Not Letting You Go
Chapter 8
A short-time later the doctor returned with the respiratory specialist to adjust the ventilator that had been breathing life into Charlie's small, fragile form. Enough of the drug had left his system that the doctor felt it was a safe time to start to cut back, so it would only activate if Charlie's oxygen levels dropped to unacceptable levels. Again the family was asked to step out of the room while this was done.
About thirty minutes later they were allowed back in. The first thing they noticed was the quiet of the room. After listening to the ventilator for nearly two days, the room seemed eerily quiet. Donnie cautiously approached his brother as Alan and Margaret talked with Dr. McDonald. As he neared Charlie he heard the quiet soft sound of his brother taking breaths on his own. There was no mechanical rise and fall of Charlie's chest, instead it was the shaky whispered breaths of his baby brother. Donnie jumped when the ventilator kicked on, looking fearfully toward his parents and the doctor.
Dr. McDonald gave him a reassuring smile, "It will probably activate every few minutes for a little while until his body gets used to breathing on its own." The doctor turned back to the Eppes. "If all goes well and he continues to improve, we may be able to remove the machine altogether and possibly have him moved into a private room outside the PICU within twelve hours. Once he is moved we will start to conduct additional tests to check the level of coma he may be in and do some scans to see if there is any indication of brain damage."
Margaret glanced at Charlie, noticing Donnie was still next to his brother, watching him breathe. "Is there a chance once it's removed he could just wake up?" Her voice relayed a sense of hopefulness that it had been lacking since all this had begun.
The doctor looked at the parents of his patient, wanting so much to boost the encouragement he was now hearing in Margaret's voice, but not wanting to get their hopes up too much. "Anything is possible, but in most cases there is a period of time that the person will remain in a coma. It's one of the things about the way the brain works that we still don't understand." The doctor noticed the small spark of hope dim somewhat, "But as I said, anything can happen." Dr. McDonald cleared his throat, desperately wanting to get away from the strong emotions being felt. "Charlie's next round of blood work is in a few hours, by then the machine should be doing much less of the breathing for him and we'll know more." He shook hands and left the family to again take up their watch.
Some time later Alan was able to get Margaret to the cafeteria for something to eat. Donnie had again fallen asleep with his hand on his brother's. As they ate a doctor approached the table; their hearts dropped into their stomachs.
"Mr. and Mrs. Eppes?"
Alan was on his feet in a second, "Is Charlie all right? Is something wrong?"
The doctor raised his hand slightly, "No, Charlie's fine. I'm sorry to have frightened you, I'm Dr. Sanders, one of the hospital's psychiatrist," Dr. Sanders noted some of the panic leave the parents' faces. "I just wanted to introduce myself and maybe ask you a few questions about Charlie. Would that be okay?"
Alan glanced at Margaret who slightly nodded, and then motioned for Dr. Sander's to take a seat. "I suppose so, Dr. McDonald mentioned you might want to talk to us."
Dr. Sanders was careful as he began to speak. He wanted to make sure he didn't alienate these people before he could get a chance to help this family, "I understand this has been a very difficult time for you and your family. This type of incident is always difficult, but for a patient to be as young as Charlie is, it's rather rare." As he watched their faces he noted a longing to do whatever was necessary to help their son. "Can you tell me if anything has been going on that may have contributed to your son feeling the way he did?" this time he saw pain pass over the faces of the parents before him. Pain that told him, after all his years of experience, that they had already been trying to reason out how this could have happened. Dr. Sanders took that as an encouraging sign. It was clear these people wanted answers and help as much as he wanted to help them find the answers.
Alan put his elbow on the table and leaned in a bit. "Did you read the note?" Shortly after Charlie had been settled into the PICU a nurse had come by and said they needed to make a copy of the note, to place in Charlie's chart. They now understood why, it was so Dr. Sanders would be able to see it without directly asking the family for it.
"Yes I have." Dr. Sanders answered.
Alan began again, "Honestly, we had no Idea that Charlie was feeling these things….."
