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Lorena snorted at the young nurse but changed her demeanor when she spoke to the helpful, older one. “Thank you very much. I appreciate it.” She spun on her heel and headed to her father’s room.
From behind, she heard the snotty nurse get an ass-chewing from her elder. “Just answer their questions and stop with your attitude. People are going through enough when they get here. No one cares that your boyfriend just dumped you.”
Lorena let herself enjoy that small victory, if only for a second, before entering the hospital room.
She couldn’t get used to the sight before her, no matter how many times she’d come to visit her father since he’d been admitted.
Tubes snaked through and over most of his face, and he was attached to a monitor that measured his heart and brain functions in case another seizure hit.
He appeared so small and feeble for such a strong man who was the complete center of her universe. It was hard to accept, let alone look at.
She didn’t want to picture him like this.
Lorena cautiously approached his bedside, listening to the deafening noise of the ventilator and monitors surrounding him.
She touched his limp hand that had the IV stuck in it when his doctor spoke.
“Ah, Miss D’Augustino. Glad you could make it here so quickly.”
Lorena jumped and almost knocked over her father’s IV drip before catching herself.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” Dr. Marilesse apologized.
“No. It’s not you. I’m just a little jumpy, I guess. The nurse told me you were in here, but I just …” She glanced at her father and choked back her cracking voice.
“I get it. There is no need to explain,” Dr. Marilesse interrupted, which Lorena was thankful for. She’d tried to keep it together every time she’d visited, but this was harder than all the other times.
She finally got a grip on herself and faced the blue-eyed doctor. “I know you said he’s deteriorating, but what does that mean exactly?” She had to keep her eyes on the doctor if she was going to be able to focus and figure out the next step.
He looked crest-fallen at her request. That is not a good sign.
“Unfortunately, what it means is that he needs life-saving treatment, and that’s putting it simply. His brain is continuing to swell, and we are doing all we can to keep it from being permanently damaged or causing damage to other areas of his nervous system. Right now, the only way to do that is to keep him in a coma.”
Lorena took a slow deep breath through her nose before asking her next thought. “Okay. So, since things are going downhill fast for him, what do you recommend?”
The doctor’s eyes looked nervous. Lorena knew what that meant. It was going to come down to money. Money she didn’t have.
“He’s going to require monitoring day and night. He will not only need surgery as soon as possible on his brain, but private personal care would be best, and a team dedicated to him of the best neurologists to figure out how much damage is being done, what has already been done, and what they can do to reverse it and make him … better. Medicine on top of the care and PT will be necessary as well. It’s going to be a long uphill battle.”
“But aren’t you doing everything you can now?”
“We are, but we would need to bring specialists in for his condition. All the things I mentioned, on top of that, the insurance only pays so much. A co-payment will need to be paid, and it will be high. Usually, I don’t like to talk about money, but you told me at the beginning that you had limited funds and needed to be aware of what things were going to cost. Plus, with all these additions, I have to go over the costs with you for legal reasons so the hospital doesn’t get sued.”
She had to ask the next question. “What if he doesn’t receive this treatment?”
There was a moment of silence before Dr. Marilesse responded. “Then I’m afraid he doesn’t have much time left. He’s going downhill faster since the seizures. It could be a month, maybe less, maybe more. With him in this state, I can’t give you a specific length of time as we can’t specify the damage and cause of the increased swelling.”
Lorena was trying to take shallow breaths and suppress her tears while the doctor gave her all the information.
It wasn’t good, not good at all.
She needed money to save her father, and it was far beyond her means. Just because she wasn’t filthy rich, she was about to have to say goodbye to the only family she had left.
“Can you give me a moment with him?” she finally choked out in a raspy whisper.
The doctor nodded sadly and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Once she heard it click, Lorena dropped to her knees beside her father’s bed and cried. She cried like she hadn’t cried in God knew how long.
