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.

***

 

 

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