The Chaotic Interim (boyxboy)

Chapter 13

Around one in the afternoon the day following Ayden’s mid-night seizure, two doctors finally approached the blonde girl’s parents. They were escorted away from the distressed spectators and taken into the room Ayden had previously been in.

It was there that they learned that Ayden was diagnosed with having a subdural hematoma. In easier terms, she had bleeding in between the layers of tissue outside of her brain. The seizure was a symptom common to having subdural hematomas, and often times they don’t occur right after the initial head injury, and that was what had happened to Ayden.

The accumulation of blood inside her head was increasing the pressure which ultimately caused the seizure. What was the hardest for Keri and Walt to bear when listening to the horrifying words coming from the doctors was that Ayden had been experiencing another two seizures since the first. And after extensive testing on her brain to find out what was wrong with the blonde, she had already fallen into a coma, which wasn’t uncommon as a result from a subdural hematoma.

Keri had been in fits and hysterics upon hearing the heartbreaking news, and even Walt’s resolve and hope was thinning enough for him to tear up as they doctors spoke with them about treatments and tactics.

When Walt ended up repeating everything to the six people watching with wide eyes and pursed lips, he also told them how Ayden was going to undergo a surgery where they drill a small hole in her head in order to suction out the blood clot underneath her skull. After that, there was no exact telling of whether or not Ayden would come out of her coma or when it would happen.

The doctors apparently scored her on something called the Glasgow Coma Scale. This told how severe a person’s coma was and what to expect as the person remained unconscious. Ayden’s parents were told that she had scored a nine which landed her in the moderate category of her coma’s severity.

Upon first hearing the news, both Josiah and Carson cracked. Their silence and stoic expressions dissolved immediately. They were barely even able to keep their cries--mostly those of Carson--under control enough so that they could still hear what Walt and Keri had to tell them.

The two boys who were so different in ways that brought them to be closer than any other pair of young men, were both reduced to tears as the thought of never hearing Ayden’s laugh or seeing one her famous eye-rolls ever again hit them. They were both so scared of what was going to happen that all they could do was forget to be embarrassed and melt into messy puddles of snot, tears, and incoherent mumbles and desperate pleas.

It took the doctors another twenty-four hours to observe Ayden and make sure they had everything right before they performed the burr hole surgery on her. It took another four hours for her loved ones to find out that everything had gone well and according to plan.

It was another six hours before Ayden’s parents were allowed to visit her in the Intensive Care Unit, and another day and a half before anybody else was allowed to see her. She was doing well. The doctors were satisfied with how her brain surgery had gone, saying all signs pointed to her remaining as healthy as possible, with no further injuries resulted from the procedure. They gave her pain relievers, medication to prevent further seizures, and fed her every kind of nutrient and supplement she needed for sustenance through a tube inserted into a vein in her arm.

The initial shock of seeing Ayden so lifeless and stock-still hit Carson and Josiah harder than hearing about it had. It wasn’t quite as bad as when she had the seizure in front of them, as they seemed to think that her lying peacefully--even if it was unintentional--was better than seeing her convulsing body that they kept revisiting in their dreams.

Carson cried again the first time they saw her through a window in the ICU. Josiah was tempted to throw up--as had become his body’s typical go-to defense when he saw or experienced something he probably shouldn’t have. But the sage-eyed boy did nothing but shed quiet tears as he pushed Carson’s face into his chest and shut his own eyes to the daunting sight on the other side of that see-through plexiglass.