Kurt came to – properly came to, this time – when Dr. Sullivan was in the room. He blinked blearily and, though he was still groggy, was able to pick out that his father had somehow escaped his hand holding.
Dr. Sullivan, quick to realize that his patient was alert, immediately turned to the young man.
"Hey, Kurt, how are you feeling?" he asked. His eyes flicked up to the monitors, noticing that Kurt's heartrate, while high, was lower than it had been. And his blood pressure was great this time around, not insanely high like when he had come in.
Kurt blinked as he took in his surroundings. Finn was sitting in the corner, seemingly working on homework and chomping away at a slice of – shiver – hospital pizza. Carole stood at his left side, holding a cup of coffee. His father sat on the edge of his bed, now looking at Kurt.
"I have a catheter," Kurt commented, rather distractedly. He brought one hand up absently, and scratched his nose before starting to try and tug the oxygen tubing away from his face. Burt took his son's hand and held it as soon as he saw Kurt touch the nasal cannula. The boy had already broken three oxygen cannulas in the last two days, and they didn't need to make it four.
Dr. Sullivan laughed and nodded, lifting the blankets at Kurt's feet. He did a quick response test with a pen, and nodded when Kurt reacted correctly, though a bit slowly.
"Yeah, Kurt. You, my friend, always get one if you go into status," he said with a smile. "You retain urine and after that UTI when you were 7, I didn't think you wanted to go without one. We'll get it out just as soon as we can, but not a second before. How are you feeling?"
Kurt took a moment to take stock of his body, and realized that his head was aching and pounding, much like the way that it did before a seizure.
"'m tired," he murmured, eyes fluttering shut for just a moment. He opened them, though it took a lot of effort.
"My head hurts, 'n I'm nauseous."
Dr. Sullivan nodded and walked over to check Kurt's IV and the IV pole, which was running fluids and, in about a half-hour, a slew broad-spectrum antibiotics. As he did so, Kurt began to cough heavily, his body curling around his abdomen. Immediately, Dr. Sullivan grabbed a kidney basin and thrusted it under Kurt's chin, catching most of the thick phlegm that had accumulated in Kurt's lungs.
"Just cough it out, Kurt. You've got pneumonia," Dr. Sullivan said. Kurt shook his head, struggling to take in a good, useful breath of air. He continued to cough, and his hand came up to try and pull away the nasal cannula that was jammed under his nose.
Dr. Sullivan caught his hand, and quickly helped to settle Kurt back against the bed. Burt squeezed his hand as his son struggled to bring in good breaths.
Kurt coughed into his free hand, and Dr. Sullivan raised the bed so that the head was above 40 degrees.
"Do you feel short of breath? Chest pain?" Dr. Sullivan questioned. Kurt, his coughing fit beginning to wind down, simply fixed him with a look of pure disdain.
Dr. Sullivan laughed a little when he saw the look.
"Yeah, you're gonna be fine. Already fixing me with that glare. But is there any deep pain? Are you short of breath now that you can breathe?"
Kurt shook his head and Burt grinned at his son's tenacity. Finn leaned on Kurt's bed as he joined the conversation, more than happy to put his homework away.
"So I've got Pneumonia?" Kurt questioned. "That cause the seizures?"
Dr. Sullivan shook his head around the same time that Nurse Rosa came in, holding a few syringes full of various medications. Two for pain, one with a large dose of lorazepam, one syringe full of Zofran for nausea, one filled with Phenergan for nausea, and a series of pills for his normal medications. In the next hand, she held another one dose of each of his IV Antibiotics, which would run for an hour simultaneously.
"You aspirated either during the status, or you already had a nasty cold that was beginning to settle. Either way, you've got pneumonia now and it's in both lungs. Maybe you had walking pneumonia – it can be common in people your age and of your activity level."
Kurt groaned, his eyes falling shut for a few minutes. His body relaxed against the bed as he tried to keep his anger from taking control. Kurt took a few minutes to calm himself and then opened his eyes. No one had said anything in the meantime, and he broke the silence.
"How soon can I get out of here? We have …" Kurt trailed off, struggling to find the right word. He, unfortunately, often lost words and had what he called 'seizure fog', where he was in a foggy state. It was much like the 'Fibro Fog' that people with Fibromyalgia complained about.
"When you get out of here is determined by when you are able to function and we can make sure that you're not going to go into status again. And I want to clear up that pneumonia of yours before anything else, because you've had it so many times."
