Sorry for the wait. I'm hoping to update more quickly from now on. Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! It means a lot. Let me know what you think of this chapter. And now on with the story.
XX
Hey! What's happening?!" Darry shouted, fear in his voice.
"He's having a seizure," Ron said. Soda lurched forward in a panic, but Ron put a hand in front of him to keep him from leaning in too close.
"Stay back!" Ron said, as the medical staff in the room converged over the shaking child.
Pony continued to jerk uncontrollably as saliva bubbled out of his mouth. His breaths hitched every time he tried to suck in air.
Darry tried to understand what the doctor was saying, but it was difficult to keep his mind focused between Soda's terrified shaking and the panic of the room. He thought he heard something about anti-seizure medication in case the seizure doesn't stop on its own. Something about Valium.
One of the nurses was putting an oxygen mask on Pony's face. Darry had no idea where that device had come from, but it meant that Pony was having a hard time breathing on his own. It looked scary going over his nose and mouth.
Darry looked over at Soda, who looked ten times less controlled than he did. He had paled considerably and was beginning to shout.
"Pony?! What's happening to him? Do something!" Soda yelled over the medical workers and Darry went over to him and held him back. He was just as scared, but he knew he needed to keep his middle brother from interfering.
"Soda…" he called out, "Soda!" Darry wrapped an arm around his brother's chest, holding him from pitching forward. "Soda, don't get in the way. Let the doctors do their job. Soda!" Darry shouted, grabbing his brother's chin and forcing Soda to look at him.
"Darry…" Soda said, his voice taking on the tone of a stubborn child, "We have to do something. Look at him…" tears were beginning to form in his eyes and spill down his cheeks.
"Soda..Hey...hey...Sodapop, look at me," Darry grabbed his chin and forced him to turn his face. "The doctors are doing everything they can, little buddy. Let them do it. We need to stay out of the way."
Darry pulled Soda further away from the table where Pony was still shaking. Steve suddenly appeared in the doorway. He had a startled on his face. "Hey, I heard somet-what's going on?" he asked as he caught sight of Pony jerking violently, the doctors and nurses around him. Someone had rolled him over on his side.
"We don't really know, " Darry said, over the commotion. "He's having a seizure. Steve, stay with Soda." What he really meant to say was Steve, stay with Soda and keep him away from the table, while I pretend I'm not losing my mind and check out what's going on.
Steve got it without him having to say anything. He began talking to Soda in a low, soothing voice, his arm wrapped around his friend's shoulders. Darry went up closer to the bed. It looked like Pony was starting to calm down.
Ron saw him eyeing the scene. He went over to him and started to speak, making sure Soda, who was further back, could also hear them.
"He had a seizure," he said, relaying the previous information, "We're seeing raised intracranial pressure. It's a potential complication of serious meningitis.
"What does that mean? Like my little brother's head is going to explode?" Darry asked.
"Not exactly," Ron said, "Meningitis is an infection of the fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord, so it can easily cause swelling of the protective membranes that cover those areas. The pressure is what probably caused the seizure. Right now we don't know what it means. I think we're going to try to see if Pony can be responsive after the seizure and then decide what to do next."
Soda came up to stand next to Darry, wiping at his eyes. Darry was the one to put his arm around his brother this time. "Hey buddy, it's going to be fine."
Pony wasn't shaking anymore, but he wasn't conscious either. They watched as Dr. Roberts stood over him, just as he had earlier. This time, Pony appeared dead to the world. Dr. Roberts firmly gripped Pony's shoulder, squeezing and twisting it while calling out his name. There was no response. Darry heard the him say the word, "None."
Dr. Roberts asked a nurse for a "pen or some kind of blunt object" and someone gave it to him. He and Soda watched as the doctor began to press the pen down slowly on the nail bed of Pony's right hand. It was strange and it looked like it could hurt. Pony didn't respond at first and the doctor pressed harder. Then they saw it. Pony moaned, weakly flicking at the pen with his fingers.
"Response to pressure," the doctor said aloud.
Before the doctor even called out his name, Pony's eyes opened. It was sudden and Soda gasped. But Pony wasn't really looking at anything in particular.
"Well, hello, there," he said, hoping to get a response. Darry and Soda inched closer, seeing that Pony was awake. "Ponyboy?" the doctor called out. Pony was looking around the room, but his eyes were not really focused on something in particular.
"Ponyboy?" the doctor called out again, "It's Dr. Roberts. Do you know where you are, Ponyboy?" he asked.
Ponyboy's eyes shifted, "Cold," he mumbled.
"Are you feeling cold, Ponyboy?" the doctor asked
"Darry, he's not making any sense," Soda looked at his older brother for answers.
