Emerging Compassions

Chapter 33: Hospital Care

(Libby's POV)

As soon as we arrived at the hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, Cindy parked the hovercar, shut it off, and immediately turned to face Jimmy again. "Brilliant, just brilliant...," she muttered sarcastically, "He's unconscious again..."

I laid my hand on her shoulder and informed her, "Don't worry, Cin. With this kinda care, he'll come to before ya know it!"

"I sure hope so, Libs...," Cindy replied with a worried sigh.

"Just one thing, though, Cindy," Carl reminded her, "How are we gonna get him inside? I think he weighs at least 130 pounds..." Just like Carl to put health first before anything else. Figures...

"Point made...," she noted, thinking for a few moments. Then her eyes lit up as she said, "Two of us will have to carry him in. I don't know the command he uses with Goddard to get him to transport an injured person... Libby and I will do just that."

With that, the 2 of us carefully grabbed him, I grabbing his legs and laying them on my shoulders with his feet pointing ahead of me and getting a firm grip on his thighs while Cindy grabbed his arms and draped them over her arms while she wrapped her arms tightly around his chest. "He's still breathin', Cin, so try not to restrict it by holding him too tight," I gently reminded her as we headed towards the hospital entrance with Carl, Sheen, and Goddard not far behind us.

After we were inside, we gently hurried up to the front desk. "Sheen, ring the bell, please," I instructed him.

Being the immature guy he was, he banged on it repeatedly for, like, a minute until I cleared my throat and told him, "Sheen, that's enough. I can see someone comin' over here t' help us."

Sure enough, the lady at the front desk approached us and inquired in a friendly tone, "May I help you?"

"Can you NOT see our friend is unconscious? ! !" Carl wailed, almost in tears.

"Take it easy, take it easy! !" she reassured us, "I'll take care of it right away! By the way, call me Flora." With that, she picked up the service phone, dialed a few numbers, and urgently informed the personnel on the other end, "We have a group of teens, one of them badly injured and unconscious, at the front desk. Please attend to them immediately!" She then put the phone back and told us, "The doctor will be right with you."

A few antagonizing minutes later, the doctor arrived with some attendants pushing a wheeled stretcher and said, "Gently lay him on the stretcher and we'll send him straight to the ER. Your friend is in good hands."

Cindy and I nodded, and with a great heave on our part, we placed Jimmy ever so carefully on the stretcher with his head on a pillow and him on his back. After the attendants strapped him down gently yet securely, Cindy bent over and gave him a brief kiss on the lips, saying, "I love you... so much..."

As he was wheeled away, I glanced over at him, saw him barely open his eyes for a moment or 2, and heard him say in a low tone, "I love you, too, Cindy." He then slipped back into unconsciousness as he disappeared around the corner towards the ER.

We each took our seats in the waiting room and began waiting for him to return, hopefully safe and sound, and well cared for, as well.

After about 5 minutes had passed, Sheen got restless and began squirming in his seat, looking around at the various people in the waiting room with us. I could tell he was getting rather impatient, not unlike back when he was 12. So I tapped him on his shoulder as he sat next to me and asked, "Sheen, honey, did ya bring anything to keep yourself entertained?"

"No," he impatiently snapped, slapping his forehead, "For once, I didn't bring anything with me!"

"Well, there are a few things here you can do," I told him, "There are magazines you can read, and there are some vending machines over there. Plus, there's a TV overhead you can watch TV on."

"Boring! !" Sheen interjected, and he was soon fast asleep in his seat.

"I'm hungry, but I don't have any money with me," Carl said to himself, glancing hungrily at the vending machines.

"Here," I offered, leaning forward to the opposite row of seats where he sat with Cindy with a dollar in my outstretched hand, "Take this, an' keep the change." I then leaned back in my chair and jammed to my music for a while.

"Thanks, Libby!" he gratefully thanked me, and moseyed over to one and got himself a snack, then returned to his seat. After his snack was finished, he slumped down in his seat, not unlike Sheen had already done, and began snoring loudly.

Cindy kept herself occupied with some of the available magazines for the next couple hours, which seemed to take an eternity! !

Several antagonizing hours later, I thought I saw Cindy say something, so I lifted up one of the speakers on my headphones, leaned forward, and asked, "What was that, Cin? ?"

"I said that I hear someone approaching us, most likely the doctor who's taking care of Jimmy," she repeated, jabbing her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the hallway.

I leaned to my right a tad and strained to see someone coming, and sure enough, he came down the hallway and approached the 4 of us, a concerned expression plastered across his face. "Well...?" I wanted to know, shaking Sheen's shoulder to awaken him.

"Psssst, Carl! Wake up; the doctor's here," Cindy added, tapping his shoulder fervently. They both sat up straight and stretched, very quickly becoming alert and attentive to what the doctor had to say.

"Eh, what's up, doc?" Sheen playfully questioned with a snicker. Carl quietly giggled and commented, "Nice one, Sheen!"

The doctor just rolled his eyes slightly and informed us, "I get that a lot. My name is Doctor Ethan Lang. Now, listen up; your friend's health is slowly improving, though we're not sure yet if he'll be the same friend you knew before. He sustained moderate damage to his cranium, and we're not certain if this affected his speech, short-term memory, or anything else, and his arm was badly mangled. We had to perform surgery to insert screws into his radius and ulna to get them to align properly so they can heal. He is currently in recovery, but I hesitate to mention that he could slip into a coma if he does not improve within the next 2 weeks..."

Carl heard it all with a terrified look on his face, and remained silent for about a minute after Dr. Lang finished speaking, then cried, "Oh, NO! ! NOT Jimmy! ! ! ! He was so young! ! !" With that, he burst into tears.

Just then, an attendant rushed up to him and whispered something into his ear, causing his expression to progress from concerned to extremely worried. After a few moments of hesitation, he informed us, "I've just been informed that your friend Jimmy has slipped into a coma..."

With an extremely loud shriek, Carl fell over backwards and fainted out of pure agony. I couldn't help but feel for him. If what happened to Jimmy had instead happened to Cindy, I'd probably react the same way, seeing that she's my best friend. I believe she was the most nerve-wracked because that was her boyfriend who'd just slipped into a coma. I'd feel the same way if that happened to Sheen. All the same, Jimmy is a good friend, and I'd really HATE to see him pass on at age 17! He's the one who ultimately brought the 5 of us closer together as friends, starting when our parents were abducted by Yokians so many years ago...

My thoughts were interrupted when Dr. Lang spoke up for a final time that day, saying, "We're doing everything in our power to ensure that he recovers in the shortest amount of time possible. We will call to inform you of his progress as time passes." After he said those things, he retreated back to the ER.

"What about school, Libby?" Sheen wanted to know, a worried look on his face.

"We'll just have to explain to them what happened and the reason why he's absent...," I told him and the others as Cindy was shaking Carl awake from his fainted state.

Boy, things were gonna be SO much different now that Jimmy wasn't with us...!