I slumped down on the chair and fumbled to take my phone out of my pocket so I could call Carmen. She picked up after the second ring. “Sarah?”
“Hayden woke up. His doctor is with him now, but he’s not well. He was all confused and mad and—”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” she interrupted me and ended the call.
I sighed and looked at the cracks on my screen. A dull pain flooded my chest because they brought me to a time three months ago when Hayden and I were enemies. I closed my eyes and threw my head back, mentally and physically exhausted. The pressure in my head mounted as I replayed the last couple of minutes, trying to make sense of what had happened.
I pressed my hand against my lips to stifle a cry. I was terrified. I was terrified because of the unknown. I was terrified because I didn’t know if I had it in me to erase his sorrows. Hayden had woken up after ten days, but the fight hadn’t finished yet, and the obstacles we had to cross were formidable.
A nurse passed next to me with a tray of medication and syringes and entered Hayden’s room. I jumped up and started pacing up and down the hallway, too restless to continue sitting. What were they going to do?
Mrs. Black darted around the corner, and I rushed to her, meeting her half-way. “Sarah!” She caught my hands. “Tell me what happened.”
“I was sleeping when I felt someone moving next to me. I woke up and found Hayden looking at me, but he wasn’t himself. He was confused, and he claimed the walls were shrinking and he wasn’t in the hospital. He also said he was restrained...” My voice betrayed my distress, and I had to take a deep breath before I continued. “He went off the deep end, and I couldn’t calm him down. Then the nurses and his doctor came, but another nurse entered his room with some medicine just a minute ago, and I don’t know what that was for,” I rambled, close to crying.
My voice and body shuddered, and it felt like all these days of suppressed worry and fear came right back to me with full force.
“It’s okay, Sarah,” she said and pulled me into a hug, allowing me to weep into her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”
She caressed my hair, but it only made me feel worse. I couldn’t believe I was losing it in front of her. She was his mother, and I was sure she had hard time handling this situation herself, yet I troubled her with my emotional outburst.
“I’m sorry.” I sniffed and moved to step away from her, but she didn’t let me, keeping me close to her.
“Don’t be. You’re human, and it’s only normal that you feel this way.” She patted my shoulder. “We have to look on the positive side of this. He woke up. What you just described tells me he’s experiencing hallucinations, which can happen to patients who wake up from comas.”
I stepped back to look at her with a small frown. “Hallucinations?”
“Yes. Some patients experience hallucinations after waking up or confuse reality with their dreams. He’s agitated and confused because he was unconscious for a longer period of time, so his brain is reacting to a sudden, drastic change.”
“So his reaction was normal?”
“I wouldn’t call it normal, but it’s nothing unusual. It can happen. I know it’s very difficult to witness it, but it will be better in a few days. That nurse probably brought the sedatives, which will calm him down if he’s too upset to do it himself.”
“But won’t sedatives cause more damage in his condition?”
“Based on what you said, he’s already confused enough, and sedatives aren’t something we give lightly. We give them in small amounts and only when absolutely necessary.” She stepped closer to Hayden’s room and sighed. I had to give it to her because she was so strong and composed. “If they are administrating them now, it may be because he can’t be reasoned with and can hurt himself.”
“Does this have anything to do with his BPD?”
She turned around to face me. “No. This aggressive reaction can happen to anyone. Whatever he experienced after waking up has most likely everything to do with his brain injury and not his disorder.”
She took a seat and motioned to me to do the same. I glanced at his door, wondering what took them so long. There were no sounds coming from his room, so there was no way for us to know if they managed to resolve the situation or not.
“We need to be calm and patient during his recovery. He survived the worst, so now we have to work on whatever issue he has at the moment,” she said.
I sat next to her and winced, remembering one more thing. “He said...” Something cold passed through me. “He said he didn’t feel his hands. Was that... Was that a hallucination?”
She whipped her eyes at me, fear taking over her features, but it passed as quickly as it came, and her composed mask returned to her face. I gaped at her, surprised at how much this was like Hayden. Hayden could always throw masks onto his face easily, deft when it came to hiding his emotions. Now I knew who he’d gotten that from.
“Let’s wait and see what his doctor will say, okay?”
Doctor McConnor and the nurses came out five minutes later and informed us they had sedated him and he shouldn’t wake up until tomorrow. He confirmed that the worst had passed and Hayden was out of danger, but he still couldn’t tell how serious his condition was without conducting some tests.
“He is possibly going to be confused and angry the next few days. Also, he may experience more hallucinations. We’ll monitor him closely to see if there are any other symptoms. I couldn’t talk with him much since he wasn’t cooperative, but I will try again as soon as he wakes up.”
Mrs. Black nodded. “Did he show any abnormalities beside hallucinations?”
“I can’t say that without running some tests first. It’s clear that he can’t keep attention and isn’t able to process new information. Also, we have to check if there is any memory damage.”
“Memory damage?” I asked.
“Yes. He may not be able to recollect some events or parts of his life. It is possible that the memories of the last days before the accident or the very day of the accident aren’t clear, but I can’t say anything for certain without speaking with him.”
I shifted on my feet anxiously as countless questions twirled through my mind. “How about his hands? He told me he couldn’t feel them.”
His face grew forlorn. “I don’t want to give any diagnosis, but it’s possible that he suffers from hand paralysis.”
I pressed my hand against my mouth. No.
Carmen pulled him to the side, and they spoke in hushed voices for the better part of a minute. I strained to hear them, but I couldn’t understand the half of their conversation with the vast amount of medical expressions they used. All I could make out was that Hayden in all likelihood had hand paralysis and a few more defects. I clasped my cold hands together, willing myself to accept the situation and find a way to deal with it.
“Sarah?” I tore my gaze from my feet to look at Carmen, who had already entered Hayden’s room. Doctor McConnor and the nurses had left.
I joined her and closed the door behind me, examining Hayden’s slightly gaunt face. “Will he wake up again for sure? He won’t slip into a coma again?”