The Ta Ta Dinners

By Zoe Taupe

Nurse practitioner Gina cares for the uninsured in her small Arizona town. When she hears that a friend's friend has become ill, Gina, like always, is willing to help. After a seizure in the backyard, free-spirited life coach Faith has been diagnosed with a brain tumor and probable breast cancer, but she strangely seems blissfully unaware and disinterested.

Gina, along with Faith's friend Rachel and a group of women Faith has nicknamed "The Tribe," decide to hold dinner parties for Faith as an intervention of sorts. But Faith, as a life coach, is more interested in her friends' lives than the danger in her own.

But with comedy, camaraderie, and plenty of wine, the dinners become a support group for not only Faith, but all the women in attendance. In time, each will begin to open up about their own heartache, fears and denials.

A bittersweet and humorous story at its core, "The Ta Ta Dinners" tells the story of friendship, female empowerment, and all the things we hold dear in our hearts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098390679

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© Zoe Taupe.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 978-1-09839-066-2 (printed)

ISBN: 978-1-09839-067-9 (eBook)

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 1

Mrs. Tirabassi looked out her kitchen window while washing her hands at the sink. As she perused the backyard, something caught her eye and she leaned forward over the sink, craning her neck to have a better look. Her eyes widened when she saw her next door neighbor face down in the dirt with her arms and legs flailing widely. That’s a seizure, she thought. Her brother had seizures when he was little, so she knew a seizure when she saw one. As a child she had become adept at jamming something soft in his mouth and protecting his head until the seizure subsided. She quickly wiped her hands dry as she crossed the kitchen to call 911 and then hurried out the back door to her neighbor’s yard. The seizure seemed to have subsided by the time she reached her side. She knelt in the dirt and being a rather hefty middle aged woman, she had no trouble rolling her neighbor onto her side. When she assessed that she was breathing and not choking, she rolled her onto her back. She had not seen Faith up close before. She had been renting the house next door for about a year but she had only seen her coming and going in her little beater of a car. The house was a tiny house, more of a cabin really, with a shake roof. A shake roof in a forest of tall Ponderosa pines would go up like a torch if a fire came through, she thought as she looked down at Faith and waited for the ambulance. She stared down at her and saw a trickle of bright-red blood mixed with saliva start to run from the right side of her mouth. She must have bitten her tongue, she thought. She used the hem of her apron to wipe away the dust and pine needles clinging to her sweaty face. Faith seemed to be breathing normally but she was not yet conscious. She studied her face thinking it looked pleasing with full lips and dark eyebrows. She had wonderfully thick, dark, chin-length hair with just the right amount of curl. What I wouldn’t give for hair like that, Mrs. Tirabassi thought. Her neighbor’s head was round and seemed too large in relation to the rest of her body even though she was a little overweight and rather short. Moon face or round head came to mind. What was that old sitcom that had a character called the big-faced girl? Her prominent nose, large eyes, and wide mouth seemed to fill her face. Maybe all that hair makes her head look larger, thought Mrs. Tirabassi.

The ambulance siren interrupted her thoughts. The ambulance pulled forward, past the driveway, so it could back down the drive. The EMT’s ran over already gloved up, asking her to move aside as they began their assessment. She tried to tell them her observations but they were focused on Faith and did not acknowledge her.

I’m Terry and this is Mike, said the female EMT as she applied EKG leads to Faith’s chest so she could assess her heart rate, while Mike, who was a large, muscular guy, took her blood pressure and pulse. He then shined a flashlight in each eye to check her pupils. As Faith began to stir, Mrs. Tirabassi, having never met Faith, suddenly felt like a gawker. They aren’t interested in what I have to say, she thought, disappointed, so I might as well go home. She turned and walked across the yard to her kitchen door.

Faith groaned and felt the hardness and the warmth of the ground on her back. Something hard was poking her in the left shoulder. She wondered where she was and why it was so incredibly bright. Her tongue hurt for some reason, and people were talking around her. She tried to open her eyes but had to squint against the brightness. The sunlight was too uncomfortable, piercing through the branches of the tall, swaying pine trees. Terry shielded Faith’s eyes with her hand as she watched the portable EKG monitor on the ground next to her.

Do you have a seizure disorder? she asked.

No, said Faith, perplexed.

