Pushed Over the Lmit- Chapter 19- February 10th- 2 PM

A Chapter by John Duprey

How will they take doctor's concerns about Brad?

It was only my mom and I out in the waiting room, I don’t know where they put my dad at. I don’t know if it is a crime to almost assault a doctor like he did, but he came close. He is probably still in shock over the whole thing. My mom told me it took him a long while for him to come to facts that I almost died because of suicide. I don’t believe he is over what almost happened to me, and now his other son is in the ICU about to die.

“If your father never overreacted like that, we still be able to be with Brad because we don’t know if he is going to make it,” my mom quietly tells me as I notice a tear slowly falls from her face, once again.

“We have to be strong,” I tell her as I notice my eyes to get watery. “Have to be strong,” I whisper to myself as I fight as much tears I can. We both there, silent. We don’t speak at all until we both are suddenly jolted by the voice of Dr. Kanes calling our names. We both jump up and head right for the door to where he is.

“Come with me,” he tells us as he starts walking. He doesn’t say anything to us, and we don’t say anything to him, we just walk. He opens the door to an empty room with just chairs and a table.

“Take a seat,” he tells us. We both sit down. My mom and I are sitting next to each other and Dr. Kanes is sitting across from us. He slouches in his chair a little before he finally sits up with his back not even touching the back of the chair.

“You probably both know why I brought you in here.” We both just sit there, silent waiting for him to tell us that Brad died or something. “We need to talk about Brad.” He takes a deep breath and starts talking. “Brad’s condition is not the greatest by any measure. If we take him off life support right now, he will die. He does have severe swelling in his brain. He has several broken bones, and a punctured lung, which means his breathing is very limited. We will continue to monitor to him during the next few days. We predict if the swelling doesn’t go down within the next few days, then he will have serious brain and motor skill function. He will be almost virtually brain dead.” Both our faces are stoned still. We are still processing the information.

“How much of a percentage does he have to live through his ordeal,” my mom asks. You can easily tell that she is choking up again.

“In general or to survive without any defects of his injuries?”

My mom swallows, “both.”

“Well, from what we have observed, he has about a 20% of living through his ordeal.” My mom’s head just drops into her hands, and she starts to sob loudly. I feel a tear coming on. Losing my brother would be tragic, but knowing that he died right after I just through my ordeal is more tragic. He won’t even see me get better, if I ever get better. I would feel terrible attempting suicide again because I would feel so bad that my parents would lose both their children around the same time, and at a young at well. I cannot bear to lose another person in my life.

“Will he have any higher chance of getting better?” I ask him.

“No, Kyle. Unless something substantial happens, he will be the way he is,” he tells me. I feel a few teardrops streaming down my face. My face is all red and my eyes are all watery. I cannot hold back anymore, I break down. I plop down into my arms, and sob loudly. Everything that I’m feeling is coming out right now, and this is the only way I can express myself.

“I’ll let you guys be for the moment. You guys can take as long as you want in here. I will come and get you when you can come in and see Brad again. I’ll give you an update on your husband, Mrs. Jenson, when I get one, okay?” He seemed sincere about everything after being attacked by my dad. I swear if my dad pulls anymore stupid s**t at this hospital, he is going to get us kicked out here and banned. If that ever happens, I would seriously consider killing him because if I can’t say goodbye to my brother, then there is no point of me being here. I hear the door slowly and creakily shuts as Dr. Kanes leaves us. My mom and I don’t move, we just sob into each other’s arms. I cannot stop crying, a flood is being released from my eyes because of all the emotions that I have been bottling up ever since the night I got raped. I know I’ve cried many times before this, but being on the heels of my brother’s death, it makes every particular emotion that I’ve had during all time much more surreal.

My mom and I cried for about five more minutes, I tried to stop crying because I can’t keep crying because it’s not going to fix my problems, besides I feel like I’m going to puke, and I’m running out of breath, I just can’t keep going. I sat up in my chair, and started rubbing my mom’s back. I don’t believe she was crying anymore, but she is sniffling.