Kurt puffed out a breath of frustration as Nurse Rosa finished hooking up the antibiotic medications, started those, and then held out the cup full of pills.
"Alright, Kurt. We have the Prednisone, Lamictal, Onfi, and Epilim. I also have antibiotics that I am running, and I have Zofran, Phenergan, Lorazepam, a dose of Morphine, and a dose of Lorazepam in there. You wanna swallow those pills, chico? And then we'll get these IV meds in you," Rosa said. She was smiling brightly, even though she was seeing Kurt Hummel, one of her favorite patients, in the Neuro ICU again.
Kurt took the cup, hand shaking the whole time. The pills clacked together violently as he did so, but Kurt tipped them into his mouth and then took the water cup, taking a deep drink and then swallowing. Then he passed the water to his father, his arm aching as it struggled to hold up against the strain of a simple water cup.
"Eres la luz en este infierno," Kurt mumbled to her. "Al menos sacarás mi catéter." ("You are a light in this Hell. At least you take out my catheter.")
Rosa laughed, shaking her head as she made sure the IV pump was on hold. She gathered her medications and cleaned the port on Kurt's IV.
"¡Tu español ha mejorado!" Rosa gushed. "Pero ese catéter no sale hasta que reciba las órdenes de sacarlo, hijo." (Your Spanish has gotten so good! But that catheter does not come out until I get the orders to take it out, son.)
Kurt simply groaned as she pushed the medication. Finn struggled to keep up with the conversation, and finally just gave up after Kurt had groaned. But he watched as, after all the medication had been pushed, Kurt began to relax again. Unconsciously, the boy had been holding himself stiff against the pain that wracked him, though he was being highly medicated.
Nurse Rosa patted his shoulder after she was done and left the room. She stood next to Dr. Sullivan, who was writing out some more orders at the nurses station.
"Do you still want to get the EEG today now that he's awake?" she asked. She glanced into the room, looking at the wires that were draped on top of the bed around one of the rails. They hadn't done one since around midnight, and only for a few hours once they recognized that there were no seizure signs.
Dr. Sullivan nodded, and looked at the clock.
"Rather soon, if we can. It's been almost 12 hours, I want to know any and all seizure activity that we can get. I'm mostly seeing some Tonics and some Myotonic jerk-like activity. But, as you know, it could change now that he's awake," he said.
Rosa nodded. She quickly patted the man's shoulder and quickly called an EEG tech to reset it up. Kurt wouldn't be happy by a long shot, but at least they weren't shaving his head this time.
Dr. Sullivan finished writing his orders and immediately turned back, wanting to sit down with Burt and Carole separately, needing to explain the plan of care. Burt was standing next to Kurt's bed, smoothing some of his son's hair off his forehead. Kurt was almost asleep again, breathing slowly. Burt kept looking up at his son's oxygen saturation levels, a frown on his lips as his son's oxygen levels continued to dip as he slid into an exhausted sleep.
He looked at the oxygen levels, frowning when he saw that Kurt's oxygen saturation continuously dipped into the high 80's and then back into the very low 90's. Dealing with oxygen could be a gray area, as they didn't want CO2 levels to rise, but they didn't want to send people into Hypoxia.
"Rosa? What's Kurt on O2 wise?" Dr. Sullivan asked as he crossed his arms and leaned against the nurse's station.
"5 Liters," Rosa answered easily. "Do you want to take it up to 6?"
"Let's go 5 and a half. Split the difference and change to an oxymask, please. I'm gonna take Carole and Burt into a conference room, talk about the plan of care. Can you keep a close eye on Kurt?"
"Not a problem," she answered, typing into the charting program they used.
Dr. Sullivan quickly fetched Burt and Carole, leading them into the conference room they used for meetings with parents and guardians. Burt had, very understandably, been hesitant to leave Kurt, but once Finn had said he wouldn't leave the room even for a second or a bathroom break, Burt had relented and followed Dr. Sullivan into the conference room.
"What's the plan now?" Burt asked, his eyes flittering towards the door every time a call light when off throughout the floor, as if it were for him to answer.
"Right, so, last time Kurt went into status, I know that we talked about an fMRI and possibly, surgery for epilepsy," Dr. Sullivan said. "At the very least, like I said in the room, we have got to run more tests."
Burt nodded, holding Carole's hand tight.
