Falling To Pieces

Chapter 3

I know some medical stuff, but not enough. So I’m keeping it simple.

--

 Kate called out to Rick before she felt her leg hit something and her world went black.

She opened her eyes when she heard someone call out to her. She could see things moving around her but her vision was blurry from tears and her mind wasn’t working properly.

“Kate? Oh thank god you’re alive!” she heard someone, but didn’t know who, say. She could feel her body being moved, but the pain was unbearable. The last thing she heard before all the lights went out again was, “We’re taking you to the hospital Kate. Hang on.”

 --

 Lanie sat in the waiting room, with Esposito and Ryan by her side. Rick was pacing the floors. They had fought with him, they had. But when a doctor came towards them telling them if they wouldn’t break it up, he would call security, they broke it up and just gave angry looks. They didn’t want to get kicked out.

They sat there for 30 more minutes. Them with their minds racing, thinking about all possibilities that might have happened and how she was now. They had never been more relieved than when a doctor came out asking for the family of Katherine Beckett.

All of them said yes at the same time while Rick realized Jim didn’t know anything about this yet. “We haven’t called Jim yet!” he said, but Lanie stopped him there. “We have, he’s on his way. But now, let’s listen to what the doc has to say.”

The doctor nodded and started her explanation with: “She’s alive, but she had internal bleeding, that we’ve fixed in operation. But there were too many broken bones to fix in one operation. Her body wouldn’t be able to handle the stress.” Esposito and Ryan nodded, as Lanie pulled Esposito towards her for a hug. Rick nodded along and asked, “Can we see her? Is she awake?” he wanted to ask more questions but the doctor, names Torrez, was ahead of him.

“We’re keeping her in a coma for now because the pain would be too much for her and her body to handle.” Doctor Torrez seemed to know what question came next and gave them an answer before anyone could open their mouths. “We’ll be keeping her this way until we can operate to fix more broken bones. If we would awake her, her body wouldn’t get the rest it needed, and she would be in pain.”

They all understood, but Rick couldn’t resist asking. “Do you have any idea when this might be? When she might be ready for surgery?”

“At least a few days, 2 or 3 for the first one. We’ll take X-rays in the mean time again of her full body. For now we did only were we needed to operate. And if there is a second operation needed, we’ll probably wait another 3 days. We might even be able to take her out of the coma between the first and possibly second surgery, but we’ll have to see that as she heals.”

“Okay, but… can we see her?” Rick asked. He just had to see her, to believe she was actually still alive.

“I think it’s best that if you want to see her, you wait a day. She has a lot of bruises and is connected to a lot of tubes. But if you really want, yes, but one or two at a time.”

The 4 friends, or more 3 friends and Rick, nodded once again and Doctor Torrez excused herself when she got a page saying she was needed. “She’s in room 407” Dr Torrez said right before she left.

Esposito, Lanie, Ryan and Rick all turned towards each other. “I don’t care what the doctor said, but I just have to see her. I can’t get that image out of my head until I see for myself that she’s okay.” Ryan said and Espo and Lanie just nodded.