Pony moaned. "Mom," he said suddenly, making both Darry and Soda freeze in place. "I - I,'" his eyes were closing again and Dr. Roberts leaned over him with concern. He squeezed and twisted his shoulder again as he had before. Pony's arm went up slightly in response but then it draped over his stomach, in a strange move.
"That's no good," Ron said under his breath. Soda didn't hear him, but Darry did and his heart thumped in his chest.
"Ron?" he gasped out, looking at the doctor.
Ron turned to look at them. "A healthy person would have pushed back at the doctor's hand," he said. "Something is wrong."
The room began to bustle again in its strange chaos. The nurse they called Cheryl read off Pony's vital signs. Neither of the Curtis brothers knew what those numbers meant, but they heard the doctor say something about increased heart rate and decreased blood pressure.
At that moment, Dr. Roberts looked up. "Alright, Julie, call Surgery. Tell them we're bringing him up, stat." The nurses began wheeling the bed forward and Darry, Soda, and Steve literally had to back up and move out of the way to let them through. Darry's mouth hung open.
As Dr. Roberts passed them, he said, "The seizure tells us that he's got some pressure building in his head,"
"What does it mean?" Darry asked.
"Well, this is a sign of the infection in the meninges. Remember, we talked about this," Dr. Roberts answered, looking at Darry, "We need to relieve the pressure as quickly as possible. Our best option to do that is to take Ponyboy to surgery."
'Wait - like brain surgery?" Soda interjected. "But - but -"
"Well, yes, it is brain surgery but - we're not exactly operating on the brain. We need to go into the cranial area to relieve the pressure. - "
"What kind of risk are we talking about?" Darry asked.
"Well, anytime you go into a cranial area there's gonna be some risk…we don't have a choice."
"Do it," Darry said firmly as Soda looked down at the floor, tears spilling down his cheeks. "Do whatever you have to do."
You can wait in the surgical ward," Dr. Roberts said. "We will update you."
At this point, the bed was being wheeled out of the room but Ron stopped next to Darry and Soda. "I'll go with them, so someone can come back and tell you what's going on," he said. He squeezed Soda's shoulder and ran after the bed.
And just like that the room was empty and silent.
XXX
Darrel Shaynne Curtis, Jr. sat heavily in an uncomfortable chair on the 4th floor of Tulsa General. He was in the surgical ward waiting for his kid brother to get out of surgery, and his other kid brother, the one that couldn't sit still for one second, was pacing close by.
It was after 11pm by now and Darry was exhausted. But it was probably nothing like what Ponyboy had gone through. It had been a long day. That afternoon, he had stupidly coerced Pony into going to the pediatrician during the beginning of a crazy snowstorm, While they had had a great, thorough doctor, they had also almost been in a car accident, and then the truck had stalled after it ran out of gas. Meanwhile, Pony had become more and more ill and Darry had stupidly left him in the truck while he went to search for help. This whole horrible incident had been his fault.
He'd like to think that maybe, just maybe, everything happened for a reason. It was an odd theory, a little bit out of this world, but if he didn't think of it, then the guilt would eat him up inside. If Darry hadn't pushed Pony to go to the doctor, then they wouldn't have met Ron, Dr. Reed's son who coincidentally was also a pediatric doctor at Tulsa General and was on their side, giving them the good word. If they hadn't run out of gas, then maybe he wouldn't have noticed just how bad Pony was getting (he did have a tendency to ignore things concerning his brother, he would never do that again, of course.) If he hadn't gone for help, Pony wouldn't have escaped into the snow, but also, he wouldn't have been found by Soda and Steve. And they wouldn't have been able to high tail it to the hospital. So in the end, maybe everything had worked out the way it was supposed to.
Darry stared out the window at the looming darkness engulfed by the white snow that pierced the sky. It blanketed the sidewalks and streets and cars and curbs like thick duvet covers and fluffed up white pillows. Not a footprint in site - and it was still falling. Would it ever end?
Darry couldn't even imagine going outside right now.
The blizzard had left him confused. He blamed himself for essentially making Pony worse - pushing him to go to this doctor's appointment and getting the Ford stuck on the side of the road, leaving him alone when he wasn't thinking straight so that he left the vehicle and got stuck in the snow. But then, had none of that happened maybe they would have avoided the hospital entirely. Darry shook his head and gritted his teeth. He couldn't think about it.
The blizzard meant that it was certain work would be cancelled tomorrow, and for that he grateful, even though he couldn't fathom going to work at a time like this - what with his brother getting his skull cracked open.
The thoughts were eating at him, as he tried to watch the pitter patter of the snowflakes to keep himself calm, but to no avail. After all his brother had been shaking and writhing on the bed like a god damn fish with no air.
He chose not to think about that. He chose not to think about the fact that his kid brother might die.
Instead, his mind circled back to the last hour or so in the waiting room.
