So there they were. The two men in the black suits, threatening to take me away. Nurse Jackson, my mom, and Dr. McAndrew sat around them, waiting to hear what these men had to say.
"After thoroughly reviewing your son's medical history," the taller of the two said, addressing my parents, "we're prepared to make a recommendation for his care going forward."
The shorter one decided to take over. "Charlie has been out of the ICU now for over eight weeks, and there has been no clinical improvement in his status. There is no foreseeable evidence that he will come out of his coma in the near future, if ever."
Thanks for all the support, bud.
"It is our recommendation that Charlie be removed from the acute-hospital setting to one of the approved facilities."
"You don't mean this is it, do you?" My mom said, scared. It was times like this that I wished with everything I had that I could hug her.
Once again, Nurse Jackson was there for me, and held her hand reassuringly.
"Wait a minute now," the man continued. "We have taken into account that the E.E.G. is not flat and that there is dominant theta-delta activity, and such the prognosis is unknown. But for our purposes, we have not seen the clinical improvement that would justify continued inpatient care."
I can't justify your jacket either, but at least I have some tact, man.
"What about Charlie's purposes?" Nurse Jackson cut in, "what about the interventions we haven't even tried yet?"
One of the men shot her down. "You would need county approval at this point if you wanted to go forward with any experimental therapies."
They're using all these big, medical words to sugar coat it, but they just need to give it to everyone straight. They're telling my mom to take me out of the hospital and away from my friends because they don't know when I'll wake up. Sometimes you just have to hear the truth. Its easier to get over it that way.
"But again, uh, our recommendation is that that would not be an efficient use of funding," the man continued.
Dr. McAndrew interrupted them. "Well, I'm not sure 'funding' is--"
"Dr. McAndrew," the man continued, "to the best of your knowledge, have you done everything you can, realistically, within your means to help this patient?"
Man, I'm really starting to hate these guys.
Dr. McAndrew looked at the floor, a sign of defeat. "Realistically, yes."
Nurse Jackson stared at him, her anger barely contained.
"We understand this is a difficult decision," the other man said, only wounding my mother further. Why wouldn't he just stop? He had the knife in there, why was he twisting it? "but if you're going to appeal, you must exercise the option within the next 48 hours."
They snapped their sleek briefcases shut and stood. My mother stared at me through the window, still clutching Nurse Jackson's hand for support.
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Alex Carter: A Red Band Society Fanfiction
FanfictionAlex Carter. She may not look it, but she is dying. She's a girl with a dark past, full of loneliness and heart breaking tragedy, on top of the cancer that has inhabited her brain for most of her life. She's the newest patient at Ocean Park Hospital...
