Crash

Bon voyages

"How long?" Penelope asked, fingers tapping nervously against her leg. She'd pulled herself free from her brothers, all her focus on the doctor. This answer was incredibly important. "How long until he wakes up?"

Again, the doctor shuffled his notes. He looked young, like he was fresh out of university. In the doorway, she spotted the attending, watching over the encounter. It felt strange, knowing that this doctor was clearly as nervous as she was, just for different reasons. It wasn't exactly comforting. 

"Ah, um...I mean it's hard to say exactly-"

"Well, you just said that he's clean. It wasn't because of pills this time. So when will he wake up?"

"It's not always as simple as that."

"Well why not? His heart will heal, right? And his liver, too. Then he'll wake up and he'll be okay."

"I think that we should avoid getting our hopes up. We need to be realistic."

Penelope's heart dropped right down to her toes. "What are you saying? I am being realistic. Frankie will wake up, won't he?"

The doctor didn't seem to know where to look. "Sometimes in cases like this, uh, the patient doesn't always recover. The studies are mixed, but-"

"Frankie isn't a study," she snapped, shaking off her brother as he tried to soothe her. "He's a person. A real person. You're saying he's just gone? You said he was okay!"

"I never said...I just meant..."

"David!" the attending barked, making the junior doctor practically jump out of his skin. "Go check on the lab results for Mrs Chen, please. Now."

David didn't need telling twice. He practically ran out of there, leaving carnage in his wake as the Jonas family hopes lay shattered on the ground. 

"Why don't you take a seat," the doctor said, his voice calm and controlled. "It's been a long few days. I'm sure you're all tired and in need of some rest."

"Just say it," Penelope muttered quietly, refusing to let it go. The doctor was right. She was tired. She missed home. The last thing she wanted was to spend more time in this godforsaken hospital. "Just tell us the truth."

"Frankie has severe organ failure," he told them, knowing better than to dance around the facts. "Physically, he's recovering well. The interventions have worked, but in situations like his, it's not always enough. Sometimes, the damage is too great. The body might recover, but the mind doesn't. I can't tell you with full certainty that your brother will ever wake up. We have to be prepared for that possibility. You also have to know that if he does wake, he might not be the same as he was before. He might have difficulty speaking, or moving. He might not recognise you or know who he is. This is just the beginning. The road ahead is very long, and very difficult. I want you to have an understanding of what you're facing."

"How long do we wait?" Kevin asked, trying to process what they were hearing. 

"We won't give up until we have reason to. For now, we stay patient. The timeline is hard to establish. It could take days, weeks. For some patients, it can be years before we see improvement. It's likely that he'll remain the same for a long time. It may be a while before we see any change."

The silence in the room was so loud that it was absolutely deafening. No one wanted to say it. No one wanted to acknowledge the fact that the outcome was still the same, no matter how they got there. 

"So you can't make him better?"

The doctor gave her a sympathetic look, like he'd delivered this exact speech a hundred times before, knowing exactly how it would go. "We'll do our best. All there is to do now is wait. Go home, get some rest. You can visit whenever you'd like. But there's nothing more that you can do for Frankie now. Look after yourselves. That's the best advice we can give."