Chapter
37
By Rachel
Howie
and AJ ran down the halls towards the ICU barely able to hold in their
excitement of being able to tell everyone that Nick was finally awake. As they rounded the corner their bodies came
in contact with something and they both let out a loud "OOMPF" as
they hit the floor hard. They shook their
heads and focused on what they had run into and their eyes opened in shock as
they seen Kevin and Harry sprawled out on the floor a few feet away from each
other. "Oops," AJ and Howie
said sheepishly as they got up from the floor and offered help to Kevin and
Harry. "Didn't mean to knock you
guys down."
"No problem," said Harry as he got
up from the floor with AJ's help.
"Where are you two off to in such a hurry?" asked
Kevin dryly as he got up from the floor and brushed non-existent dirt off of
his clothes.
"Nicky
woke up!" exclaimed AJ excitedly. He watched anxiously as Kevin's eyes
widened and he smiled the first real smile he had smiled in days.
"Let's
go tell his parents the good news," said Howie as he broke into a run with
AJ following him. Harry and Kevin looked at each other and shrugged, also
breaking to a run to try and catch up with the other two men in front of them.
***
Within
a few seconds the group of four made it to the waiting room causing everyone to
look up. The Littrells and all the Carters
looked up at the group with fear in their eyes, expecting bad news. "Harry what is wrong?" asked his
mother as he sat down beside of her.
"Nick
is awake, mom," he said with a small grin on his face as he watched what
everyone's reaction would be. After a
few moments of silence, soft sobs were heard as Nick's mother hugged her
husband with tears of joy running from her eyes. Harry smiled as Nick's younger siblings hugged
each other after hearing the great news.
He watched as Nick's parents both got up from their seats and ran
towards out of the room towards their son's ICU room.
Harry couldn't help but feel a tiny bit
jealous. He was happy that Nick was
awake, but he also knew that his little brother wasn't awake yet and from what
Dr. Collins had said he may never wake up.
"That is exactly what he said about Nick," thought Harry to
himself "Maybe another miracle will
occur and Bri will wake up also."
He settled back into the uncomfortable waiting room chairs and began to
ask God for another miracle that would bring his brother back to him and his
parents.
***
About 15 minutes after the Carter's
left they entered the waiting room with big smiles on their faces. "How is he doing?" asked Jackie
anxiously awaiting news on the condition of her son's best friend.
"He seemed alert. Dr. Collins is taking him down for testing
and he said he should be back up here in about an hour to tell us the
results," answered Jane. Jackie nodded
and smiled slightly as she got comfortable in her seat waiting for news along
with everyone else and hoping that great news about her precious son would also
come soon.
***
After everyone was sitting in the waiting room
anxiously for an hour and a half, Dr. Collins entered the room with a dazed
expression on his face. Without greeting anyone, he began his report
immediately. "Nickolas' tests results
are in. They show no sign of brain damage and the chest x-rays show that the
pneumonia is slowly leaving his lungs and his fever is down 3 degrees to 103
degrees. There is no way I can explain this except to say this is a miracle.
The breathing tube will probably come out later tonight because of his
miraculous rate of progress," finished Dr. Collins with a smile. The smile
was short lived when Brian's father asked how his son was.
"There
has been no change in his condition Mr. Littrell. I'm really sorry," stated Dr. Collins
sadly. "Two of you at a time may
visit Nickolas," he said quickly changing the subject. Again everyone allowed his parents to go
first and waited anxiously for their turn to see that Nick really was alive.
***
When
AJ and Howie entered the waiting room after visiting their two friends, Harry
and Kevin stood up and walked towards the ICU room for their turn to
visit. They both entered the room and
walked over towards Nick to see that he was asleep making a mental note to
themselves that they would talk to him the next day when he was awake and
hopefully had the breathing tube out of his throat.
The young cousins walked over to the other bed
in the room that held their family member and both pulled a seat up towards the
bed to be closer to the lifeless man in the bed.
"Hey
Bri," whispered Harry as he took his brothers cold hand in his "They
say people in comas can hear everything that is said to them so I guess I will
talk to you. I hope you can hear me so I
don't feel like an idiot talking to myself." he said with a small
chuckle "Kev is here also and we
have some great news for you. Nick woke
up a few hours ago, I hope this news will bring you back to us, Bri. I know how you didn't want to live if he
didn't but now since he is going to be ok, you can come back to us."
A
soft knock at the door was then heard and Becky opened the door and stuck her
head inside. "Guys visiting hours
are over. You will have to come back in
the morning" she said sympathetically.
Kevin and Harry nodded and left the room after taking one last look back
and made their way back to the waiting room.
As soon as the door shut and all the lights
turned out, Nick's eyes slowly opened as tears ran down his face. He felt horrible that his friend wanted to
die for him and knew that once he was alone and could talk, he would talk to
Brian to let him know he was OK, hoping that hearing his voice would wake Brian
up. As he set that goal inside his mind,
the exhaustion and excitement of the day's events overcame him and he fell into
a deep, dreamless sleep.
***