“Mom?” I ask. There was a short pause, she didn’t say anything. I touched her arm and rubbed it. I feel bad for her, I can’t imagine what she is going through. After a moment, she finally looked up at me. She doesn’t say anything. I don’t want to make her cry again, but we need to make an important decision.

“Mom?” I ask once again. She looks up. She doesn’t say anything, but she engages my acknowledgement to let me know that I can continue. “What are we going to do?” I ask. My mom sits up. She takes off her coat, and hands me her car keys.

“Hold on to these for the moment, I have no pockets.”

“What do you mean? What are we going to do?” She asks me in a hushed and harsh voice, she clears her throat after she asks me that. I force myself to ask this, but it seems like the words cannot come out.

“What are we going to do about Brad,” I ask her in an extremely hushed voice.

“It’s not in our control, Kyle.”

“Think about it. As much as it hurts me to say this, but if Brad survives his injuries, he’s not going to be normal whatsoever.”

“Where are you going with this, Kyle?” She asks me curious voice.

“You will have your son, mom, but he will never be the same. He will be brain dead.” I take a breather, and look at her straight in the eyes. “As much as it hurts all of us, I think it is best for Brad for not to suffer. I think we should let him go.” My voice cracks every time I talk. I feel a tear jerk out of my tear duct and leave a trail of wetness down my face as I finish what I was saying. I see a few tears fall down my mom’s face as well. It undoubtedly made my mom’s heart shatter hearing me say to let my brother go. She breathes, and says, “Do you think it’s the best thing to do?”

“If he isn’t going to get any better, it is the best thing to do,” I tell her.

“Okay. I want to talk to your father before we make any final decision because his decision matters to me, even though he got us kicked out of Brad’s room.

“Okay.” We both get up and make our way to the door. I open it slowly just to make sure there is no more commotion around, or any involving my dad.

“Coast is clear,” I say behind me to my mom. We both exit as quietly as possible. We walk to the nurse’s station which is about fifty feet away from where we were. I approach one of the nurses.

“Um…Excuse me,” I start to say.

“Hi,” she smiles.

“I’m Kyle Jenson and this is my mom, and we were wondering if we could see my brother, Brad. One of the nurses, I think it was her over there,” I pointed to the nurse that told us to leave. She told us to leave, and Dr. Kanes said we can go back to see him when it’s okay to go see him, and we didn’t know when that was?”

“Let me check for you, wait here.” She walks over to the nurse that I told her that we had to leave, and they looked like they were having a disagreement about what was going on. The nurse that told us to leave walks right over to us. Great, another encounter with this b***h.

“I’m sorry guys, but at the moment Brad is too unstable for you to see him,” she tells us. Are you f*****g kidding me right now? Unstable? He is probably no different then what he was thirty minutes ago when we saw him. My blood is starting to boil.

“Has something changed?” I clenched my teeth and said.

“No, but like I told you earlier, we don’t need that kind of hostile environment for the patient.” Wow. Really? She is not letting the people who didn’t cause a disturbance into Brad’s room.

“I would like to see my brother please!” I started to raise my voice. She knew I was stern, and I was serious.

“Calm down, Kyle,” my mom tried grasping my arm.

“No, Mom, I need to do this,” I told her as I released my arm from her grip. “Listen,” I look at her straight in the eyes. “We don’t know if we have much more time with him, so I would appreciate to see him. Plus, I think he would rather have his family next to him, over you people!” I told her in a snooty tone. She backs away from my face about six inches.

“I’m sorry honey, but no. I told you, I can’t let you in right now.” My jaw dropped instantly. That was it. My breaking point was about ten seconds ago. I looked her straight in the eyes once again, “You cold-hearted b***h!” I yelled. I emphasized ‘b***h’ much louder and harsher so that she would get it across that I was pissed. I turn around and walk away. As I was walking away, I held up my middle finger above my head so that she could clearly see it.

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© 2015 John Duprey

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Maya Jane

Well dang Kyle. That nurse needs to treat them better because it's their family member in the hospital not hers. Kyle did the right thing by flipping her off.