The Nearly Unrealized Worlds of Ethen Wells
I woke every few minutes—blood draws, IV checks, vitals. After too many hospital stays, I’d grown numb to the terror. Their carts no longer startled me. I slid my arm from under the blanket. PICC lines already pierced both arms, taped tight, tubes snaking out, wrapped to hold everything still. A catheter jutted from my upper right chest. I let my arm dangle off the bed’s edge, whichever side the cart rolled in on. I didn’t feel the needles anymore. Take whatever you need. I was going to survive this.
A knock echoed in the dim room.
“Mr. Wells,” a pleasant voice called. “I know you’ve been through a few already. We need another blood draw.”
The phlebotomist entered; the lights dimmed behind her. The door clicked shut. I drifted off the moment she left.
A sharp rap—two taps. Before dawn, a man in scrubs wheeled in a gurney.
“Mr. Wells, dialysis time. First round, I take it?”
Too weak to speak, I mumbled a yeah.
“The clinic's a couple floors down,” he said. “Quick ride.”
Ceiling tiles scrolled past like an old film reel as he pushed me through the halls.
Fear sharpened everything: wheels jolted over thresholds, cold air bit my skin. Double doors whined open and slammed shut behind us. The elevator dinged. He rolled me into the hospital’s bright underbelly. The air hung thick, pressing down. Monitors hummed. Lights flashed. Alarms chattered in overlapping code. Echoes swallowed sound. The room thrummed like a mechanical hive.
They parked me in a bay identical to the ones we’d passed. The staff swarmed.
“Hi, Mr. Wells,” a woman said, adjusting wire-rimmed glasses. “I’m your guide today—first dialysis, right? My team will walk you through it.”
Moments later, the process blurred—tubes, beeps, words I couldn’t grasp. I lay at the mercy of machines and strangers.
“Mr. Wells, can you hear me?” someone asked.
“Yes,” I nodded shakily.
The machine’s hum dragged me back to childhood nights, hiding from sounds I couldn’t escape. Tension eased from my stomach and arms as the rhythm settled. It sounded like an old movie projector—steady, relentless. Tubes fed into me. Monitors reported mysteries in red and green pulses. Lights blinked, some held steady.
Was this my life now? Where was it going?
Hours bled away. The doctor’s words resurfaced: nearly total acute kidney failure. His try-everything tone had shaken me.
“We’ll move fast to stop the damage,” he’d said. “If you hadn’t come in when you did, Ethan, it’d be far worse. In your seventies—this is a brutal road.”
A heavy, darkening curtain lowered around me. Everything bright drifted out of reach.
My wife. My kids.
What was I leaving them? Worry etched my wife’s face. I hoped they’d manage. This time, I might not help. I remembered our adventures—kids laughing, game nights with their favorite snacks, “dinner-and-a-movie” at home.
Would we share that again?
My four were grown out on their own. The two in town had rushed to my side. I overheard the doctor pull them aside, voice low:
“You should start getting his affairs in order.”
Not the first time. Liver damage years earlier—I’d seen those same weary looks. They already carried too much.
Their grandmothers and aunt battled their own illnesses. I knew the weight on them. Quiet conversations would follow.
Do we plan the funeral?
No life insurance. The cost would crush them.
Then the choices: burial or cremation, plaque designs, rates.
Was this it? My name. Two dates.
I’d beaten the odds before—liver failure, congestive heart failure, a childhood car wreck, pneumonia in my twenties. Near-death moments that should’ve ended me. Each time, a sudden knowing, a pull back from the edge.
But this felt different. The doctors warned it would be brutal. Still, I clung to the belief I’d survive—against their odds.
Why me? Others never got the chance. Their pain, their families’ grief—it weighed on me. I looked to God.
How could I survive all that, only to be forgotten now?
Maybe the purpose was to help others.
Don’t give up. There’s a way through.
Even if it meant reliving the darkness. I’d buried it for decades—from the world, friends, family. Secrets I carried. Barely escaped drowning in evil. Nearly buried alive, never to resurface.
The machine’s hum held steady. I stared at the ceiling, same as when I was a boy forced to lie still. The pump ticked like a metronome, anchoring me.
The nurse returned.
“We’re taking you back soon. Another session in a couple days.”
Back in my room, the dialysis hum lingered in my skull. Thoughts circled: what I needed to do, what I should’ve done.
Would I get the chance—or did I owe it to others to help them survive first?
Days dragged in a quiet routine. My kidney doctor entered, tapping his pen on the chart.
“Hmm, Mr. Wells—looks like our efforts are paying off. Some positive signs. You’re not out of the woods yet,” he said, giving my leg a soft slap and a cautious grin. “Hang in there. See you in the morning.”
