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WHEN I OPEN MY eyes, Jimmy Cunniff is sitting next to my bed.

“Hi,” he says.

He puts up his hand, in a small, almost sheepish wave.

“Hi,” I say.

Groggy as I am, I look around and can see I’m in a hospital room.

“How long was I out?” I ask.

“Since last night,” he says.

I can see I’m hooked up to an IV and to a heart monitor that is hopefully doing efficient, heart-monitoring things.

“I remember being in the ambulance,” I say. “And then nothing after that.”

“I was there with you, till you went out again,” he says. “Ben and me. I had to practically pull a gun on them to let us ride with you.”

I slowly lift my hand, the one with the IV port attached to it, the same kind they used on me for chemo. My arm feels so heavy, like I’m trying to lift up the back of my car.

“What happened to me?” I ask.

From the other side of the room, I now hear the voice of Dr. Sam Wylie.

“A whole bunch of bad shit,” she says, “all at once.”

She comes around my bed now and stands behind Jimmy.

“Is that your professional opinion, doctor?” I ask her.

She smiles.

“Not exactly as I was taught in med school,” she says. “But I gotta say, pal, in this case it’s accurate as shit.”

The room goes silent then, except for the monitor. I hear the PA system outside in the hallway, a nurse being summoned to one of the rooms on my floor. The ping of an elevator bell. Hospital sounds. Again. I’ve spent too much time in hospitals lately, in two countries.

Now I am back.

It never ends.

But I knew that before ending up here again.

“Is this about my cancer?” I ask Sam Wylie finally.

“Yes and no,” she says.