Chapter 3
Barney was sitting by his mom's bed, he had spent the couple of nights here at the hospital with her, he watched as a range of different doctors and nurses took his mom for a bunch of different tests.
When he had gotten to the hospital the first night, he had found his mom in good spirits with one f her neighbours keeping her company. He spoke to the neighbour and who explained that they had gone over to ask for some flour when they saw her lying unconscious on the kitchen floor and called an ambulance. Barney thanked the neighbour and promised to keep them updated. Finally, the doctor came to speak to him, apparently the loss of consciousness was due to a seizure and they weren't sure what caused the seizure. Hence the reason they were still carrying out so many tests.
After being poked and prodded for the past couple of hours, for around of new test, Loretta was finally getting some rest. Barney however couldn't sleep, so instead he absentmindedly scrolled through his emails, catching up with his work and delegating his workload. He also sent an email to Agent Grant, to keep them appraised of the current situation. Just as hit send, his mum's doctor walked in, "Mr Stinson, is it ok if we wake your mum up? We need to talk."
Barney looked at the doctor's face, taking in the serious look the doctor had on their face and slowly nodded before carefully shaking his mum awake. "Mum, Mum you need to wake up." Loretta woke up, bleary eyed, "Barney, is everything ok?"
Barney gave her a small smile, but ignored her question and instead said, "The doctor is here to talk to us." Loretta nodded in understanding and carefully sat up with support from Barney. Once she was sitting up, she turned to face the doctor, "Well doctor Robins what is wrong with me?"
"Ms Stinson, the latest results of your tests have come through. But there is some history I need to get from you before we can fully diagnose you. Have you recently passed out? Experienced any memory loss? Frequent headaches?"
Loretta thought about it, before nodding her head and shakily said, "Mow that you mention it, I have been missing some appointments or where I am going or why I am sitting in the car. I also have been experiencing mood swings. I have also been getting blinding headaches." Ignoring the side look that Barney sent her.
"Why didn't you tell me? We only spoke a few days ago, you should have said something."
Loretta patted the hand that Barney had placed next to her and said, "I didn't want to worry you, dear."
Instead of saying anything, Barney turned his attention back to the doctor and asked them, "What is wrong with her?"
"The most recent MRI that we took showed that Ms Stinson has a tumour. You have something called a Malignant Glioma."
Brain tumour…Brain tumour the words kept going round and round in his mind, his mom had a brain tumour.
Loretta was shocked, "No your tests must be wrong, please check again."
The doctor shook their heads, "I am sorry Ms Stinson but the test are not wrong, the tests and the MRI shows that you have cancer."
After hearing what the doctor just said caused, Barney to look at his mom in horror, while Loretta burst into tears. Seeing his mom cry seemed to snap Barney out of his thoughts, he carefully sat on the edge of her bed and pulled her into a hug. He quietly reassured her that everything would be ok.
Once the both of them calmed down, they both turned their attention to the doctor, who had moved away to give them some space and privacy. Barney asked the most important question, "What happens now?"
"I am going to have a neurosurgeon come and down and speak with the both of you, once he has had a look through your scans and test results. Barney nodded in understanding as he pulled his mom in for a tight hug.
A few hours later found Barney once again on his laptop, catching up with his work, when doctor Robins walked in with another doctor. "Mr and Ms Stinson this is Dr Tyler, he is a neurosurgeon who will be handling your case."
Barney and Loretta shook hands with the doctor before waiting to see what the new doctor had to say.
"Ms Stinson, after looking over your MRI scans and test results, I am sorry to say that I can only confirm what Dr Robins diagnoses, that you have a malignant glioma."
Supressing the urge to call the Doctor a liar, Barney instead tried to focus on what is next, "What do we do now?"
Dr Tyler took a seat opposite them, he had a grave look on his face, "Its seems that we have caught the tumour a little late and normally I would suggest surgery. However in this case surgery won't be an option as it would be impossible to reach the tumour surgically. I think the best options would be radiation and chemotherapy to treat the tumour as aggressively as possible."
"However, we do not currently have a department for radiation and chemotherapy so we refer most of our patients to Bellevue Hospital Center" piped in Dr Robins, "So if you are happy for us to refer you, we can start the process and have you transferred there via ambulance by tomorrow evening."
