Mitch's P.O.V.
Jerome took a fall in the dead of night, tripping over something I had left in the hallway and falling down the stairs. I hadn't been awake and was jolted awake by the sound of my boyfriend tumbling head over heels down the two flights of very steep stairs. I rushed from my bed, panicking, only to find him lying completely lifeless at the base of them, blood dripping onto the floor from a wound on the base of his neck.
I called an ambulance and it took all I had in me not to touch him because I wanted to cradle him, hold him in my lap, but I couldn't in case he had a spinal cord injury. All I could do was beg through the phone for them to hurry up because my boyfriend was unconscious, could be dying and I wasn't equipped to deal this especially at 2am in the morning.
I think I went into shock because later I didn't remember much of what was happening. I was wrapped in a blanket and sat in a private waiting room while I waited to hear what had happened to Jerome, too scared and not quite in my right mind enough to call someone to help me out, so I just sat there. A doctor came in sometime later to tell me what was happening.
"He's conscious now thank goodness but he has a pretty severe concussion and is incoherent, mumbling a bit and slurring his words. We're going to keep him in for another night or two just to keep an eye on him as more dangerous things can develop considering the seriousness of the fall like seizures or brain bleeds." I nodded slowly, still comprehending his words.
"No broken bones or anything? Just a head injury?" I finally asked, trying to think of something to say.
"No, nothing broken, no spinal injury, just head trauma in several places. There is one place that worries us, quite a severe trauma at the base of skull which may have resulted in cranial nerve damage. We'll have to wait and see but if the cranial nerves are damaged it could result in things like facial paralysis, vision or hearing loss and concentration issues."
My heart had sunk as soon as he began listing side effects but only nodded, trying to keep my breathing shallow, trying not to panic. Could this stupid injury from slipping and falling over something in the middle of the night permanently change his life? And, my heart sunk, it was my fault. I had left that hoodie at the top of the stairs, which he had slipped over, which caused this whole thing. I moaned quietly, covering my face with my hands.
"You can come and see him now." The doctor said gently. "He might be sleeping but I suggest you call someone, family or a friend to come and keep you company. We try not to have family alone here overnight on the first night."
"Alright." I said, standing from the chair shakily with my blanket still around my shoulders. The doctor turned to me.
"He is okay. There is nothing life threatening here, nothing that won't allow him to continue a perfectly normal life. We'll keep an eye on him with scans, make sure the concussion heals completely and then release him." He smiled a bit. "Before you get yourself worked up about this."
That did reassure me but the second I saw Jerome, lying on his side, that all went out the window. I gasped and rushed to his bedside but I paused when I saw that he was indeed sleeping. Almost all of his face and head were bruised, one eye swollen shut, marks on his jaw and cheek and forehead, and there were other bruises all over his exposed chest and arms. He looked like he had been beaten up.
"Oh Jerome..." I breathed, crouching down beside the bed. "Oh no..."
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For the first couple of days, the days he spent in hospital, everything seemed to be improving at a normal and healthy pace. Jerome was walking around, talking, laughing and eating properly, all the scans were coming up negative and all of the bruises seemed to be healing and fading away- until his first seizure.
No one had been expecting it, least of all me, so when he suddenly went from talking and watching videos with me to his eyes rolling back into his head and seizing so violently that he almost fell off the bed, I panicked all over again. I went right back to the moment I heard him fall down the stairs, scared, fearful and feeling completely and utterly useless. The nurses knew how to handle it, timing it, waiting until the shaking stopped, and then it was a complete and utter blur. So many scans and tests and uncertainty that I almost worked myself up to a panic attack again, barely managing to calm myself.
Things went downhill after that. After that first seizure we began to notice all the other symptoms that it seemed to have kicked into gear including numbness in his fingers and toes, slurred speech, dizziness, an almost complete loss of coordination to the point he couldn't walk, the loss of sensation on the left side of his face and, worst of all, deafness in his left ear. It all happened all at once after that seizure and we were set so far back I couldn't even see the next steps. It was devastating, for both of us.
Jerome was curled up, head tucked into my shoulder, when he slurred out a few weak sentences. He had been in hospital for over 3 weeks now and although the bruises were gone, the memories of what had caused it hadn't. It was also coming up on 3 weeks since that first awful seizure and with no more answers than when we began other than it was caused by the head injury and they were unsure if he would ever get better. He was in a wheelchair full time, no coordination to walk.
"Mitch?" He whispered, voice wobbling. "When can we go home? I just wanna go home."
"I don't know Jerome." I whispered back, sighing deeply. "But I want to go home too."
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Some mornings we sat at the bench and sipped on coffee, and some I sat on the floor and timed his seizure to make sure it wasn't dangerous. They weren't coming anymore frequently than they had at the hospital but it was still scary every time it happened because I immediately thought the worst.
We had to move house because of the accident for two reasons. One was because Jerome couldn't get up and down the stairs anymore, still in a wheelchair mostly full time, and the other was because he was terrified of those stairs, not wanting to go anywhere near them. I didn't mind moving either because I had this impending dread feeling in my chest whenever I saw those bloody stairs. I still blamed myself for that accident.
I had put that hoodie up at the top of those stairs because I was too lazy to take it down to the laundry, Jerome had got up to go downstairs and get a glass of water and he had slipped over it, leading to all this horrific mess and possibly permanent injuries.
No matter what Jerome told me I couldn't help but blame myself. He had near daily seizures, couldn't walk and was in a wheelchair almost permanently because of a loss of coordination, he could no longer hear out of his left ear, he still couldn't feel the left side of his face, he still slurred his speech and he still had periods of time that he couldn't feel his toes or fingers. All because of me.
What had we- he, he- done to deserve this? Why Jerome? What had we done to deserve these awful consequences?
I pressed a kiss to his forehead which earned a soft smile, a lopsided smile considering he still couldn't feel the left side of his face, but it was a smile never the less. He pressed himself a little closer to me, head tucked right into my neck just as he had done when we were in hospital.
"I love you Jerome." I whispered, running my arms down his side.
"Love you too Mitchy." He whispered back, smiling again. "You're the bestest friend and boyfriend I could ever have asked for."
