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She stepped on the garbage can pedal next to her and tossed the disposable gown in. “I’ll give the doctor a call and let him know you’re here so that he can come speak to you.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
When the nurse walked away, Rush and I approached the bed still hand in hand. Edward looked frightening. There was a tube down his throat, a tube up his nose, and at least four bags of medicine running from an IV pole to his hand. A machine flashed all kinds of numbers to his left, while another machine hissed breaths into his body from the right. He looked so pale and weak.
Neither of us said a word as we stood there. At one point, I watched Rush close his eyes, and I thought he might have said a little prayer. Then he did something I never expected. He reached down and took Edward’s hand. I had to swallow to keep my tears at bay.
The silence didn’t break until a doctor broke it for us.
“Hello. I’m Dr. Morris.” He extended his hand and shook both of ours.
“Rush. I’m Edward’s…son. And this is Gia.”
“Hi,” I said, grateful that Rush had snapped out of it enough to converse with the doctor.
Dr. Morris nodded his head toward the nursing station nearby. “Why don’t we talk over there?”
Away from Edward’s bedside, he put his hands on his hips and sighed.
“So…your father was brought in with a ruptured aneurysm. In case you aren’t familiar with the term, an aneurysm is basically a balloon-like bulge that pops out of an otherwise normal artery wall. Unfortunately, it’s common that there are no symptoms of the bulge until it grows and the pressure becomes so much that it ruptures. Picture a straw with a small crack and an uninflated balloon sticking out of it. Over time, through the pressure of our blood pumping, the balloon starts to inflate until it becomes so full that it bursts. That’s what happened to your father. It’s called a subarachnoid hemorrhage.”
“Okay. So his balloon gave way and now, what, everything that was inside goes where?” Rush said.
“That’s half the problem. The blood releases into the space around the brain. It’s essentially a hemorrhagic stroke and can cause some pretty severe damage, such as paralysis, coma and…worse. In some patients who make it to the hospital, the bleeding slows or stops by itself. Other times it doesn’t, and the patient isn’t stable enough when we go in and try to stop it. Your father’s bleeding seems to have slowed, for the most part. Which is good, because performing surgery to open up his skull while he’s in this weakened condition would pose significant risk for complications.”
“It slowed, not stopped?”
“That’s right. So now we’re at a point where we need to weigh the risks of further complications from the slow bleeding, against the risk of bringing him into surgery to try and stop the bleeding altogether while his vitals remain this unstable.”
“And which is riskier?”
“Unfortunately, the risk is pretty even. If we don’t stop the bleeding, he could have further damage. Although we don’t yet know what damage he’s already incurred. But if we go in to stop it, there’s a good chance he won’t make it out of the O.R.”
“Jesus.” Rush dragged his fingers through his hair.
“What are you recommending?”
“My current recommendation is to hold off on the surgery, at least for a few hours to see how things go. We’ll, of course, keep scanning him to look for any changes one way or the other. But you need to understand that there’s a risk in waiting, as well. I’ll need you to think it over, and give me some guidance on how you think your father would want to be treated.”
We talked to Dr. Morris for another twenty minutes. Rush asked questions about potential outcomes to waiting versus having the surgery, including how Edward’s quality of life might be. I don’t think I would have been able to be in such a clear frame of mind had it been my father—or even my own estranged mother. But Rush pulled it together, and by the end of the conversation, he seemed well informed and said he’d speak to his brother and get back to him soon.
“It’s a big decision,” the doctor said. “Just have the nurse page me if you have any more questions.”
“I will. Thank you.”
The doctor patted Rush on the back and gave me a nod. As he started to walk away, Rush stopped him. “Doc?”
He turned back.
“Can he hear us? You had us step out to talk. So does that mean he can hear us?”
“We’re not sure, son. Sometimes patients come out of it and remember random things that they couldn’t have known without hearing. But most of the time patients don’t recall having heard anything when they wake back up. Although that doesn’t mean they aren’t hearing you during their time out. I’d encourage you to try to talk to him. The benefits to both of you might be important.”
