Shattered

Luck

Louis Pov

The boys were all in my room when I woke up and Eleanor was no longer in my bed. Scanning the room I noticed she was talking to Harry who was nodding slowly, a frown on his young features. Perrie had arrived, I noticed, and was sat on Zayn's lap, due to the lack of space on the couch and was chewing her nails. Niall was sat on the floor eating... predictably, and Liam was busy trying to hide some of Niall's food behind his back so he didn't eat the whole pile in one go. It wasn't until closer inspection that I noticed the problem with the picture. Everyone appeared nervous and no one was taking their eyes off the door. Undoubtedly this was why none of them had noticed I was awake.
I was thankful for this. I was not in the mood for small talk. Or any kind of talk.
If the pain in my stomach was anything to go by bad news was being delivered this morning. I could feel it, literally.

Closing my eyes once more the familiar nausea washed over me and my stomach began to cramp. I tried to slow my quickening pulse but it was no use, I groaned in agony. As I was gripping the sheets tightly I heard feet make their way over to my bed.
"All right mate?" Zayn asked anxiously.
Slowly I opened my eyes to a sea of worried faces.
Perrie joined Zayn at my bedside clutching his hand and stroking my arm soothingly.
Peering closely she spoke...
"El it might be a good idea to get a bucket, Louis doesn't look too great."
Normally I would have made some sarcastic comment about always looking great but I didn't have the energy to do it. Everyone else seemed to be expecting one as well because silence hung in the air. A void that my sass normally filled. 

The silence was broken by El, hurrying in with a bucket and smashing Niall over the head with it as he was sat in the middle of the floor. Harry howled with laughter and Zayn chuckled. Despite the pain even I could not suppress a grin. The humour was short lived however as the bucket was placed at my bedside just in time before I promptly vomited.

I could have lived with the continual vomiting if it did a little to relieve the cramp, but it only worsened it. To add to my discomfort the movement of retching intensified the dull ache in my recently operated on leg to a searing pain.
After the final few dry retches, I lay back on the bed unable to stop the tears forming in my eyes. I waited for a joke from one of the lads at my expense, but none came.
Instead Liam appeared with a glass of water and Eleanor sat behind me slowly massaging my temples.
I was granted 10 minutes of peace before Dr Jamison walked in.

Eleanor moved from behind me and propped me up on another pillow before taking the seat by the bed and resting her elbows on the edge of my mattress. Wordlessly the boys sat on the couch and its arms with Perrie on Zayn's lap. No bickering ensued as the importance of the matter was made clear by the presence of Dr Jamison standing with arms folded near the door.

"Louis" he began when everyone had settled.
"Luck is really not on your side at the moment lad, is it? The test results have come back and confirmed my suspicions. Your immune system is weak after the surgery as you lost a lot of blood and with it the white-blood cells that protect you from infection. I'm afraid you have Gastroenteritis Louis. It is an infection of your stomach and intestines. This explains the vomiting, fevers, cramp and blood in your urine. Normally if you were at full health this would be easy to treat, however as your leg needs to be kept as stable as possible, regular vomiting is far from ideal. The only way to stop the vomiting is to insert a tube near the base of your oesophagus with a one way valve allowing fluids to pass down but not up. With me so far?"
I nodded but sensed by the tone of the doctors voice there was more to come.
"Unfortunately..."
There it was.
"... at the moment you are too weak and it would be dangerous to put you under anaesthetic. We will have to do the procedure while you are awake. We will numb the area of course but cannot guarantee complete absence of pain."