It was the first instruction I had received that morning that sounded remotely possible.

PART 4

They moved me by a service corridor into the emergency department, where the physician ordered monitoring, laboratory tests, and a toxicology evaluation.

The nurses warmed me with blankets that felt almost painfully soft against my skin.

A man with an oxygen cylinder passed my bed, and for one unreasonable second I wanted to laugh.

Yesterday I had been the groom.

Today I was a hospital patient whose family thought he was dead.