Nerve

=~4~=

Maria sat with her head in her hands, looking through her fingers at the girl on the bed. She hadn't woken up for a week. She had been fed, and toileted, but her eyes had not once flickered open.

"Maybe... Maybe it's time," The doctor said quietly. He had not looked at Hailie once, but just taken in the reports of Jonathon and Oli.

"Look at her," Jonathon said quietly, "she's still there. She could be dreaming, for all we know. What if she wakes up?" His voice grew louder in anger. The doctor folded his hands over his lap.

"The surgery needed for Hailie's spine is beyond medical practice today. The studies on stem cell renewal is barely taking its first steps. Even if the studies were more advanced, it would be practically impossible to regenerate the type of traumatized " He said carefully. 

"You mean you can't help her?!" Jonathon demanded, voice now on the verge of yelling.

"Jonathon," Maria said softly, voice thick with tears.

"It is not your choice to make," Snapped an elderly woman. Hailie's grandmother, "we all love Hailie, but she would never forgive us for keeping her in this state. Excruciating pain or complete vegetable? She would accept neither."

Jonathon's head dropped into his hands, and his broad shoulders shook with grief.

"What would she want?" The doctor asked gently. He looked up from the clipboard, which Maria suspected held suggestions to help patients and loved ones cope.

Maria was not usually a hating person, but her lip curled in annoyance anyway. She knew this was the doctor's job, and it couldn't be easy to assist in kill- no. 'Assisted suicides' was apparently the proper term. Medical suicides. When Hailie had lost control of her NerveGear, and succumbed to hours of choosing to sleep, or looking, unimpressed, at the window or TV, Maria had grown nervous. From the very start of Hailie's paralysation, Maria and Oli had been aiding her. At the start, there had been a further team of physios, social workers, occupational therapists and nurses, but they had dwindled away as Hailie became more adjusted to her condition. Jonathon had stayed by his best friend's side, dropping out of his Graphic Designs studies at the university to look after Hailie.

At the start, Hailie was a very competent girl. She urged Jonathon to use Distance Education to finish his course, and she herself begun – and completed – a course on the study of English Linguistics using a NerveGear. However, despite Hailie's determination to remain as independent as possible, her mentality regarding the disability had slowly decreased to clinical reactive depression. She stopped asking questions and inquiring about the world and her disability. She stuck to what she knew and didn't want to meet anyone new. Her days were wracked with pain or boredom, and she cried constantly. They eventually got a therapist in, and Hailie and the woman sat for hours on end talking.

Slowly, Hailie emerged from her grief-wracked past and pain, and began another degree in university. She began her questions again and her intelligence shone through in her cognitive thinking.

Though her mentality was better than ever, this time her body was taking a turn for the worse. Painkillers were pumping through the girl's blood 23/7, and though she fought to stay aware and awake, she grew drowsy and mentally lazy. Her ups and downs were constant and radical, and each time she took a plunge – emotionally, mentally or physically – her mother would visit and bring the doctor.

Each time, the doctor would look at them sadly and say... "The choice can still be hers to make. Would she prefer if she were the one to make the decision?"

Never had they ever truly considered... Pulling the plug. When Hailie was little she used to talk about how if she ever became a quadriplegic, she'd want to die. Full stop. But now that she was in that position, she found she had no true will to end it.

Until a few days ago.

Though Maria suspected Hailie wouldn't remember it, she had woken up in the middle of the night and screamed, "I want to die!"

It had shocked the carers and Jonathon had gone pale as a sheet. The pure out-rightness of Hailie's cries were hard to forget, but the three did nothing. In the back of her constantly-busy mind, Maria thought that perhaps this was selfish of them. To cling onto a girl who wanted so badly to die, to rid her body of the pain and torment and simply drift away. The kind Latino woman could only imagine the mental struggle of her patient as she lay, day in day out, on that bed and endured, with little to no control over her body.

"Love, please wake up..." Maria muttered under her breath, stroking Hailie's pale, pale hand. She brushed aside the girl's short dark hair from her face and sighed sadly. They needed her consent, obviously. Maria feared that if they waned the painkillers off and asked her, Hailie wouldn't hesitate to take the opportunity.