"Yes" Barney said without even thinking about it, or even waiting to see what his mom thought about it, but as he glanced at her he could see she was nodding along with him agreement.
"Ok, we will get started on the referral" Dr Robins said, "One of the nurses will come down to go through the forms with you."
Barney and Loretta thanked the doctors for their help.
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Robin was worried about Barney, for the past two weeks he would randomly turn up, they would have sex and he would leave before she even woke up. But for now, she had to focus on work, seeing that she is going to be on air in a few moments. She glanced at the notes of the most recent news that she will be covering live on air, as she continued to read through the notes her phone started to buzz causing her to lose her concentration. As she glanced at the screen, she wondered why Lily was calling her when she knew she would be going on air in a moment.
Figuring that it must be important, Robin picked up, "Hey Lily what's….."
"Hey Robin, sorry I know you are work, but I thought you should know that Ted has been in a accident."
"What? Is he ok? Where is he?"
"He is at Bellevue Hospital Center, Me and Marshall are heading there now."
"I am leaving work now; I will meet you at the hospital." Robin quickly gathered her things and went to find Mike. Once she found him, she explained the situation. Mike agreed that she could leave, Robin called for a taxi while she headed down.
As she got to the to the man entrance of the hospital, she saw Lily and Marshall at the reception desk, so she headed over to them. Just as she got there, she could hear the nurse telling them where they could find Ted. The three of them rushed to the ward, where they found Ted sitting on the bed enjoying his Jell-O.
"I can't believe this. Are you ok?" asked Lily.
"No, I am not ok."
"What did the doctor say?" asked Marshall anxiously.
"No, I don't mean that, I am ok. What I mean is that I've made the biggest mistake of my life. I want Stella back. I 've left her messages but her phone is off."
While the group listened to Ted moan about not being able to get in contact with Stella, the group let out sigh of relief, knowing that physically Ted was ok. Just then the doctor walked in, and Ted begged the doctor to let him leave, only to be refused.
"This suck" he moaned as the doctor walked out.
"Ted, are you kidding me? you just walked away from a car accident without a scratch. Ted, this is a miracle," said Marshall.
And just like that the usual argument of whether miracles were real or not started between Marshall and Robin. Once Marshall mentioned the story about the pencil flying up Barney's nose Lily figured it would be a good idea to call Barney. "Speaking about Barney, I should call him."
"Why? We are not friends anymore!"
"You'd want to know if this happened to him"
Ted just shrugged in response, so Lily pulled out her phone and called Barney. The phone rang twice before it was switched off. Lily looked to see, the look of expectation on Ted's face and so she pretended to talk to Barney. "Hey, Barney listen I have something to tell you. It's about Ted. Yeah, he's been in a car accident…."
"Lily just stop, I know he didn't pick up" Ted interrupted, "See I told you we are not friends anymore."
So, to take his mind off from Barney, Lily instead changed the subject to Stella, Ted then recounted the experience of how the car accident showed him that Stella was the one for him. Before anyone could say anything, they were interrupted by Stella, who was standing at the door.
As she walked in, Robin, Marshall and Lily decided to give Stella and Ted some privacy, so they stepped out of the room. Marshall and Robin once again started their argument about miracle being real or not. Lily rolled her eyes at the two of them and went to go and talk to the nurse about Ted's discharge. As she was talking to the doctor, she saw someone very familiar at the reception desk. So, Lily wrapped up her discussion with the doctor and darted back to Marshall and Robin.
"Guys, guys" Lily tried to interrupt the two of them, when that didn't work, she snapped, "Oh would you shut up!"
"Oh man Lily, I was just…"
"Yeah ok, that doesn't matter, Guys I just saw Barney"
"Barney, what's he doing here? There is no way he could have heard about Ted's accident yet" Marshall pointed out.
Lily just shrugged and suggested, "Lets follow him."
Marshall and Robin agreed and the three of them headed to where Lily saw Barney, as they got there, they could see Barney finishing up at the reception desk. From there they followed him to the surgical floor.
"What's he doing here?" wondered Robin, as they watched Barney walk into one of the rooms.
"Let's go have a look" suggested Lily.
Slowly she creeped forward towards the door that Barney walked into, while Marshall and Robin followed behind her. When the three of them peered into the room, they got the biggest shock of their life.
