Chapter 11

The doctor who was treating Brian at St. Paul's, Dr. David Ashmore had called Dr. Simms at St. Joseph's in Lexington. Dr. Simms had insisted that Brian be brought back to Lexington. So, the next day, everyone made plans to go back to Lexington. Alexa and Brian's parents had stayed at the hospital overnight. The Boys had gotten a hotel room. They still had their tour bus with them, so everyone decided to ride back on that. They insisted Brian be taken in an ambulance instead of riding on the bus, just in case. Alexa wanted to ride with him, but his parents did too, and all three of them couldn't fit, so she let his parents go, and she rode in the bus with the rest of the guys. The trip took about four hours. Finally, they arrived in Lexington, safe and sound.

Brian was immediately checked into the hospital. Dr. Simms gathered them all together in Brian's room so he could talk to them.

"Ok, everyone," he began, "the first thing I want to do is run some tests on Brian to check on the condition of his heart. Many times, when transplant patients get an illness like this, they go through a period of rejection." Alexa's eyes widened.

"What do you do about that?" Brian's father asked.

"Well, normally, we would give him a higher dose of immune suppressant drugs," Dr. Simms said.

"But wouldn't that make it harder to fight off the bronchitis?" Brian's mother asked.

"That's exactly what the problem is," Dr. Simms said. "I want to do a heart biopsy and some other tests to see if the heart is beginning to reject. Maybe we'll get lucky." Alexa looked at Brian. She saw the look of fear in his eyes, but when he saw her looking at him, he tried to disguise it and flashed her an encouraging smile. She offered a tiny smile back.

***

A short while later, everyone left the room and went out into the waiting room to wait while Brian went through the tests. Dr. Simms told them he wouldn't have any results until that evening.

***

That evening, Dr. Simms gathered everyone into Brian's room again to go over the test results. Alexa climbed onto the bed with Brian and laced her fingers through his.

"The heart biopsy shows minor rejection," Dr. Simms told them. Alexa squeezed Brian's hand so tightly her knuckles were white. His hand felt as cold as ice in hers. Jackie put covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a sob. "Now remember," Dr. Simms continued, "I told you that minor episodes of rejection are common when the patient has an infection."

"How are you going to make it stop?" Howie asked. Alexa could see the worry in his eyes.

"We'll start by giving him higher doses of his immune-suppressant drugs and see if that will work," Dr. Simms replied.

"What if it doesn't?" Kevin asked.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Dr. Simms said. "Hopefully, this will work."

"What about the bronchitis?" Brian's father wanted to know.

"We'll give him some more antibiotics to fight it off." They all nodded. Then Dr. Simms left. A nurse came in and put in a new IV for the immune-suppressant drugs. Then she changed the other IV bag, which contained the antibiotics. The guys and Brian's parents went down to the cafeteria for dinner. Alexa didn't have an appetite and stayed in the room with Brian until he dozed off.

***

 

 

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