The three brothers waited anxiously in her room for her to return. It had been 4 hours since she had gone back to surgery and they were painstakingly waiting.
No news was good news right? Elijah thought.
The room only had two chairs and Harlan was sat in one with Joe in the other, leaving Elijah sprawled on the windowsill.
One of the assistant doctors came out and Elijah's heart pounded, thinking something had gone wrong. Not too Addie, not his Addie. He sighed in relief when he informed them she was doing well. They were half way through and her body was responding well.
After 5 hours Elijah left to go to the cafeteria, he grabbed some sandwiches, drinks and snacks before heading back to the room. He soon found he couldn't eat anything, the muscles in his stomach were twisted into a tight knot.
"How's Addie?" Riley asked down the phone as Elijah answered it on speaker.
"She's doing well" Harlan responded momentarily glancing up from his paperwork and grabbing a sandwich of his younger brothers.
Elijah stretched his back, he had been on the uncomfortable windmill for 7 hours. He bent down to touch the floor, never once taking his mind off of Addie.
Elijah felt the wind rustling through his hair. He had gone outside for some fresh air for a few minutes, he couldn't stand in the tense room with his anxious brothers for any longer.
Adeline had been back in theatre for just over 9 and a half hours when her surgeon came back into the room at 6pm, he looked exhausted and needed a cup of coffee.
"How is she?" Elijah jumped up, the first to notice him walk through the door.
"She is doing will, she is in recovery at the moment, we will bring her up to the PICU soon. The damage to her pulmonary valve was more extensive than we thought, she had to have it replaced as well, I'm sorry." he glanced at Harlan, unsure of what is reaction would be.
"We did successfully manage to transplant a aortic valve and repair the tricuspid valve. There were some minor complications, her heart stopped beating twice, b-"
Elijah zoned out as he said that, the news was a lot to handle.
Addie was right. She did die. Twice.
Her heart stopped beating twice and they had to shock her back to life.
*******************
Her brothers stared down at Addie in shock. She looked awful; she was absolutely covered in tubes, wires and lines. Her small body was barely seen.
She was on a ventilator to breathe, the large tube filling her airway. Another tube was going from her nose and into her stomach to drain stomach contents. She had what seemed like hundreds of IV and PICC lines in, all connecting to different pumps and machines, pumping her full of medication.
ECG wires, blood pressure and SATS monitors, catheters, pacing wires, morphine drips and chest tubes. Everything streaming in and out of her body to attempt to keep her alive, stop her from dying.
Dried blood was around the tube in her mouth that was held open, allowing her to breath. The whirring sound of pumps and machines and soft beeping and loud blaring alarms comforted Elijah, they let him know she was alive.
YOU ARE READING
kindred
Teen FictionAll Adeline Kingston has known is pain. Years of agony, anguish and anger. Brothers. Addie has 7, not that she knew. When she is reunited with her older brothers her life changes. For the better or worse, no one could say. Adeline knows there are se...
