History 3: Make Our Days Count

I Was Losing Him

When they arrived at the hospital, Hao Ting never let go of Yu Shi Gu's hand.
"I'm sorry but he has to go into surgery now so you have to wait outside", a nurse told Hao Ting. He sat on the floor outside the doors with his head bent down in tears, when his phone started to ring. He took it out of his pocket after a few rings and saw the caller ID. He contemplated on rather to answer or not.
["Where are you man?, your parents have been waiting outside your place for an hour now"], Sun Bo said as soon as Hao Ting answered the phone. Hao Ting wanted to tell him everything but he knew that it would be better in person.
"I'm at the hospital", he said with a heavy heart.
["WHAT!, HOSPITAL!, WHY? WHAT HAPPENED!?"], Sun Bo shouted over the phone. Hao Ting didn't have the strength to explain it to him but he told him which hospital he was at and asked if he could let his parents know of his whereabouts as well.

Since there was a lot of traffic, it took Sun Bo and Hao Ting's family an hour to arrive at Taipei City Hospital. By that time, Yu Shi Gu was already out of surgery and placed in a room. In between that time, Sun Bo had called again to ask about what had happened and where Hao Ting would be but all he got out of him was his location.
When they entered the room, everyone was shocked to see Hao Ting covered in blood. With that image, they ran towards him asking if he was hurt but he never answered them rather looked at Yu Shi Gu. The attention soon shifted towards Yu Shi Gu, who laid in the bed motionless with only a soft raising and falling of his chest - indicating that he was still here. Seeing Yu Shi Gu there, made Hao Ting's mother fall into tears which caused Hao Ting to start crying too. Soon after, the room was full of sobs that Hao Ting's father decided to step out. As he did so, he wiped a tear and went to find a doctor to ask about what happened to Yu Shi Gu since Hao Ting wouldn't speak.

"Excuse me, do you know where I can find the doctor in charge of the patient in room 305?", he asked a nurse that was walking by.
"What is the name of the patient?", she asked him as she directed them towards an information desk.
"Yu Shi Gu", he replied as they walked. When they reached the desk; the nurse asked another colleague to pull up the information on Yu Shi Gu.
"The doctor responsible for him will come to his room after her meeting", the nurse over the desk said.
"What room is her meeting in?", Hao Ting's father asked the nurse.
"She's going to come to the patient's room after the meeting so you can just wait for her there", the nurse said.
"That's not what I'm asking, I want to speak to her personally so what room is the meeting?", he insisted. The nurse took a small piece of paper from a nearby draw and wrote down the meeting room number, plus the room number of the doctor's office just in case she had left the meeting. Hao Ting's father thanked her and made his way there.

When he reached the room where the meeting was supposed to be, it was empty. But it was a good thing that the nurse had wrote down the room number of the doctor's office and it was on the same floor as well. He walked down the corridor and came in front of the door of the office; he knocked a few times but there was no answer or sound from the other side of the door.
"Hello, can I help you?", a voice came from behind him. As he turned around, he saw a short-slim woman holding a mug.
"Is this your office?, he asked her and she nodded. "Well....you are just the person I came to see", he said and with that she ushered him inside. Her office was bright and smelled of plants - which made him snicker as it reminded him of his wife. Years ago, she had gone through a phase where she had brought so many plants and placed them all around the house that it reeked. At that time, Hao Ting was in elementary school and he'd bring his friends over every other day because our home was like an indoor rainforest. He smiled wider the further he got into the office. The scent made him feel some sort of warmth as the memory of Hao Ting smiling and playing filled his head. But he soon realised that the reality as of now isn't the case and sighed.

"Have a seat", she said as she put her mug on the table beside her chair.
"Thank you", he said as he sat.
"I'm doctor Lin Cai Zhu, how may I help you?", she asked.
"I wanted to get more information on Yu Shi Gu's case and I was told that you are the doctor in charge of that", he told her without stating his name.
"Are you his family?", she asked him. 
"Yes", he said. She reached out to the table next to her; took a file that lay there and started looking through it.
"Well....", she began saying and paused as she read. Hao Ting's father wanted to take the file from her hands and read it himself but he knew that he probably wouldn't be able to understand most of what it would say, so he waited for her to finish reading.
"Tell me the truth, no matter how bad it is", he said to her and she looked up from the file. She put it down and cleared her throat.
"Okay, he's in very bad shape", she said with a worried look.
"First of all, what happened to him that he's in this state?", he asked her.
"Don't you know what happened?", she asked him and he shook his head. "I thought you would have known since I was told he arrived with someone, that wasn't you?", she asked.
"That was my son, I and my family arrived here not long ago", he told her.
"I see....well he was involved in a car accident, some people who saw it take place said that the car wouldn't stop and it hit him as he was running by", she said. "He was hurt really badly and we don't know when he'll fully recover or even if he will", she stated and with that last sentence he looked at her alarmed.
"What do you mean that you don't know if he would recover at all?, is it that bad?", he asked her to clarify.
"You see when he arrived here; he was in very bad shape and considering his cracked skull and other injuries he gained to the head....we suspect brain damage....", she said as she opened the file again and showed him the x-rays.
"Is there nothing that can be done?", he asked her after looking at the x-rays.
"To be honest, we just have to wait and see when he wakes up....with that we can understand the state of the patient a bit more better", she told him.
"You're just suspecting brain damage but it's not for sure, right?", he said.
"We are sure that he has sustained some sort of harm to his brain but we could be wrong about him being brain dead", she told him as she picked up her mug and took a sip. Hao Ting's father didn't know what more to ask and stayed silent as he thought about all that he'd heard.