Today was a very long day. I spent most of it in the emergency room with my cousin, . She tried to kill herself a little after 3am this morning.

My lunch break is between 8:30 and 9am since my shift starts at 5am. I was eating lunch when my roommate, called. He asked if I had talked to Tori. I told him I hadn’t talked with her since last night. When I asked him why he wanted to know he told me that she was missing.

He said that when her mom got home from at 7:30 the doors were open, all the lights were on, Tori’s stereo was playing, and her crutches and wheelchair were still there. Then he told me they found a suicide note. My heart dropped and I felt like I was going to be sick.

I knew she had been depressed and was dealing with a lot because we had been talking about it quite often lately. I had been trying to help her cope with everything that was going on. She went back to work at the bar a couple of months ago and she has been getting almost every night since. A few days ago, she told me that she thought she needed to get back on her . She’s bipolar as well.

I told her I could help her become a client at the place I go for my meds and therapy. She said that she would make an appointment with her doctor to get them. I didn’t think to mention it to her mom, now I wish I did. I didn’t know she was . She didn’t exhibit any of the warning signs.

After I got of the phone with Dudney, I told my supervisor there was a emergency and I had to leave. I had to help find her. It was my first day taking calls since my leave of absence began. I don’t care if I get in trouble. Tori is like a sister to me. Hell, we are closer than my sister and me. She is more important.

I told Dudney to start calling cab companies and as soon as I got home, I would start calling hospitals. Right after I turned down our street my phone rang. It was Dudney and he said that they found her at St. John’s Hospital but the nurses would not give out any more information than that. They wouldn’t even say whether she was alive or not.

I was so afraid we had lost her forever. I was in shock. I felt like crying, but the tears would not fall. My stomach was in knots. My chest was tight and it felt like someone was squeezing my heart. Everything seemed so surreal. I didn’t want to accept that my cousin could be dead.

A few minutes after I got home, my Auntie and Tori’s sister, Dena, pulled into the driveway. We all drove to the hospital together. We were scared shitless. None of us wanted to accept the reality of the situation.

Once we arrived at the hospital my Aunt told the nurse that Dudney and I were her kids too so they would let us go to her room. None of us knew what to expect and we were not prepared for what we saw.

They had intubated her because she couldn’t breathe on her own and she had a nasogastric tube in her nose. She also had three IVs and several machines around her. She wasn’t awake. A nurse came in and told us that Tori was still in critical condition and that the OU critical care team was taking care of her. She said that the ambulance had brought her in at 3:40 this morning.

We tried to wake her up, to no avail. My Aunt and Dena were crying. Dudney and I still couldn’t cry. It felt like a bad dream. We took turns hold her hands and talking to her. Several hours later she improved, she was in and out of consciousness.

They woke her up so they could remove the ventilator. The first thing she said was ‘GODDAMN IT!’ After they removed the NG tube she said, ‘FUCK!’ Then she called the nurse a motherfucker. That made us laugh and we all breathed a sigh of relief because we knew she was coherent and didn’t have any permanent brain damage. We weren’t heavy-hearted anymore and we began cracking jokes and playing around. Her sister, who is also her boss at the bar, said ‘if you didn’t want to work today all you had to do was call in.’

After that, she passed out again. St. John’s is a Catholic hospital, obviously. They have crucifixes and pictures of Jesus and the Pope all over the place. There was a crucifix right above where I was sitting. It looked like Jesus was looking directly at me. It was starting to creep me out so I covered it up with a paper towel.

I had been sitting Indian-style on a stool. It had rollers on it. About an hour later, out of nowhere, the stool came out from under me. I tried to grab for something to catch me, but it was too late. I slammed into the floor. I landed on my back. I laid there for a minute or so and laughed my ass off. The stool had slammed into Tori’s bed.

Her eyes flew open and she lifted her head up and looked around to see what the commotion was. Dudney was laughing so hard and loud he had to go into the bathroom and shut the door. Dena made sure I was okay before she started cracking up and my Auntie chuckled.

I couldn’t do anything but laugh. After I caught my breath I said, ‘Jesus done kicked me out of my damn chair.’ That made them all start cracking up again.

Tori stayed awake after that. They downgraded her from critical condition and moved her upstairs instead of the E.R ICU.

On this day..