate for something in our lives to work out well; and, I think my mind was simply too overwhelmed to process our reality appropriately!
Hans walked me into the emergency wing of the South Miami Hospital. He insisted on waiting with me — which was a mixed blessing. I was having trouble coping on my own, so having him there made me feel safer; but adding this potential work person to the mix was really stressing me out.
I asked the first person I could flag down if they had any information on Lou Zant. An intake nurse on the other side of the room immediately lit up.
She said, “Zant? We’ve been waiting for you. Let me see if I can get the doctor out here to speak with you.”
I felt myself get very cold with fear. This was serious — I mean, even more serious than anything we’d faced before. I tried to steel myself against every worst-case scenario — but there were way too many to consider.
There was a time when Lou and I thought a cancer diagnosis was the worst news we could get; but suddenly, I was fully aware that there were so many other things to fear when you’re standing in the middle of a busy emergency room. And then suddenly, I started spinning out that maybe I got there too late!
A gutting fear took over, and I had to find a chair.
I hadn’t spoken to Lou at all that day — we only traded a couple of texts. His meetings started very early, and there is an hour time difference between Dallas and Miami. So all we did was text. My hands started shaking like crazy when I couldn’t remember if I’d told Lou I loved him or not. So I quickly checked my text messages. There, in plain type, I saw that I had wished Lou luck on his interview, told him I’d be praying for him, and, that I was proud of him. Lou responded back:
“I love you Baby — you’re the best.”
My eyes were all watery with tears when a very young male doctor came around a corner, calling my name. I immediately stood up, and said, “I’m here!”
Once I made eye contact with the doctor, I felt myself calm a bit. He was quite young looking, but he seemed very confident. He introduced himself as the doctor I spoke to on the phone earlier in the day. He said that Lou was currently in surgery. We were very lucky, he said, because the urologist that was working on Lou was incredibly talented and had been a doctor for close to 35 years.
Lou was in good hands.
But I was informed that Lou had lost a lot of blood. The doctor said that while Lou was waiting in the ER, he soaked through “four towel packs.” Each pack had 12 towels in the bundle, and Lou had completely soaked every one.
It was the most blood anyone in the ER had ever seen coming from a prostate issue, and so they were treating this case very seriously. In fact, when the urologist arrived and saw how extreme Lou’s bleeding was, he bumped another surgery that was about to start so they could get Lou into the OR right away.
Lou had been conscious the whole time, but fading in and out a lot. This doctor told me that what Lou told them about his case matched what the urologist in Minnesota said — there was no cancer, Lou’s prostate was massively enlarged, and that Lou had recently undergone a cauterizing procedure to reduce the size of the prostate.
This new doctor told me that it might be another hour or two before Lou was out surgery, and then he’d likely be in recovery for at least an additional hour, maybe even two. He said that the urologist would likely want to speak with me when Lou came around, and so it would be great if I made sure I was at the hospital all evening.
I thanked the doctor. It was a lot to take in, but it seemed like Lou was in the best possible hands…
Hans had been on the phone out in the ER entryway, and when he saw the doctor was done speaking to me, he approached. I gave him the short version — Lou was in surgery, and it could be several hours before I could see him. I was very shaky but holding steady.
Hans told me that he was on the phone with Steve, and they were both very concerned. Steve and Paola wanted to make sure I knew I was welcome to stay with them, and, they, in fact, wanted me to have one of their cars so I could get back and forth to the hospital. They would leave the keys with the nanny, and I could come and go any time because the nanny was always there with their baby.
So Hans and I made a plan.
He was going to take me to Steve’s house so I could drop off my suitcase, pick up the loaner car, and then get back to the hospital before Lou woke up. I felt very torn about the idea of leaving the hospital while Lou was still in surgery, but I really didn’t want to be stranded in the waiting room with Hans all night. So I checked in with the intake nurse who recognized my last name, and I told her I’d be back very shortly. She took down my phone number again (because I insisted), and I walked back out to the car with Hans.
As we were leaving the ER, an ambulance pulled in with lights flashing and sirens blaring. Hans and I stopped and watched as the paramedics pulled a gurney from the back of the truck; a man covered in blood with a neck brace was moaning. He had huge cuts all of his body, and his clothing must have been cut off at the scene for the paramedics to do their thing. It was a chilling sight.
“Velcome to Miami,” said Hans causally. “People drive so crazy here.”
