Chapter
31
By
Rachel
Kevin stood
staring at the doctor with a look of shock on his face. He knew there was a
chance that Nick was going to die but couldn't bring himself to believe it, but
the words the doctor spoke just then brought the possibility of death to
reality.
"Kevin?"
Dr. Collins asked, bring Kevin out of his shocked state. "Are all the
families still here?" he asked.
Kevin nodded
and whispered "In the cafeteria".
Dr. Collins
turned around and looked that the nurse who was changing IV's "Becky, when
you get done changing Nickolas's IV's, can you please go down to the cafeteria
and ask Nick and Brian's families to come up here, I have something important I
need to talk to them about." Becky nodded and after she finished changing
the IV's, she silently walked out the door.
Dr. Collins
turned around to see Kevin clutching his cousin's hand with silent tears
rolling down his face and walked over towards him, placing a hand on his
shoulder. "Brian should wake up in a little while Kevin." he told the
young man in front of him.
Kevin nodded and gently released Brian's hand
and placed it gently by his side. He vacated the seat he was using and slowly
walked over to the other side of the room to where Nick was.
Dr. Collins
watched with sympathetic eyes and Kevin scooted a chair closer to Nick's
bedside and gently grasped his limp hand in his own. "Come on Nicky, you
are going to get through this you hear me? You made it this far, you just can't
give up now. You have to fight and fight hard." whispered Kevin as he used
his free hand to run his hand through Nick's hair, pushing it away from his
face as the tears continued running down his face.
Dr. Collins opened his mouth to offer Kevin
words of comfort but was interrupted by the sound of running coming from the
hall outside the ICU room and seconds later, the Littrells, the Carter's and
Kevin's mother appeared in the doorway with looks of worry apparent on all
their faces. Dr. Collins asked them to come in and started to explain sadly
what had happened and braced himself for the reaction the news would receive.
***
I woke up to
the sound of quiet talking and looked quickly around the room through tired
eyes and seen my parents on either side of me and my brother, aunt, and Kevin
at the foot of my bed with the Carter's all near the center of the room,
crying. I started to panic as I realized I had an oxygen mask covering my nose
and mouth and pulled my hands from my parent's grasp, trying to take the mask
off. My parents turned their attention immediately towards me in shock at my
sudden movements and Dr. Collins rushed to my bedside, gently moving my dad to
the side. "Calm down Brian." he said as he tried to pry my hands away
from my face. "The sooner you calm down, the sooner this mask comes off,
Brian." he said and waited patiently as I slowly calmed down. Once I
calmed down and my arms landed by my side from exhaustion, Dr. Collins gently
removed the mask and asked me to take a deep breath and I obediently did,
thankful that I could now breath without difficulty. Once he was satisfied that
I could breath on my own, Dr. Collins moved over to allow dad closer to my
bedside.
"So
Brian, I suspect that you would like to know what has all happened to you, am I
correct?" asked Dr. Collins. I nodded my head as quickly as I could but
stopped after a moment and said, "I want to know what is wrong with Nicky
first, sir." Dr. Collins looked at my parents and my dad gave him a shake
of his head. "I will tell you about Nickolas as soon as I tell you what
all has happened to you, I promise." stated Dr. Collins. I stubbornly
nodded and waited for him to continue. The next twenty minutes he explained to
me about what had happened during both my surgeries and the events leading up
to the surgeries and also including information about the surgery they were
planning on performing on my broken leg once my body was stronger. When he told
me that both Kevin and Harry gave me blood to make up for the blood I had lost,
I flashed them a grateful smile getting two small grins in return. After Dr.
Collins told me everything he wanted to about what happened to me, Kevin took
over the story telling and told me what happened while I was unconscious in the
plane. After he finished telling me and the room was silent once again I looked
around impatiently waiting for someone to tell me about Nick. I looked Dr.
Collins right in the eye and said "Well?" growing more impatient with
each passing second.
"Um Well
Nickolas isn't doing too well." Dr. Collins started. "On the way to
the hospital he went into cardiac arrest on the helicopter and they brought him
back and once he arrived here, we immediately pumped him full of antibiotics.
And last night we started him on this new experimental drug hoping that because
it was more powerful that it would clear up the pneumonia. That episode
Nickolas had earlier that you witnessed occurred because he had a severe
allergic reaction to the medication and his body of course didn't react well to
it. We started him on the weaker antibiotics right afterwards because we had to
take him off of the experimental drugs." Dr. Collins said. "So he doesn't
have a good chance of making it does he?" I asked in a trembling voice.
Dr. Collins shook his head sadly and said, "I'm afraid not Brian, this is
one of the worse if not the worse cases of pneumonia I have seen in all my
years of practice. Because he is so young, he has a better chance than an older
person of making it, but his chances are very slim because of all that has
happened to him and because of how weak his body is and also because the
pneumonia isn't getting better. I'm sorry Brian." he said as he watched
tears fill up my eyes. Seconds later I was crying uncontrollably and I felt my
mom put her arms around my trembling body and I automatically put my arms
around her, holding on for dear life, not ever wanting to let go.
***