Judy's life was coming off the rails, which was saying something because it had been a complete mess ever since her ex-husband had knocked up some bimbo he had been sleeping with. That would have been bad enough, but then in his infinite wisdom, rather than admit to his wife what he had done, he had decided to support said bimbo behind Judy's back and hope his wife didn't notice. Well, when he ended up cleaning out both his and Judy's bank accounts and maxed out several credit cards, his wife noticed. Apparently, Judy had married a complete moron without noticing. She promptly divorced him upon finding out, and was able to, justifiably so, get court ordered wage garnishments and hefty alimony in the divorce to make reparations for him financially ruining them. However, that implied the lazy ass had a job to garnish wages from. No, she had made the mistake of marrying the laziest, most useless, cheating, lying, unfaithful excuse of a man in northern California.
Out of money, and with a mound of new debt, she had been forced to get help, and had somehow managed to scrape some kind of adult life together after the divorce. She was working two jobs to make ends meet and pay off her debts. By day she was a pediatric nurse, which was her real passion, since she loved working with kids. By night she worked as a hospice nurse for extra money. The situation was necessary, but the double duty was wearing on her; she had been at it over a year and she did not think she could take much more of this.
What's worse, she was about to lose her cheap lodgings, because the owner was selling the house of which she lived in the basement apartment, if you could call her barely finished hole an apartment, to a family that had no interest in a tenant. She could have fought it, but her landlady had always been super nice to her, and putting up a fight would not have changed that the owner could not afford to keep the place. She had sweetly offered to sell it to Judy, but Judy couldn't afford it, and even if she could, no bank would lend her money thanks to her idiot ex.
Despite all of that though, things were surprisingly looking up. It seemed her sister's roommate had just moved out, and given Judy no longer had a place to live, she had offered her spare room. Judy did not like to accept charity, but it gave her some place to go to regroup, if she could get a job that is. Since she had gotten the news from her sister, she had managed to line up a few interviews, and she was taking a long weekend to go on a few and help her sister redecorate a bit. One of the interviews in particular had her excited, as it paid enough that she would not need a night job.
So, at least she had hope, unlike many of the patients she saw at this job, like that hero firefighter quite a few of her fellow nurses were obsessed with. Here was a big strong guy with everything in front of him, likely to never wake again.
Not that you could tell that from his fan club of nurses. Judy swore that many of them thought he was going to wake up and sweep them off their feet or something, 'right, when pigs fly ladies,' she thought to herself. Still, she saw the draw, he was in a coma for saving a bunch of kids and really cute. He just had so little chance of recovery, though his case was one of the oddest she had ever seen.
Matthew Whitten, for that was his name, had received media attention for rescuing a mother and four kids from a smoke-filled room in a burning building. Reports were, he had moved a large book case, and protected them from other falling debris, as they were rescued. He had had to be helped out of the building by his fellow firefighters, but despite several broken bones and somewhat severe burns, he had been okay when he arrived at the hospital. He had no head injuries to speak of, and they were able to set his fractures and tend to his other injuries with relative ease. They had sedated him as a precaution, to prevent shock from setting in, but all and all everything seemed fine. It was the next day when they could not wake him that the doctors became concerned. They tried just about everything to wake him before running a bunch of tests on him. Nothing was wrong other than the injuries, he had brain activity similar to that of a person in deep sleep, his heart was working fine, and he was breathing independently. After a few days, and several more rounds of tests, the doctors could find nothing wrong. All that could be done was to see if he would wake, and let his body heal itself in the meantime.
When over two weeks had passed with no change, he was transferred to the hospice facility Judy worked at. Over the next few weeks they continued to monitor his vitals and let him heal. The only danger to him was that he could not feed himself, but they used an IV and feeding tube to take care of that. Unfortunately, as his other injuries began to mend they were running out of reasons to keep him, other than to study his bizarre case. What little family Matthew had was from Buffalo, and a few representatives were consulted about his case when he had been transferred. It seemed that, though they cared for him, they did not want to be burdened with his care, especially given that it was unknown how long it would be before he woke, if he ever woke. They did express that they did not want him made an experiment, nor did they want to keep him alive in a vegetative state. No matter how much the hospice staff and doctors tried to explain he was fine, just deeply asleep, almost in hibernation for lack of a better term, the family just wanted the matter resolved so they could grieve. They were not convinced that Matthew would ever wake, and did not want to lose him twice. Judy understood that, even if she disagreed with their overall decision.
