Fix My Feet When They're Stumblin'

Chapter 28

    The next four days crawled by with incremental updates from Brandon's doctors as they confirmed the diagnosis, switched to more targeted antibiotics, and waited. By the end of the fourth day, finally, his fever had dissipated and the group in the waiting room breathed a sigh of relief as one, Mark and Dave now sitting vigil next to Ronnie as well. The inflammation in his brain had largely returned to pre-infection levels, the remaining swelling attributed to the injury rather than meningitis, and they had decided that it was safe to stop the sedation.

    "He should be awake tomorrow morning when you guys arrive, but we'll be doing assessments to see if there's been any lingering effect of the meningitis for the first hour or so, and it's possible that he'll be wiped out afterwards and need to sleep. We got him through the worst of it, but meningitis is really serious and he'll be feeling the drain for a while. We'll let you guys know when he's ready for visitors again," Mandy explained quietly, her red hair frizzy and rebellious, falling out of her ponytail and framing her face.

    "Do you think - do you think it caused any more damage?" Ronnie asked, hesitant.

    Mandy shrugged, running a hand through her hair. "We'll just have to compare these results to the ones we got when he cleared the amnesia stage. I don't know, I'm sorry. Go home, get some rest."

    As a group, they went out to dinner, Dave insisting on taking the bill - "You guys have been dealing with this shit for ages, please, I've got it!" - and stumbled back to their hotel rooms once more, exhausted. Dave and Mark lingered outside Ronnie's room as Olivia slipped inside, shoulders slumped in fatigue. "Ron, can we talk?"

    "Yeah, yeah, of course." Ronnie turned and led the way to the small lounge by the elevators with a pair of navy leather sofas, collapsing into one and blinking wearily at his bandmates.

    "Ronnie, what are we...if Brandon can't handle loud noises or bright lights, the band is effectively over...isn't it?" Dave was whispering, eyes wide, as though afraid to even say the words aloud.

    Ronnie took a deep breath and let it out in a long, heavy sigh. "I...maybe? I hope that might just be temporary, the doctors said basically any or even all of the effects could be temporary, maybe they'll go away in a few months or something. Some people recover almost completely in a year or two. But the doctors didn't want to tell Brandon that yet. They didn't want him to get his hopes up, you know? He's fully aware of what's going on and they really have no idea what's going to happen, or how bad it is. It would be even worse than it is now if he was expecting to go back to normal, and then he didn't...but if he couldn't do the band anymore...God, he'd be crushed. He wouldn't take it well, we know that for sure."

    Mark hummed in agreement. "We got a glimpse of that a couple years ago trying to write the last album, and he knew that was just temporary writer's block."

    Ronnie rubbed his eyes, nodding. "Yeah, and that was before he had actual brain damage that fucks up his emotions and everything, too. Ugh...oh, I don't know, I don't know what to do. It would be so ugly if Brandon had to quit the band, it's like his whole life...but, I mean, he can't even handle regular light levels, like this, or the fucking sunlight. He definitely couldn't deal with the stage lights right now, or all the noise, or all the people, all the things going on. He got overwhelmed just talking with his kids the other day, the nurse actually came to apologize to Tana, said it was a mistake to let all three see him at once. He couldn't handle it more than a couple of minutes. It literally hurt his brain, it's too much for him to pay attention to. I just...I don't know, guys. It better just all be temporary, that's all I can say."

    "Damn. That's rough, poor guy - can't even talk to his kids," Dave murmured.

    "Yeah, I know..." Ronnie laughed suddenly, a great, sharp-edged bark of bitter laughter. "You know, I wanted to go on that fucking hike to get rid of some stress, and look what we've ended up with. Look what I did to him," Ronnie whispered, shaking his head ruefully.

    "Come on, Ron, it's not your fault," Mark countered softly.

    "Ah, then who's fault is it? I'm the one who took him out hiking alone, I'm the dumbass who broke my ankle and let Brandon go off on his own, back to a part of the mountain that I knew was dangerous..."

    Ronnie pounded the arm of the sofa with his fist, blinking his watery eyes rapidly. "I did this to him, man. I might've just taken the fucking band away from him, practically his whole fucking life. I might as well have pushed him off the fucking cliff myself..." Ronnie trailed off, his eyes haunted, a million miles away as he remembered the countless hellish hours trapped on the mountain, convinced his best friend was dying.

    Dave rolled his eyes, scoffing. "Ron, don't be stupid. He was all stressed out and he loves hiking, doing shit like that, you were just trying to help! And what else were you guys supposed to do? He wasn't just gonna sit there on the fucking mountain and twiddle his fucking thumbs and hope someone would come find you. I bet if you hadn't brought up your phone, he probably would've thought of it himself, and if you'd tried to tell him not to go find it, do you really think he would've listened to you?"

    "EXACTLY! I broke my fucking ankle and he didn't have a choice, Dave!" Ronnie erupted, so loudly that his cracking voice echoed through the hotel. Several nearby doors squeaked open in the ensuing silence, the occupants peeking out in irritation and curiosity at the outburst.

    Ronnie shook his head violently and jumped to his feet, falling back to the sofa with a hiss of pain - he had forgotten about his ankle. He fumbled with his crutches, aggravated, and rose to his feet again, stumping angrily through the lounge. "Whatever, I'm going to bed. 'Night."

    Mark watched him go, then spoke quietly as Ronnie turned the corner. "Wow, Dave, look at all the drama we've been missing out on."

    "Yeah, I wanna go back to San Diego already," Dave said wryly, staring down the hall after his bandmate. "I've had enough."

    -    -    -    -    -

    After a late start caused by a poor night's sleep, Ronnie and Olivia returned to the hospital at half past ten in the morning, the last of the stragglers to trickle into the packed waiting room.  Tana only shrugged at him as he sat down. "Nothing yet," she whispered, absently stroking Gunnar's hair as he sat beside her, playing Uno with his brothers.

    Nearly half an hour passed before Mandy appeared, smiling brightly. "I have good news! Mr. Flowers actually asked for breakfast this morning, and even managed to eat some of his scrambled eggs!"

    Scattered applause greeted this announcement, and when the noise had quieted, she continued. "The not-so-great news is that he was too tired for the doctors to complete all of the assessments we need. We'll have to finish next time he wakes up so that we can start planning his rehabilitation, and then he can have visitors again. Should be sometime this evening, or maybe tomorrow morning, guys."

    Quiet murmurs filled the room for a moment while Mandy approached Tana and bent down, lowering her voice. "Mrs. Flowers, I just wanted you to know he was absolutely determined to eat something this morning. It took him almost twenty minutes to eat his eggs because he was shaking so bad, but he did it! It's a really good sign, actually, for his recovery - he's very motivated! That's a big part of the challenge, keeping him motivated and keeping his spirits up."

    The nurse smiled at Tana and her children once more, then turned and bustled back into the hallway to another patient's room, leaving the crowded room buzzing with a sense of optimism. Things were looking up.