As soon as the doctors and nurses left the room, Soda burst into tears. He was swaying unsteadily on his feet and he probably would have fallen had Darry not wrapped him up into a bear hug and let Soda cry into his shoulder.
"It's gonna be ok, Soda. He's in good hands. They caught it early enough. It's gonna be ok," Darry said in his controlled voice, part authoritative and part soothing. He patted Soda's back and kept his arms firmly around him.
Darry was trying really hard to keep his own voice from shaking. Dr. Roberts hadn't said anything to him about how life-threatening this was - but it appeared that it was a lot more serious than any of them had realized.
"I knew...I knew...how sick he was...and I didn't say anything,"Soda gasped out between sobs, "He - he was just lying there...s-shaking...like a crazy person."
"Soda, this isn't your fault," Darry said immediately. It's mine, he thought. "They don't know anything yet." Well, that wasn't exactly true. "He's in the best possible care. They will save him," he said. Does Pony need saving? He thought. "He will come back to us."
He let Soda cry a little bit longer, before they pulled apart. Soda quickly wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. The look of devastation on his face was hard for Darry to bear.
"Let's go up to the surgical ward, see what they have to say." Darry said. "What floor did they say it was on?" he asked Soda.
"4th floor," Steve piped in. He put a hand on Soda's shoulder and squeezed looking at him with compassion. It's true that much of the time, he didn't get along with Ponyboy - he was a tag-along kid - but he couldn't remember the last time the kid had been so helpless...and he didn't want the poor kid to die. .
"Steve, were you here the whole time? Did you hear what the doctors were saying?" Darry asked.
"Some of it," Steve replied. "Not everything. There was a lot going on," he gestured to the empty room before they left.
They hustled down the empty corridors, eager to get to the elevator. The three guys
They walked through long empty corridors, hunched over, Steve and Darry whispering like they were discussing a card game bet and not Ponyboy's condition.
"They think he has something called meningitis," Darry said on the way to the elevator. "It's an infection in the brain of something - in the brain and in the back."
"Where'd he get that from?" Steve asked.
"Nobody knows," Darry answered plainly, "No way to know."
Sodapop was silent the entire way, his bottom lip trembling.
They arrived on the 4th floor and came to a desk with a nurse behind it. "Ponyboy Curtis," Darry told her.
She looked at her clipboard. "He just went into surgery," she said. "Have a seat. The doctor will update you when he can."
Darry sighed and they went to sit down. Soda sank into the only couch cushions in the place, while Darry sat down in one of those uncomfortably rigid chairs. He was used to it.
Used to it? Really? Well, it was true that he had jus been here months earlier when Ponyboy was sick and had had that concussion.
He blanked his mind. It was not the time to think about that now.
The clock on the wall said 9:49pm. They sat silently for a little while. At 10 on the dot, Soda began bouncing his knee. Darry was going to tell him to quit it in a minute, but then he began pacing back and forth. And Darry let him. Steve wasn't too far behind.
Instead, he stood, went to the bathroom, and splashed his face with cold water to wake himself up. It was going to be a long night. When he came back, Soda gave him a long, sad look but didn't say anything. Darry walked over to the window, and stood there watching the flakes hit the glass.
Time passed slowly. And then about an hour and a half later, Ron came out. Darry had his back to him, but he was brought back to earth by Soda's shrill voice calling out his name. He whipped his head around quickly - he was afraid if he didn't he would miss something important.
"Darry," Soda said, standing about a foot away from him. "Ron is here." And suddenly Darry noticed the familiar face in the white lab coat with the side swept Jim Morrison hair. Darry stood up, made his way over in two steps and shook Ron's hand. Steve was there, too, suddenly, as if having appeared out of thin air.
"Hi Ron, how are you?" he said, trying not to to allude to the worry and tiredness in his voice.
"Darrel, how are you holding up?" he asked genuinely.
"As best as can be expected," Darry said, his voice gravelly. "Thanks for being here. This isn't the kind of thing you usually do I'm guessing,"
"Well, if you mean go into surgery with a patient - no. I'm a hospital pediatrician. I usually stick to the pediatric ward. But Ponyboy was my patient today at my father's clinic and his condition is serious, so I wanted to see how it was going. It's been a long time since we've had a meningitis pat -"
"What's the word, doc?" Soda cut in. He was getting antsy. "Got any news about our kid brother?"
Ron sighed before continuing. "I'm not the neurosurgeon on the case, so I can't give you all the details. But the doctors are finishing up in there, and they'll be out to give you more information soon," he said.
Ron ran a hand through his own hair and Darry was almost afraid he wouldn't continue.
"I'm not gonna sugar coat things and they won't either. It's been a tough surgery," he said.
Darry's jaw tightened as he waited for Ron to continue. He looked over at Soda and saw that his face had gone white.