The EMT’s asked if she had any medical conditions, if she was taking any prescription medications, or if she used recreational drugs. They asked if she had been feeling unwell lately. The questions came rapid fire, alternating between each EMT, and in her post-seizure fogginess she couldn’t process the questions quickly enough.

No, to all your questions, Faith said, somewhat annoyed. What happened? Why are you here? she asked, still trying to clear her head.

You had a seizure and your neighbor called us, said the female EMT gently. After taking her blood pressure and assessing the heart monitor, Mike went to the ambulance to retrieve a stretcher. They told her she needed to go to the ER to be evaluated. She decided not to worry about the fact that she didn’t have insurance. She wasn’t thinking clearly and she didn’t want to disappoint the EMT’s after coming all that way.

She felt surprisingly weak as they helped her onto the lowered stretcher. The fresh white cotton sheets felt incredibly cool on her hot, sweaty skin. There was a jolt and a click as they raised the stretcher and locked it in place. It was a short, bumpy roll over the rocky ground to the back of the ambulance. After they’d loaded the stretcher, Terry jumped into the back with Faith while Mike got in the driver’s seat. He put on the flashing lights as they slowly pulled out of the driveway.

Terry, sitting on the small seat at her side, began assembling equipment and soon Faith felt the tightness of the tourniquet placed around her left forearm and the sting of an IV cannula. As the blood began to drip from the cannula, Terry deftly plugged the IV tubing in, released the tourniquet, and slowly released the clamp on the tubing until the saline started to drip from the 500 cc bag into the drip chamber. The blood that had backed up into the tubing from the cannula insertion cleared as the saline flowed into her vein. She adjusted the flow in the drip chamber.

Faith was fully awake by the time they reached the hospital, and she was smiling as they rolled through the automatic doors. She didn’t think the ER seemed terribly busy. They passed a couple of large rooms that were filled with complicated-looking equipment, presumably for the serious cases, and went into a smaller room with a curtain separating two stretchers. The EMT’s went on either side of her stretcher and untucked the sheet she was lying on, rolling the sheet up toward her until they reached her waist on both sides.

One, two, three, they said as they lifted Faith and moved her to another stretcher. They then went out into the hall to report to the ER doctor.

Hi, Dr. Ratner, Mike said as they walked up to him at the nursing station.

Hi, you guys. What have you got for me?

Fifty-year-old white female, status post seizure with no prior history of seizures. Seizure was witnessed by a neighbor and she called it in. Don’t know the exact time of loss of consciousness but sounds like just a few minutes. She had post-seizure confusion but is alert and oriented now with stable vitals. Her EKG strip was normal. We started an IV of normal saline at a rate of 10 cc’s an hour, said Terry to the doctor.

Well, thanks for that, said Dr. Ratner jokingly to the ambulance crew. Couldn’t find anything more exciting for me? he said, grinning, as the EMT’s pushed their empty stretcher down the hall toward their ambulance.

The nurse came into Faith’s room and pulled the curtain around her stretcher.

Hi, I’m Nancy and I’m going to take your vitals. Do you remember what happened?

No, said Faith. I remember going out to the backyard for something but I don’t remember why.

The nurse wrapped the blood pressure cuff around Faith’s right arm and pumped it up. 126/84 she said. She put a pulse oximeter on her left index finger. She wrote on the vitals sheet 97% PO2, pulse 74. She then took her temperature and wrote down 98.8.

The doctor will be in shortly, OK? the nurse said with a smile.

Thanks, said Faith, smiling back.

Dr. Ratner came in holding a clipboard in one hand while he pulled the curtain closed behind him with the other. He was trim, muscular but small in stature with wire-rim glasses. He had a long gray ponytail held back with a sparkly silver scrunchy. He was wearing the normal blue scrub pants, but his top was a bright-orange Hawaiian-style buttoned shirt. His stethoscope dangled around his neck.

Hi, I’m Dr. Ratner. Do you like my shirt? It was Charles Manson’s shirt! he said proudly. Do you remember Charles Manson, you know, Helter Skelter? I just bought this shirt on eBay!

Faith looked startled and amused.

So, tell me what happened, he said. Can you remember what happened?

I don’t know. They said I had a seizure in my backyard, said Faith.

You have never had a seizure? he asked, with raised eyebrows.

No, never.