The final decision was made that if he had not had any change by the end of the following week's end, they would remove the IV and feeding tube, and see if the hunger and dehydration would wake Matthew. Judy and many of the other nurses found this to be the same as killing him, unlike most cases where they 'pulled the plug' so to speak. In most cases she and many of her fellow nurses saw pulling the plug as an act of mercy, but in Matthew's case, it just seemed wrong somehow. Unfortunately though, it was what his family wanted, and no one had the power to overrule them since, legally, they alone had the power to make his care decisions.
The night following the visit by the family, Judy was doing her rounds and came to Matthew's room to find, once again, one of the guys from Matthew's firehouse sitting vigil. She swore since Matthew had been in the hospital at least one of them was in his room at all times, as if he could wake up any minute. This one's name was Ray, and he must have had the shift at the same time as Judy's rounds, because she usually saw him when she came in to check on Matthew. He had talked to her a few times, and a few of her coworkers thought he had a thing for her, but she was definitely not interested. Ray was a smoker, cocky, was a bit of a loud mouth, and clearly thought himself a lady's man. It also did not help that, like all of his fellow firefighters on the vigil, Ray was a good six inches short of Judy's 5'9". Judy chuckled a bit with some of the other nurses that Matthew was probably the only tall one, at around 6'3", in the whole firehouse judging by the group of at least seven others they had seen on the vigil. Judy had to admit Ray had made her smile a few times, and she admired his loyalty to his friend, but that was about where his admirable qualities, except of course his line of work, ended. "It's a shame what they're going to do to Matt, simply because they don't want to bother with him. I told that so called family of his we'd watch him, even pay for his care, that he's too good a man to lose like that, but they wouldn't listen."
"Yes it is," Judy said fixing Matthew's pillows and checking the IV. She sighed, "God knows most of us agree with that, but there's nothing we can do. The family's wishes are the family's wishes, and like it or not we have to respect them. The only way around it is if one of you has a legal document saying you have the power to make his care decisions, otherwise what they want, goes. I'd help him if I could, but there's not really anything I can do at this point."
Ray shook his head, Judy had figured that was the first thing her boss would have asked once the family had made that controversial decision.
"Have a good night Ray," she said, leaving when it was obvious he had no reply. He nodded and Judy went about her work for the rest of the night. Later that evening she was sitting at the nurse's station with a few other nurses when Ray came up.
"Hey Judy, did you mean what you said? About helping Matt if you could? I think I've got a way, what do you say I buy you some pie or something when you get off, and we discuss it?"
Judy open her mouth to turn him down, but her friend Eileen put her hand over Judy's mouth and said, glaring at Judy, "She'd love to Ray." Judy tried to remove the hand, but Eileen was persistent, "she gets off around 1, where should she meet you?" Ray named a nearby 24 hour diner and Eileen smiled and said, "she'll be there." Then looking at Judy she said, "Won't you Judy?"
Resigned, Judy sighed, nodded, and Ray smiled and left. When he had gone Eileen finally removed her hand from Judy's mouth.
"Well, that was uncalled for Eileen! You know I'm not going," Judy said glaring at her friend.
"Oh, come on Judy, you haven't been on a date in months. As far as I know that's the first cute single guy to ask you out in a while. I know you haven't gotten any since the divorce, and I'm guessing so do a few others, since you're starting to get the nickname Sister Judith Agatha around here, and not even the cute firefighter seems to impress you."
"Really?" Judy asked kind of depressed, realizing that she actually had not had sex since the divorce, and irritated that people here thought her some kind of nun.
"Yes, Judy, your life is this job and the pediatricians office, you need a bit of fun."
"Ok, fine, but why Ray? He's nice enough, I guess, but he's so full of himself and I'm a half foot taller than him!"
"It's just pie Judy, what's the big deal, it's not like I'm saying marry the guy. By the way, as for you saying you're not going, you nodded Judy, which means you are going, I know you."
