A journey to change Autumn

34

Tyler's P.O.V
I try to stay positive. I mean Autumn is undergoing some sort of inspection while Luke and I are sitting probably making things a whole lot worse by just thinking about it. We try to keep ourselves entertained but it is hard. Like once or twice we will try to start up a conversation about something completely random like what we want to be when we graduate college or what college we want to go to in two years. But every time I find myself thinking about Autumn.

The doctor comes back in wheeling an unconscious Autumn on her hospital bed back in place. She is back into the night gown and now has a tube taped to her mouth. But after all of these things she still looks absolutely stunning.

"Tyler, Luke. Is the rest of the family here?"the doctor asks. Most of the time it is just me here but Luke comes a lot. After school, Eli, Luke, McKenna, and Emma all come here. Eli and the twins usually stay for a few hours while Luke stays here. Autumn's aunt comes around lunch and stays until she takes Eli and the twins home. I bet if she wasn't pregnant that situation would be more like her husbands. Autumn's uncle comes right after breakfast and stays until he takes Luke home around eight to nine at night. Sometimes if it is the weekend or if Autumn really wants him to he will stay the night like me on the other couch/chair thingy. So the doctor asked the right question first.

"Yeah. I just texted them a while ago to come back to see her." Luke answers, obviously prepared.
"Okay. I will just set Autumn's machine up and be on my way. Tell one of the nurses that comes in or out in the hall when the rest of the family gets here." He assures. We both nod while he takes short strides towards the door and I take longer ones to Autumn.

Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail. It looks rather rough if I am honest. I bet that would be uncomfortable to her for when she wakes up, so I gently take it down for her. Her beautiful long brown hair sticks to her face while I try to comb through the rats with my fingers. Once it has all been brushed through I hear many loud footsteps coming down the hall. No doubt her family I get up to go to the door. Eli comes bursting through the door right before I could reach it to let him in. Followed by the rest of his family Eli goes to Autumn with a somber look on his face. He sits down next to her and places her hand in his. You can tell there will be a special bond between them after this is over.

Meanwhile Luke leaves to go get a nurse so the doctor can come back in an talk to us. We all sit around Autumn with Eli holding one hand, me holding the other, Emma and McKenna sitting at her head, and her adopted parents sitting around her feet. We don't say anything until the doctor returns.

"Good afternoon everyone." he starts, "I am sure you all want to hear about Autumn so I will cut the chase and not waste your time. Autumn, as you all know, had a what I like to call a cough attack. This made me wonder if all that was wrong was that it was almost punctured. I did an operation to see if there was more to it that I wasn't seeing at first. During this we didn't find anything else, but we did see something we miss calculated. We had thought that her rib came close to puncturing her lung. What we saw tonight was that her rib got closer to her lung. It has made a small hole in her left lung. Every time she breaths it causes some of that air to not get processed into the blood stream and through the body. This doesn't allow it to leave either. So she takes in more air than she puts out. Once it builds up enough it will cause her to cough uncontrollably. We have gone in and patched that up. What we can do now is give her two different breathing machines. The first one will be for here and home. We will use it here nonstop. At home she will place the mask while she is sleeping to regulate her breathing. The second one will be mainly for school or for public places away from the house. She will have this inside her backpack. It is about the size of a pencil pouch so it won't be hard to carry around. If she starts to cough she will have to put the mask on her face and breath normally for fifteen minutes. This will record her lung activity then send it to me and alert Mrs. and Mr. Laine. She will have to use these for a while until we tell her she can stop using them. Does anyone have any questions?"

For some reason I don't have but two thoughts running through my head. One is will Autumn suffer for the rest of her life and the second one is if so will I be with her? I can't make her like me, but I can try. I sure hope she sees something in me than just a friend.