Immediately he reached the hospital, she was transferred to a stretcher and wheeled inside.
He held her hand all through the race to the emergency room, rubbing it frantically and chanting words of encouragement to her to stay alive.
His hope kept reducing each time he felt her pulse reducing.
"Please don't die, Love!" he whispered.
He didn't know why he wanted her alive, but he did.
The thought of her dying and leaving this world was strong enough to shatter him.
She couldn't leave while he was just getting to know and understand her better. There were still a lot of things about her he wanted to know, and he hadn't even apologized for all he did the previous night.
His heart was aching beyond comparison now, his mind in shambles and shards of regret, hope, and guilt.
He was feeling too many things to even know what he was feeling right then.
"Mr. Smith!" the doctor called, dragging him out of his terrain of thoughts.
They were now standing in front of two double brown doors with small circular windows on the upper part.
He understood immediately and reluctantly let go of her hand.
As she was being wheeled away, half of his heart was ripped out of his chest.
He said an earnest prayer in his heart that she would come out alive because he didn't know what he would do without her.
He went to the reception where he was obliged to fill out a form. After performing the necessary actions, he was offered a seat.
His restlessness didn't allow him to accept it.
He stood in front of the door pacing back and forth as he watched the doctor and nurses do their best on Anaya.
He took momentary glances from time to time with the hope that she would be awake the next time he looked.
During his restless pacing, he suddenly heard the IV monitor beeping unusually fast and loud.
He looked through the small window and saw the medical personnel moving about frantically and with urgency. He couldn't make out what they were saying but their expression passed off the message that something was wrong.
His own heart began beating as fast as the IV monitor.
His hope and faith were on their last shaky legs as he saw a nurse bring out a defibrillator.
'What was going on?'
He froze in fear, anticipation, distraught, and confusion as he watched them pour a thin slimy trail of blue gel on the surface of the defibrillator, rubbed the pair together, and pressed it to her chest.
Each contact the shock pad made with her body caused her chest to rise abruptly and fall back immediately.
Once... twice.... he stopped counting.
He balled his palms into fists as he so badly wanted to get in there and be with her.
They repeated the process two more times and her body reacted the same way, yet even after all that, she didn't move an inch.
The IV monitor had slowed down to a normal beeping rate, the doctor left the nurses to clear and clean all their used pieces of equipment while he came out of the ward.
Don immediately ran to him with a heavy breath and an air of desperation wafting off him like a plug-in air freshener.
"Doctor!" he called. "How is she?" was all he could bring out despite the numerous things he wanted to say.
"She is fine now" he replied neutrally, took off his gloves, and dumped them in the trash beside the ward's door.
"Is that it? Aren't you going to tell me what happened to her?" he lashed impatiently.
"Mr. Smith, your wife had experienced something termed respiratory depression" he answered.
"It is a breathing disorder whereby the person experiences shallow, slow, and ineffective breathing patterns" he continued.
Don crossed his arms in front of his chest fully focused on what the doctor was saying.
"Let's get to my office so we can talk better"
**********************************************
The doctor he had come to know as Doctor Ken closed the door behind them.
He offered Don a seat which he accepted and took the one at the other side of the table.
"As I was saying," he began, "Respiratory depression is sometimes not serious, but since she was brought in late, her case was placed on the high side" he paused and waited for a reaction, reply,... something from the man sitting across the table, but nothing.
He just stared coldly at him with crossed arms, and lips pursed into a thin disapproving line.
"Due to the low supply of oxygen, her heart rate began going down at a dangerously fast rate.
Honestly speaking, we would have lost her, but thankfully, luck was on her side. We managed to stabilize her heart and cause her heart rate to rise back to the normal range. We did the same for her lungs, and for now, she is out of danger"
Don was silently assessing everything the doctor told him.
'If I had been even a minute late, she could have...' he couldn't even finish the sentence before his heart already started bearing the pain of that thought.
"I assure you that my wife is very healthy. She couldn't have just started breathing irregularly all of a sudden" he interjected.
"About that..." he adjusted himself on his chair to a comfortable position before continuing.
"We conducted a thorough check on her and found her to be fit and healthy as you said, so on suspicion, we took a sample of her blood for testing"
Ah! Finally, his expression changed.
He became confused.
"Why?" he asked in an intimidating tone.
"Most times, respiratory depression is caused by some specific drugs. Drugs like alcohol, opioids, barbiturates, um... benzodiazepines too"
"Benzodiazepines? As in sedative-hypnotics?"
"Yes. Has she been taking any kind of drug like that?"
He hoped not.
He thought he had managed to convince her that those drugs were getting her nowhere but now it seemed like she had gone behind his back and gotten another set.
He desperately hoped that the test would come out clean. He didn't want to believe she was back to taking those 'things'.
Had she still not realized how much damage those things were doing to her?
"Mr. Smith?" he turned back to the doctor.
"Has she been under any kind of sedative-hypnotic drug?"
His throat was dry and he was short of words.
'Yes... No... I'm not sure?' which one should he answer.
"We'll have to find out once the test results are out. Until then..." he stood up, "Have a nice day, Dr. Ken" he concluded and left the office.