"I would assume we'd have to sedate Kurt for the fMRI and the other tests? He always wiggles in the machine. He doesn't like the claustrophobia that comes with the machines," Burt commented, playing with their hands like a teen would when trying to avoid a conversation. Unfortunately, they didn't have a choice. These conversations had to be had every time Kurt arrived.
"Oh, definitely to some extent. The last time we tried them with no sedation, I'm pretty sure he broke that MRI tech's nose, and he bit the CT tech's hand in his fear state. No, Kurt gets sedation, it doesn't matter how short the test will be," Dr. Sullivan said, waving a hand to dispel Burt's fear.
Burt shook his head, remembering how he'd been told his son had broken the 6'3, 250 pound MRI tech's nose, wondering why Kurt couldn't do that with his bullies. He smiled softly, the hilarity of the situation hitting him once again.
"You did apologize to him for us, right?" Burt asked, trying to fight down laughter. Carole was grinning, holding a smile behind her mouth.
"I did. Butch even said that it was okay, at least his arm hadn't been broken this time." Dr. Sullivan was smiling just as much as the other two in the room.
"But, Butch wouldn't be the one to operate the fMRI. Unfortunately, I believe that we may need both the regular MRI, and the fMRI, just to cover our bases. He will be sedated for all the tests, because he does fidget and move and get upset," Dr. Sullivan said. "But I think once he's stable, you guys can go home. No need to wait for these tests. But there's something I also want to talk about."
Burt nodded, rubbing one hand over his face. Carole pressed a gentle kiss to Burt's hand.
"You said there was something else?"
Dr. Sullivan nodded slowly, opening up a file full of x-rays. He turned the tablet around so that the two adults could look at them. The first one was a chest X-ray.
"When Kurt came in, I noticed that he had some severe bruising around his chest. It's centered around his ribs, as you know. You've seen them in the last two days, and I think I may know how he got them. Burt, I've known you for going on a decade now. I know that you don't have a bad bone in your body. Someone at school, or in his social circle, is beating Kurt. The stress on his body can be causing the increase in seizures," Dr. Sullivan stressed.
He pointed to a few lines on the ribs, where most of the bruising was concentrated.
"These are broken ribs, some fractures, and some hairline fractures. There's definitely some very painful bone bruises as well."
Burt felt the air catch in his throat as he stared at the X-rays, and then at the various pictures of bruises and then an x-ray of Kurt's skull, where he could see slight shadows and cracks around Kurt's skull. As far as he knew, Kurt had only hit his head bad enough to cause a fracture once – when Kurt had gone into a seizure and fallen off some playground equipment when he was 8.
Tears welled up in his eyes, and his free hand flew up to cover his mouth as nausea rolled through him.
-.-.-
Kurt coughed as Rosa finished setting up the new EEG. Finn now sat in the recliner next to him, catching Kurt up on the new gossip from the glee club. Thankfully, Finn had left out anything about him and his status from almost a week ago.
"Oh, Blaine has a new boyfriend. His name is Chris or something. They met at some support group or something," Finn said, showing his brother the picture of this Chris. Kurt looked at him, frowning as he took in the sight of this 'Chris'.
"He looks like a nerd," Kurt muttered, the pain medication having loosened his tongue a bit. Finn laughed as he swiped his finger to another photo. Kurt blinked hard as he took in slow breaths, smiling when he saw that it was Santana and Brittney, standing together and holding up two papers, both wishing Kurt luck.
"Yeah, I haven't met Chris, but I bet he's a nerd," Finn agreed. "The girls want to know if you're okay with them coming over sometime today or tomorrow. Artie and Mike too, if it's alright. Oh, and Puck sends along a lewd comment."
"Like always," Kurt mumbled, looking sleepy. "They can come. I want to see Brit and Santana."
Finn nodded and turned on his camera. He pointed it at Kurt, grinning.
"Say Cheese!"
Kurt stared at him, but smiled a bit as Finn snapped the photo on Snapchat, quickly typing before he sent it out to the Glee Club group.
'Look who's awake! Still tired but awake.' Finn typed, and then sent out. The photo could be slightly horrifying with how many wires and tubes Kurt had in him, and now that he was realizing it, Finn noticed that his brother was incredibly pale and looked sick.
"Get some sleep. I'll wake you when they're here if they come today. Alright?"
Kurt nodded slowly, dizziness starting to wash over him. He let his eyes slide shut before he allowed himself to slip deeper into sleep, the EEG recording every brain wave. Finn remained seated next to him for the rest of the day, allowing Burt and Carole to slip away for a few hours to shower and get some rest.
