Lost and Found

Chapter 5

Lost and Found – Chapter 5

The next day Paul and Denise were on a search for a rehab center that would take Ashley, they had two options. They visited both of them that day. The first one they went to be a hospital that had a small rehab wing, but it looked like most patients were still hooked up to monitors and it was very noisy.

The second one they went to be a hospital, it looked like a little cottage, and it was called, Willow Hearts, it felt more like a home setting verses a hospital setting. As they walked in the director came up, "Hi, my name is Alisha Willow, and I am the director of Willow Hearts," she said as she shook their hands. "I will show you around and then we will go talk about Ashley."

"We are a 20-bed rehab center for children and adults under the age of 21, all of our caretakers are nurses also," she said as she showed them around the living room area. "This is the living room area; we like everyone who is able to be out here during the day. We do social activities, play games, and just hang out. "They can and will go back to their rooms at certain times of the day, but we like to have the social interaction," she said as they walked into another room.

The dining room had twenty round tables that sat ten each. "We like to be family oriented; we encourage a family member to stay overnight with the kiddo, and also for families to come visit daily, we have a gourmet chef, who prepares all meals."

"We have one room available right now, it is right here," she said as she led them down a hall and into a room, it had a hospital bed and a sofa in the room along with a table and two dressers. The sofa is a pull out and we have family bathrooms and showers for the families to use.

"Let's go back to my office and we will talk logistics," she said as she led them out of the room and into an office. After talking with Alisha for over an hour they decided to sign the papers for Ashley.

While Paul and Denise were searching for a place for Ashley to go to, all of the boys and Dani were at the hospital with Ashley. They were watching TV. While they were watching TV, Ashley started crying. She had pooped and was embarrassed, but on top of that she was uncomfortable. Joe came over to her as soon as she started crying, "Ash what is wrong," he said as he rubbed her back while she cried. It was then that he smelled that she had gone to the bathroom.

"Oh honey," Joe said as he pressed the nurse's button. "Yea my sister had an accident and she need to be cleaned up." Kevin, Dani, Nick, and Frankie all left the room to give Ashley some privacy. She wanted Joe to stay with her. Shortly after they left, the nurse that no one liked came in, ripped the covers off of Ashley, tore her diaper off, and roughly cleaned her up.

Ashley was shaking in fear the whole time. The nurse stuck the thermometer up her butt, instead of in her mouth, and the blood pressure cuff around her leg instead of around the arm. Joe had enough of this. She was way too rough with Ashley and made it really scary for her.

Joe sang to Ashley until she fell asleep, which didn't take long because she was so exhausted from the whole procedure of just being changed and having her vitals taken.

"That nurse needs to be fired or something," was the first thing Joe said when his brothers and sister-in-law entered the room. "She treated Ashley awful, she came in and ripped the covers off of her, tore off the diaper and cleaned her up very roughly. She rubbed her bottom for like three minutes straight after she was clean," Joe just shook his head. He just wanted to yell at the nurse for hurting and scaring his little sister.

"Aren't nurses supposed to be nice and not scare their patients," he said. Kevin was furious that someone would hurt his little sister like that. Kevin was the typical older brother; he was very protective of his siblings. He remembered once when they were younger, Joe got beat up at school for something, and he became even more protective of Joe for a while.