There in the room, in a hospital bed lay Loretta, Barney's mom. She was hooked up to a lot of different machines, there was an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose. She looked like she was sleeping. There sitting on chair next to her was Barney, he looked like a complete wreck, he had bags under is eyes, his hair was disarrayed and one of the biggest things was that he wasn't wearing a suit. Instead, he was in jeans and a t-shirt.
"Oh my god" gasped Robin.
"Oh no" whispered Marshall and Lily is unison.
Very slowly Robin opened the door to Loretta's room, "Barney" she called out in a low voice. Hearing his name Barney's head popped up, he turned around in shock to see his friends standing in front of him.
"What? What are you guys doing here?"
Unsure of what to say, Marshall and Lily looked at Robin to see what she would say. Robin ignored Barney's question and the look that Marshall and Lily were sending her. Instead, she asked, "Barney, what's going on? Is your mom, ok? What happened to her?"
Barney looked at his mom and before turning his attention to his friends, "Um can we talk about this later? What are you guys doing here?"
Marshall could see how badly Barney wanted to focus on something else, so he decided to tell him about Ted's accident. "Um Barney, Ted was in a car accident this morning."
"What? Is he ok?"
"Yeah, he is fine" reassured Lily, "He's downstairs if you want to go see him."
"Yeah…. Do you think he will mind?" asked Barney.
"Of course, he won't" piped in Robin, wanting reassure Barney.
The four of them headed downstairs, back to Ted's room, where they found him eating another pot of Jell-O. Lily had messaged him to let him know that they had found Barney.
"Hey, guys" he slurped down the rest of his Jell-O, "Hey Barney, its good to see you."
"Its good to see you, Ted. How are you?"
"I am ok. No seriously, the doctor just came by and said that the CT scan came back clear. He said he would be back with the discharge papers in a bit" explained Ted.
"Ted, I am so sorry that I broke the Bro code"
"No, I am sorry."
"Can we be friends again?"
"Barney, we're more than friends. We're bros." And just like that the ice broke and the gang started to chat and catch each other up on things that they have missed. Finally when there was nothing to talk about, Robin decide to ask Barney what was going on, "Hey Barney, can you tell us what is going on? Is your mom, ok?"
Barney could see the concern on his friends faces, and slowly shook his head, "Guys my mom is in a coma."
"WHAT?" shouted all four of his friends.
"What happened?" asked Robin.
Barney slowly recounted the last two weeks to his friends, explaining how she was first diagnosed with a malignant glioma, and how she was referred here. He told them how the new doctor on her case said that surgery was possible to remove the tumour. The doctor then explained that they would use radiation and chemo to kill the cancer cells. Barney explained how after a lot of arguments he finally agreed to the surgery. He told them how it was during the surgery the doctors found that the tumour had grown and attached itself to the blood vessels on her spinal cord. As the doctor tried to decide whether they could carry on with the surgery, his mom had a seizure which caused a brain bleed, which caused her to go into a coma. Barney looked at his friends and he could see the sympathy growing in their eyes. He told them how the doctors explained that she wouldn't be able to come out of the coma, due to the amount to blood she lost. He explained that the seizures had become more regular and how much his mom had deteriorated, to the point where she now needed a machine to breathe for her.
"So, what happens now?" asked Marshall, after a few minutes of silence in which they tried to absorb the news that Barney had just dropped in their laps.
Barney gave a small harsh laugh, "Now nothing, she stays here in the hospital and see if they can control her seizures, but the doctors don't think that's she has a few weeks left."
"What about your job?"
Barney sighed and said, "I have taken leave, um a sabbatical. So, I can be here for her."
The group nodded in understanding, they could understand how much Loretta meant to Barney and why he had decided to take this step, so he could be there for his mom. The group then fell silent, all of them were absorbed in their own thoughts. The silence was shattered by the nurse coming in with Ted's discharge papers.
Once Ted was already to leave, the group looked at each other and finally, Lily asked, "Barney, do you want us to stay with you?"
Barney shook his head, "No you guys go ahead."
As the rest of the group left after reassuring Barney that they were there for him if he needed anything. Robin stayed back and slowly pulled Barney into hug, Barney pulled her closer and tighter to him. "You can't be by yourself, so come back to mine once visiting hours finish, you should have said something Barney, but I get it." Barney nodded in agreement.
Later that night, after leaving the hospital, instead of going back to his place Barney remember what Robin said so he decided to head to her place.