Do you remember any kind of weird feeling, warning or visual disturbances before it happened?

No.

Do you take any medications, prescribed or over the counter, herbals, supplements, or use recreational drugs? said Dr. Ratner.

I take a multivitamin and occasionally Ibuprofen, no prescription drugs, and no recreational drugs, those days are over, she said with a smile.

Do you have any chronic illnesses or have you recently been ill?

She shook her head no.

Have you had any recent blows to the head, falls, auto accidents. Any kind of trauma?

Nope.

How much and what kind of alcohol do you drink?

I drink wine, mostly on weekends, just a couple of glasses a night.

Do you have migraines, visual problems, or frequent headaches? he said as he put the clipboard on the counter in the room.

I don’t have migraines, but I have been having some headaches recently.

Describe them to me, he said as he reached behind his head with both hands and pulled outwardly on his hair to tighten the scrunchie that kept wanting to migrate downwards on his thin gray ponytail.

Well, they are more toward the back, top of my head. They feel like pressure or a squeezing feeling. Sometimes it is really throbbing and painful. That’s when I take the Ibuprofen for them, which helps but not always. I thought maybe it was just stress or that I should have my eyes examined. It has been a while.

OK, we are going to send you down for an MRI and then I will do an exam when you return, said Dr. Ratner, giving Faith a quick smile. He knew that a seizure in an adult with no history and no illness or trauma was not a good sign. With a sinking feeling, he headed out the door to the abdominal pain in the next room.

As she waited, Faith looked around the room. The counter on her right was gleaming stainless steel and had glass jars with lids lined up along the back. They were filled with various medical supplies. Cotton balls, tongue blades, cotton swabs, and rolls of tape. The cupboards above had glass doors and were filled with packages of sterile gauze in various sizes. Faith had been interested in all things medical since she was little but never had the discipline for the actual schooling it entailed to get into the field. She noticed the bottom shelf of the accompanying cupboard had little boxes that said nylon suture, and each was lined up according to size, 6-0, 5-0, 4-0, and so forth. It reminded her of the one other time she had been in an ER when she was seven years old. She had been playing with her brother in the living room, jumping off couches, and she hit her chin on the coffee table when she took a fall. The edge of the table put a deep gash on the lower part of her chin that required suturing. She remembered the doctor asked her if she wanted black or blue sutures and she chose blue. You could barely see the scar now.

Her eyes strayed to the equipment on the wall to her right. There was a metal basket attached to the wall which held a stethoscope and a blood pressure cuff attached to a gauge on the wall. Next to that were instruments used to look in people’s eyes and ears. As she perused the medical equipment she heard Dr. Ratner, at the nursing station, ask about the abdominal ultrasound he had ordered. The nursing station was just a few feet outside of her exam room door. She could hear their conversations and it was exciting to listen, although she didn’t understand a lot of the medical jargon.

Is that ultrasound back yet? she heard Dr. Ratner ask.

No, not yet, said a voice she assumed was a nurse at the station. What do you think from looking at her labs?

She has a high white count with a left shift and she was tender in the right lower quad so I’m thinking slam dunk appendicitis. We’ll see, said Dr. Ratner. I’m going to grab something from the cafeteria while I’m waiting for the ultrasound and I am hoping for an MRI soon?

They aren’t too busy, so that shouldn’t be a problem, said the nurse.

Faith lay back on the stretcher staring up at the large round light suspended from the ceiling above the bed. She could see that it could be moved in different directions as well as downward, toward the stretcher. She remembered that kind of light from when she was being sutured so long ago. Faith felt relaxed and comfortable on the stretcher. Most people would feel anxious, she thought, but she liked being a patient in the ER, the feeling of importance, the drama and the attention. She felt like she was in an episode of a medical TV show. You never knew what might happen. She wondered if a serious medical trauma might come in while she was there.

A nursing assistant came in to take her to radiology. She chatted with him as they rolled down the hall. He stopped even with another stretcher that was against the wall just before the doors to radiology and put the brakes on her stretcher. He helped her transfer to the other stretcher that was at an equal height and transferred her IV bag to that pole. He unlocked his stretcher to head back to the ER.

I’ll be back to get you after they are done, he said cheerfully.

