I finally got a chance to visit my friend in the hospital yesterday.

Let me backtrack. I first found out what happened to Nicole in June, the week my daughter's semester ended. I wasn't able to see her until the following week, after I dropped my daughter at camp.

It turned out that she had suffered a stroke; a side effect from the medication she was taking for lupus.

She had collapsed in her condo and broke her glasses. I spent much of the rest of the week getting her a replacement pair. And we got to talk; we spent a lot more time together that week than we have in the last 10 years.

She was in good spirits, as cheerful and positive as she was when we were 23-year-old college grads working together at a local radio station so many years ago. The stroke may have weakened her body, but her brain was functioning very well, thank you, and her sense of humor was intact.

“All I want right now is an In and Out Burger,” she said.

At the end of the week, I let her know that I was leaving on a planned vacation, but would be back to see her as soon as I returned.

But in the interim, Nicole contracted a drug-resistant staph infection. It rapidly attacked her kidneys, her liver, and her lungs – possibly even her brain, although the doctors couldn’t agree on that. By the time I was back in town, she was in the ICU, on life support.

She spent the entire summer in Intensive Care. Her nearest family member is a brother who lives a couple of hundred miles away. He said the doctors advised that friends could help by talking to her; even though she appeared to be unconscious, it was important to try to bring her out.

There were notices on her door advising visitors to use hand sanitizer upon entering the room and again when leaving. It was shocking to see this vibrant, active woman laid up in a hospital bed, hooked up to a monitor. It was like Grey’s Anatomy, only real and it was happening to one of my oldest and dearest friends.

Another friend from those days works near the hospital, so she joined me on those ICU visits. It’s a good thing, because it’s not easy to carry on a conversation with someone who’s barely conscious. We bounced off each other, riffing about the good old days when we worked together , the crazy things we did in our youth and some of the characters we all knew. At one point, we seemed to be getting through to Nicole, but not in a good way, because her body shuddered and tears rolled down her cheeks. Mindful of the admonition not to tire her out, at that point we cut the visit short. I was worried that our visit was upsetting her rather than engaging her. My friend thought the tears came out of frustration, because Nicole was unable to communicate back.

It was touch and go. Her brother spoke ominously of the family having to “make some decisions.”

And then, she started to improve. The doctors performed a tracheotomy and she was able to breathe without the respirator. On our next visit, her eyes were open and it was obvious she knew we were there.

Two weeks ago, her brother called and told me that she was finally out of ICU and back in the hospital’s rehabilitative wing, and was now seeing visitors again.

The day after I talked to him, I caught my daughter’s summer cold. Considering what she had just been through from a bacterial infection, I decided to wait until I felt healthy again. And then came the first week of school. So I did not see her until last night.

I found her in her room, joking with one of her nurses. She was wearing the new glasses (the ones I got her before she had the infection). She was proud of the fact that she’d taken 62 steps with the walker that afternoon. This is something for a woman who did track in college and has remained active and taken care of her health every day of her life.
And she was excited when one of her doctors told her that she was responding so well to her current medication that he was going to reduce the dosage.

She’s basically starting back at square one, where she was at the beginning of the summer. “I know I’m going to have to be here a long time,” she sighed. “But I’m a tough bird.” Yes, she is.

I ended up doing more errands for her. She didn’t have any clean t-shirts, so I ran out to the mall and bought her some – then took home her laundry to wash.

And she’s complaining about the hospital food – a sign she’s definitely on the mend. I have feeling we’ll be enjoying that In and Out Burger together very soon.