Chapter: 7
Renee's Secret
Renee is not able to remain awake very long after she talks to Horatio. Waking up from a coma and giving her testimony had been too much for her, and she very quickly fell asleep, rolling over to her left side.
Renee sleeps peacefully all through that first night that she was awake with her brother trying to comfort her in the only way that he knows how. When he starts to rub her back softly, he feels long, deep scars from the base of her neck to the small of her back.
Gently moving the back of her hospital gown, he is horrified to see deep and massive scar tissue covering her whole back.
He can't imagine what could have caused such deep tissue damage to his baby sister. When the nurse comes in to check her vitals, Horatio points out the scars and asks her if she knows what had happened to his sister.
The nurse told him that she would send in the doctor to talk to Horatio and see if they can figure out what happened and if there is anything that they can do to relieve any discomfort or pain with his sister.
"Renee has full-thickness chemical or acid burns that go all the way down through her nerves. The burns aren't the only trauma that she had sustained on her back.
She also has clear signs of a cattail being used on her. The cattail was used at the same time as the acid or chemical. A cattail is a leather whip where the many ends are tipped with broken glass, sharp bones, or sharp rocks that dig and tear whatever it hits."
"All the nerves on her back are dead. Renee feels no pain from her back. That being said, she can be shot in her back, and she will not know it. You need to keep an eye on her and tell the staff if you notice anything new on her back even after she gets released from the hospital," is what her doctor tells an anxious Horatio.
His baby sister was tortured before with scars as deep and old as these are. Part of him doesn't want to know what happened to her, but an even bigger part of him desperately wants to make it all go away. Wishing he was able to erase all the trauma that she had gone through.
"Nobody should have been through what she has to go through," he tells himself. He sat on the edge of her bed and watched his sister sleep quietly, thinking to himself.
Horatio is beyond angry upon discovering what happened, but he is also impressed with how strong she is. As soon as she wakes up in the morning, he reassures her that Charlie is okay and safe, as well as that Echo never left her side for very long the whole time that Renee had been unconscious.
The next morning her doctors come in to speak to Renee about the severity of her head trauma. Her skull had been permanently shattered by the beating she had survived going through.
The doctors have allowed the swelling to go down, and they hoped that her skull would heal but no such fate. Some of the fragments of her skull were dying. She needs to have most of her skull replaced with metal plates and pins.
They wanted to wait and see if she would ever wake up before they put the plates in her head. With her now awake, it was apparent that she is a fighter and is going to survive, so the doctors wanted to put the plates and pins in her skull.
Renee's skull reconstruction surgery was about 24 hours. In essence, the surgeon has to put large plates in her skull and remove the shattered bone fragments of her broken bones in her skull. The crown of her head was salvageable with smaller plates to stabilize the bones. However, the sides of her skull were unrepairable.
Her cheekbones and eye sockets healed on their own. Her broken jaw, along with her shattered nose, also healed on their own. The surgeons wrapped her head with gauze to protect her incisions. When she comes out of surgery, Horatio has Calleigh bring Charlie to the hospital so that the dog can reunite with her partner and his sister.
Echo and Charlie are both just thrilled to greet their mom finally. Calleigh tells Renee softly, "Don't worry, sweetie. I will keep Charlie safe with me until you are back on your feet and ready to take her. But Horatio will probably want you to go stay with him until everything dies down and we catch the people who put a price on your head and your canine's heads."