The tech came out into the hall from radiology and checked her arm band. She rolled Faith into a room with a large circular machine. She positioned the stretcher adjacent to the MRI table and helped Faith transfer over. The table was hard and she had a very flat pillow for her head. As she lay flat at the opening of the machine, she felt like she was about to enter a carnival ride.

Do you have claustrophobia? asked the tech.

Not that I know of, said Faith.

If you are feeling anxious or ill when you are in the machine, just press this button and we will stop and bring you out, she said as she put the button in her hand.

It can be noisy but it is important for you to stay very still, the tech said as she prepared her to go into the MRI machine.

Yes, I understand, said Faith.

These will help with the noise, said the tech as she positioned headphones over Faith’s ears. As the stretcher began to move backwards, she concentrated on taking slow, deep breaths. She decided to close her eyes. She said she didn’t have claustrophobia, but she was not really sure about that. If she didn’t see the confined space, then she wouldn’t know she was in one, she thought. The noise started and it was loud despite the ear phones, but she tried to stay very still. It was very cold in the room and she started to tense up, which caused her neck to hurt and then her head to throb. She tried to think of being on the beach on warm sand. She wanted to relax but she couldn’t when she was so cold. Why didn’t they cover her with more than just a sheet, she thought, they must know how cold it is in here. Soon the noise stopped and she felt the table moving out of the machine.

When she returned from radiology, Dr. Ratner walked in, clipboard in hand, and drew the curtain around them. He began the exam, checking off lines on the preprinted exam form attached to the clipboard as he went and sometimes writing short notes.

Head and neck - No swelling, bruising or deformity. No lymphadenopathy.

Ears - Canals clear, tympanic membranes gray with good light reflex bilaterally

Throat - Non erythematous, tonsils non enlarged, no exudates, no lesions, .25 cm jagged laceration to R lateral tongue, no bleeding at present.

Lungs - clear, no rales, rhonchi or wheezes.

Dr. Ratner came around to the front of Faith and said, I’m going to move your gown aside so I can listen to your heart. As he opened her gown, he was startled to see a large mass on her left breast. His face remained neutral as he looked more closely and then turned to his clipboard and wrote 5x8 cm L breast mass, with macerated skin, central area of purulent drainage with foul odor. He turned back to Faith and asked how long it had been there.

Oh, that! She smiled sheepishly. I have had a sore there for a while. I think it started as a spider bite. You know what bad spiders we have in Arizona. But it is taking a long time to heal, so I was thinking it might be a brown recluse. They can really do damage to the skin. Right?

Yes, that’s true, but I don’t think it really fits the picture of a spider bite. Has anyone taken a look at it?

No, I thought it would just eventually resolve on its own. I’ve been using tea tree oil and aloe. There really isn’t medication for spider bites, you know. Well, of course you know, she said, smiling at Dr. Ratner.

Tell you what, I am just going to go down to radiology and review that MRI with the radiologist and then we can finish the exam, he said as he turned and walked out of the room. After that discovery, there was no sense in spending a lot of time working her up. He was sure the MRI would explain her seizure. He headed down to x-ray and found the radiologist in his dark little cubicle, staring at Faith’s MRI.

How can you sit in this dark hole all day, looking at x-rays and scans, said Dr. Ratner jokingly.

It’s what I do, said the radiologist with a smile. At least it’s quiet in here and I don’t have to deal with whiny patients like you do. He pointed to a mass in the left hemisphere of Faith’s brain MRI and said, That is the probable cause of your seizure. I think it is a metastasis from somewhere, not a primary tumor," he said as he tapped the cancerous growth on the film with the eraser on the end of his pencil.

Yeah, it’s most likely from her humongous, draining cancer of the left breast. Geez, she is either in incredible denial or pretty stupid. That thing has been there for a while and it would be really hard to ignore with it draining pus. The smell alone would send most people running to the doctor. How could you ignore that? She tried to tell me that she thought it was a spider bite that hasn’t healed.

Do you really think she believes that? said the radiologist.

I don’t know. She seems blissfully unaware and unconcerned. Now I’m the one that has to go tell her she has breast cancer with metastatic disease to the brain and that’s why she had a seizure. She doesn’t have a clue what is coming down the pike, said Dr. Ratner grimly as he looked at the radiologist.

"That’s why I’m a radiologist in my dark little hole. I get to diagnose the bad news but I don’t have to