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“Ethan, it’s good to have you with us. We weren’t sure if you’d make it.”
“What’s the verdict, Doc? Am I going to recover to normal?”
“Well, we have a lot of tests to run, but the fact that you are sitting up, talking in full sentences, and seem to understand what is being said to you is a plus. Your skull was fractured, and you had a couple of brain bleeds. We had to go in and pick out a few fragments too and reattach your arm.”
I glanced at my left arm and saw a brace around it. It looked like something you’d wear if you had a sprain, not if it had been severed. “Reattach it?”
“Yeah, it was almost sheared off, but we believe with a lot of physical therapy, you will recover completely with that. Wes Young had a friend of his flown in to complete the surgery. Best damn orthopedic surgeon I’ve ever seen. That arm might work better now than it did before. Can you wiggle your fingers?”
I looked down at my hand and concentrated. My fingers wiggled a little bit, and I knew he wasn’t joking about how much rehab it was going to take. My eyes strayed further down my body to where I had a full black leg brace on. “What the hell happened to my leg?”
“You shattered your knee. We think that’s from hitting the dashboard as you flew out of the vehicle. He fixed that too. I expect the recovery to be slow on both counts, and you might have to have another surgery or two, but you should recover fully.”
“Another surgery? How many have I had?”
“Five so far. One on your head and where we reattached your arm enough so that it wouldn’t die, then you had another one a few days later to fix everything on your arm, and one on your leg a couple of days later. They did a second surgery on your shoulder about three weeks ago, and a second one on your knee last week.”
“Wait? What? How the hell long have I been here?”
The doctor looked at my father and then back at me. “Ethan, you’ve been in a coma for eleven weeks.”
I stared at him and then turned to my father. Were they serious? Eleven weeks? How was that possible?
“You’re joking, right?”
“No, at first, we weren’t sure if you’d survive at all, but then we put you into a medically induced coma so you could heal. You fought us sometimes, and then you stopped fighting and started healing. We took you off the drugs to keep you in a coma, and you have remained there for seven weeks. We figured that eventually, you’d wake up when you were ready.”
I shifted my eyes around the room, unsure how to digest this information.
The doctor patted my arm. “Look, you’re awake, and you seem to be doing really well. We want to keep you calm and unstressed if we can so you don’t revert into an unconscious state. In the meantime, we are going to start tests, and we can get you scheduled with a therapist to evaluate your neurological functions as well as your physical functions and make a game plan.”
“Do you think I’m going to recover enough to go back to work? I’m a police officer.”
“Ethan, you survived an accident that I didn’t think anyone could survive. I think that if Wes Young hadn’t been there at the scene, you wouldn’t have lived, but he did a trauma surgery on you in the helicopter on the way here that saved your damn life. If you can survive that accident, you are one tough son of a bitch, and I don’t doubt that you will make a full enough recovery to be back on the force as quickly as you can.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
“You’re welcome, Ethan. I’ll check in with you again later after a few of your test results come in.”
After the doctor left, my sister came around to my other side. “I’m going to go call everyone and let them know they can come to see you.”
“No, don’t,” I told her softly. “Look, I’m glad you two are here, but I don’t want to see anyone else, not right now.”
“No one?” my father asked.
I shook my head. “No, I need some time to think. I have to process everything that he said and get this testing done. Just let everyone know I’m alright, and I’ll give you a call in a day or two. Then you guys can visit.”
My sister looked stricken. “Ethan, we have been here every single day watching over you. We can’t just walk away now.”
I snapped at her, “I appreciate that Cara, but I need some damn space to think. Is that alright with you?”
She shuffled back slightly and peered at my father. “Cara, go wait in the hallway.”
She clamped her jaw, and I wasn’t sure if that was to keep herself from crying or shouting. She turned and rushed out the door.
“Ethan, that was a little rude. She was worried about you. We all were.”
“I’m sorry, I get it, but I have a lot to think about.”