Margaret interrupted Alan, "Doctor, Charlie is a very gifted child. You have to understand he views things a bit differently then we do. He's been known to be very emotional at times. A comment made the wrong way might upset him for days." Margaret closed her eyes for a moment, trying to hold onto her emotions. "I feel…I feel that I'm such a terrible mother. How did I not see the pain my own child was feeling. Margaret's voice broke.
Alan reached for her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "Margaret, you-we're doing the best we can."
"Are we?" Her voice was a little stronger as she looked at him. "Alan, my baby-our baby-- thought we'd be better off without him. How is that doing our best?" Margaret looked at the doctor. "Maybe I've been pushing him too much. He takes in so much and never complains. He sees everything as a challenge and he doesn't like to fail at a challenge. Maybe I've put too much in front of ham and he was afraid to disappoint me?" Tears trailed down Margaret's face.
"If I may ask," Dr. Sanders quietly spoke. "What type of pressure was he under?"
Alan spoke again, allowing Margaret a moment. "We've been having some rather heated 'discussions' as to where Charlie will possible be attending college. We try not to have them in front of Charlie, but I'm sure he has probably heard them." Alan rubbed his hand over his face. "I'm afraid we may have lost sight of the fact that though Charlie's intelligence is light-years ahead of nearly everyone, emotionally he's still a child. How that happened, I…" Alan couldn't finish, because he couldn't come up with a good enough explanation that would allow himself to justify them loosing sight of something so important.
Dr. Sanders, seeing the pain and guilt these parents were feeling, decided to change direction slightly. "I noticed in the note Charlie mentioned someone named Donnie. His brother?"
"Donnie's our oldest son," Alan cleared his throat. "He's five years older than Charlie, however they both will be graduating high school together in a few months."
The doctor nodded, "I'd expect that may have caused some problems?"
Alan couldn't help but chuckle. "Doctor, we have a nearly eighteen-year-old boy who's thirteen-year-old brother will be graduating with him. Yeah, there have been a few bumps along the way, but nothing that would justify something like this."
Margaret spoke again. "Donnie's like any big brother, he doesn't always want his kid brother around and sometimes acts like it."
"How so?" Dr. Sanders paused in his note taking.
"Normal brother stuff," Margaret continued, "Not wanting his little brother in his room or hanging around him when Donnie's friends are over… but Donnie would never do or say anything to purposely hurt his brother this much. He loves him too much."
The doctor added this to his notes, he intended to get permission later to see if he could talk to Donnie as well. "When your son wakes up, once he's improved, I'll talk with him. I'll see if he will tell me what would have made him think the course of action he took was the only one he felt he had. I do want you to understand that there is a very good possibility that Charlie will need counseling after this, possibly for the family as a whole as well. However, we can discuss that more once Charlie's awake." Again Dr. Sanders watched the parents across from him. These were definitely people who wanted to do what was best for their son, and he was glad to see that. "Do you have any questions?"
Margaret spoke first, "Will you need to speak with Donnie? This has really torn him up. He feels responsible for his brother's actions and I'm sorry to say I didn't help much in that area." Margaret lowered her gaze to her lap, painfully recalling her words and actions the first night at the hospital. She glanced up at the doctor, noticing his questioning expression she continued. "I may have inadvertently directed my anger, after seeing Charlie's note, toward Donnie. I was scared and confused, I took it out on the nearest person and that happened to be Donnie, I went as far as blaming him for this. I lashed out at my own son, how could I have done that? It is something I'll regret for the rest of my life." The sadness in Margaret's voice was not lost on Dr. Sanders. He decided that no matter what his talk with Charlie might reveal, he was probably going to recommend consoling for the family as a whole as well, it could only help in the long run.
Returning his attention back to the question presented to him, "Yes, at some point I'd like to speak with Donnie." The doctor stood, "I'd like to get his view also, but that can wait a bit." Alan also stood, gratefully shaking the doctors hand, "I'll be around later. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me."
Alan spoke as he pulled his hand back. "We just want what is best for Charlie."
"As do I Mr. Eppes," Dr. Sanders responded, "As do I." As Dr. Sanders left the table, Alan and Margaret hoped they could soon get the help they needed to start to understand how Charlie was feeling before this terrible nightmare began.