Finding Jaime

Chapter 107

As soon as we arrived at the hospital, Jaime was wheeled back and I was held out in the waiting area.  I gave the staff the information they asked for, Jaime's insurance information, what medications he was still on based on what was in his chart there. I was trying to hold it together. I had to believe that Jaime was going to be okay, but what I'd overheard in the ambulance, things were not looking good. 

From what they could gather, he'd been beaten up pretty badly. He had multiple broken ribs, and they said they couldn't be sure he had any ribs that weren't broken. He'd been kicked in the head and definitely had a concussion. There was blood coming from one of his ears. His nose had been broken, his jaw was dislocated and his right cheekbone was fractured. His left arm was broken, his right shoulder was broken. His pelvis was fractured. Both his legs were broken. He'd suffered a lot of blunt force trauma and the paramedics said they couldn't be sure it was just from kicking. They said it looked like he may have been hit with a baseball bat or something.

The broken bones would heal. That much we were sure of. My fear was his head. He had been hit, or kicked, in the head. How much? How badly? And if so, with the issues he's had in the past, would it make things worse? How much damage had been done? Could Jaime survive this? Would he want to?

I sat in the waiting area with the police still asking me questions that I didn't have answers to. I didn't know Jaime's 'friends'. I only knew Emmanuel's mother and that was only because of Emmanuel's funeral and having been in touch with her a little bit since Tanya's funeral and before Emmanuel's when Jaime was getting information about the service.

I answered to the best of my abilities, but my abilities weren't very good. There was just so much about Jaime's previous life that I didn't know.

I waited hours in that uncomfortable waiting room until somehow the press had learned about Jaime and they'd descended on the hospital.  It was only then that the hospital was able to move me to a more private area so I could be left alone.  I sat in that tiny waiting room, alone, for more and more hours.  Occasionally a nurse would come in and give me an update on something that was happening as the doctors worked on saving my son's life.  Again.

"Mr. Wentz?" A doctor came into the room.  I looked at the clock on the wall.  It was two in the morning.

"Yeah?" I said, not expecting good news, and not expecting anything good.

"I'm Doctor Amy Phillips.  I'm a trauma surgeon and I'm here to fill you in on what's been happening with Jaime. You already know that they've done extensive imaging. He's had an MRI, CT scans, x-rays. We've gotten all of the reports back. I'm here to go over them with you," she said.

"Can I see my son?" I asked, tears flowing down my face.  The sympathy on hers made me feel even worse.

"Soon, I promise. They're working on a couple of things on him still to stabilize him," she said.

I nodded. They didn't want me to see him yet. Or they were delaying the inevitable.

"So, we're still trying to determine what Jaime faced tonight. We can't tell if he'd been hit by a weapon, a car? Do you have any information on that at all?"

I shook my head.

"I got a call from his cell phone around eight, and all I could hear was some noise and then it sounded like something or someone had been dropped.  Then I heard the car doors slam and the car squeal away.  He was lying on our driveway already beaten up, so wherever he was beaten up, it wasn't outside my house," I said.

The doctor nodded.

"And Jaime didn't regain consciousness at any time from the time you found him until you got here?" She asked.

"No," I sobbed. "No. He didn't."

She nodded again.

"Mr. Wentz, I don't have a lot of news for you to be honest - good or bad. But this is what I can tell you:

Jaime is in critical, life-threatening condition.  We're going to be sending him for surgery to attempt to stop the swelling on his brain. There is significant trauma to his brain, several sections of his skull have been broken, there's an active bleed on his brain that we need to stop and there is significant swelling. He's going to need extensive surgery and he'll be going for that as soon as we can get an operating room, which I think will be within the next half hour.

Jaime has several broken bones, as you've no doubt already been told. Two of his ribs have punctured his lungs and we will repair those, as well.  However, his lungs have both collapsed, and we have had to put him on a respirator to breathe for him. There is trauma to his brain stem. Whether it's swelling from the swelling in his brain or from the beating he received, I can't be one hundred percent sure about, but it's affecting his ability to breathe on his own. It's another reason we've got him intubated. The surgery we'll be performing will allow room for his brain to swell, take the pressure off his brain stem, and hopefully once the swelling goes down, he'll be able to breathe on his own. We won't know that for sure until then.

Mr. Wentz, your son is in a coma, and I honestly can't tell you if, or when, he might wake up from it. It's possible his injuries are so extensive, he may not wake up. And if he does wake up, there is a very good possibility he will be left permanently disabled.  I want to prepare you for the worst, but we are going to work our hardest with our best surgeons and doctors to treat your son and hopefully help him to recover fully.  But I do have to prepare you for the very real possibility that Jaime may never recover."

I stared at the doctor. I didn't know what to say. I didn't have any words that made any sense. After everything we've been through, after everything he's been through, I might lose my son anyway. He fought cancer so hard. He almost gave up but he fought.

Could he come back from this?  Would he?