Deal With It

forty one

I shrugged my shoulders, feeling like a total idiot for not knowing. "I haven't been allowed to see him and nobody has told me anything either."

"I'll go speak to Dr. Smith and see if they have the results from the laporoscopy yet," Keith said. We all nodded and he left. I glanced at the plain white clock hanging from the wall, reading 9:30am, and prayed that we would finally be given some more information which could paint a clearer picture of where Tyler's health stood.

-

I was feeling incredibly anxious.

It had been forty three minutes since Keith stepped into the doctor's office and he hadn't returned with any information. What could possibly be taking so long?

By now, Kirsty was also awake.

I sprinted across the room and raised my hand to tap on the door. Just as my fist touched it, it was swung open and I almost lost my balance, being saved by the doctor. "Keith," I let out a massive deep breath. "What took so long?"

He ushered everyone else over. "I think you should hear it from Dr. Smith himself," he said, and I couldn't quite read the expression on his face. All I knew was that it wasn't positive.

"I won't sugarcoat this in any way as I don't believe it would be fair to any of you," he said, instantly making me panic. "As you know, Tyler has penetrating abdominal trauma which presents a huge risk of blood loss or infection. We managed to stop him from continuing to bleed but took a laporoscopy to see whether any of his organs had been damaged. The test results show that Tyler has injured his liver, which is common because of the size and location of the organ."

"What does that mean? What's going to happen to him?" I shouted, my eyes threatening to betray me and release tears that I had been trying so hard to hide.

"Injury of the liver has a serious risk for shock because the liver tissue is delicate and has a large blood supply and capacity. Tyler has been unconcious since he arrived, we checked his blood pressure which is low and he has a very rapid heartbeat. They are all signs of hypovolemic shock.

"This isn't emotional shock but it is potentially life-threatening and requires medical attention. I must inform you completely which means you should know that shock can lead to hypoxemia, which is a lack of oxygen in arterial blood, or even cardiac arrest."

"Oh my God," Kirsty said.

"Please tell me you can help him," I cried.

"We can certainly try. He was lucky to have been brought here immediately or the outcomes could have been entirely different. We need to tackle the shock first. Direct pressure has been applied to stop external bleeding and now we need to surgically repair his liver and transfuse blood since he has lost so much of it.

"We have employed emergency oxygen which will increase the efficiency of Tyler's remaining blood supply, keeping him going for longer."

"What about his actual injury?" Alec asked.

"I was just getting to that. See, thankfully there are no signs of petritonitis, which is a very common illness caused by infection and is fatal. However, we must debride his wounds to remove tissue that cannot survive and other material that presents risk for infection."

"Do whatever you have to do, but please save Tyler."

-

I had been persuaded, or rather forced, to go home for tonight and get rest. Tomorrow I needed to pay a visit to the police station, giving my statement which would hopefully help them find the culprit.