by: Marty Chrisman
“Luke,” Jesse said leaning in close to Luke’s ear “If you can hear me, I talked to the doctors and they’re gonna start giving you something to help with the pain.”
Thank God. Finally someone realized how much he was hurting. They were going to make the pain go away. Bo. It had to have been Bo. Bo must have been the one who told Jesse how much he was suffering. Bo had sensed it just the way Luke had always been able to sense when Bo was in pain or in trouble. Neither one of them had ever questioned how they could do it they had just accepted the fact that they could. It was a gift, the same gift that Jesse had told Luke that Luke’s father and Jesse had shared too.
Jesse looked up as a nurse’s came into the room. Jesse had to argue with the doctor about giving Luke something for pain. The doctor kept insisting that Luke was in a coma and therefore couldn’t feel any pain. But Jesse had stood his ground and the doctor had backed down finally agreeing to give Luke something for pain. He still didn’t think it was really necessary but something in Jesse’s eyes warned him that it was best to stop arguing about it and just do it. The nurse took a needle and depressed the plunger to get the air out, then she inserted the needle directly into the IV line running into the back of Luke’s left hand. Jesse nodded curtly as the nurse finished her job and left the room.
Luke felt the effects of the medication immediately. The intensity of the pain began to diminish until it had subsided to a more manageable level. It wasn’t completely gone but it wasn’t so intense that Luke felt as if his whole body was being ripped apart. The worst of the pain was in his head and his chest and even that seemed a little better now. Not gone entirely but much better than it had been. He heard Jesse’s voice again.
“That should make it better. I didn’t know, Luke….or I would have made sure they gave you something sooner so you didn’t have to suffer so much.”
“Bo says you can hear us, sugar.” Daisy said “You just can’t open your eyes …so I just wanted you to know that we’re here and we love you.”
“That’s right, boy.” Jesse said gruffly “So you just hang in there and get stronger so you can get better and come back us, ya hear?”
I hear you. And I’m trying Uncle Jesse. I’m really trying but it’s hard, it’s so hard. It would be so easy to just let go. Cause something else was wrong, he could feel it. And the dream. It had been so real, not like a dream at all. He could still see it in his mind. He could still see himself and Bo lying in their caskets in the living room of the farm house. And everyone was crying and grieving. Was it just a dream or was it a premonition of his own death. He still didn’t know. He didn’t want to die but he didn’t want to live either if he could no longer do the things he loved and became a burden to the ones he loved the most.
“Bo’s awake.” Daisy told him “So hopefully he’ll be able to come and see you soon.” Even though she believed what Bo had told them about Luke being able to hear them, it was still hard to talk to him and not get any noticeable response. “He’s really worried about you too.”
“Everyone is.” Jesse assured him “Once you get out of here and in another room, you’ll have more visitors than you can handle.”
Before leaving the hospital that afternoon, Jesse asked to talk to the doctor to get an update on Luke’s condition and his prognosis. The doctor ushered him and Daisy into his office and waited until they had sat down before consulting his notes on Luke’s case.
“Luke is getting a little stronger each day but his condition is still critical and he still isn’t breathing on his own but he is trying to. He’s taking more spontaneous breathes then he was before, so we have adjusted the ventilator so that it only breathes for him when he doesn’t take breath on his own. That way he’s not trying to fight the machine when he does breathe.
He is recovering as well as can be expected from the surgeries to remove the kidney and his spleen and I don’t anticipate any additional problems there.
My two biggest concerns are the coma and the head injury. Let’s start with the coma first.” The doctor paused to consult his notes once more “Luke is not in as deep a coma as he was originally just after the accident but he still is not showing any signs of coming out of it. Now, I just want you to be aware that he is probably not going to just open his eyes and be awake. That’s not the way it works. There are several different stages to a coma and his head injury can complicate things. As he starts to come out of it more, you’ll start to notice some reactions possibly to your voice, to pain. You may notice movements of his muscles, twitching and so on, facial expressions as his level of awareness increases. He may even open his eyes but he still may not be completely awake. I want you to be aware of that in case it happens because it can be pretty unnerving. I don’t want to give you any false hope.”
“But he will come out of the coma eventually?” Jesse asked
“I fairly certain that he will as long as there are no more complications. I just can’t tell you how soon. It could be days or even weeks.”
“What about the head injury?”
“That is far more serious and more complicated. And it still could be the major life threatening condition. He received a depressed skull fracture in the accident and that is one of the most serious types of skull fractures. The pieces of broken skull actually pressed into the brain tissue causing cerebral contusions or bruising of the brain itself. The skull fracture was on the right side of his head but he also has some bruising on the left side of his brain. That was caused by his brain actually moving inside his skull upon impact and basically hitting the opposite side of his skull, resulting in the two separate areas of bruising in his brain.”
“So just how serious is all that?” Jesse asked
“It depends. It’s so hard to tell with a brain injury and we can’t do a lot of assessment until he comes out of the coma because we need him awake and alert to run some of the tests that will us determine the extent of any damage to the brain. So far we’ve been able to keep down the swelling which is in our favor. When the brain swells too much after this type of injury that’s when the damage can be much more severe and permanent because the brain doesn’t have anywhere to go inside the skull. And that’s when parts of the brain actually die.”
“But you think is going to be some damage?”
“I’m almost positive that will be. There usually is with this kind of injury. But again, it can vary from very mild to very severe. There’s just no way of knowing. You may notice a change in his personality, his moods, there may be a lot of confusion, memory loss, loss of motor functions, speech problems, he may develop seizures at some point….we just don’t know yet.”
“Will these things be permanent?” Jesse asked in a broken voice as he tried to picture Luke differently than he always had been.
“I can’t tell you that either. It depends on how serious the injury is and his own will power when it comes to rehabilitation. The brain is a pretty amazing thing. Sometimes it can tolerate more than we think it can, and it can even re-train other parts to take over for a part that’s been injured. With a head injury like Luke’s, it’s pretty much a guessing game. He could eventually recover completely but that could take months or even years or he could be permanently disabled. All we can do at this point is wait and see.”
“Thank you, doctor.” Jesse said “We appreciate all you’re doing for Luke.”
“I have to tell you, I never expected him to survive this long. I would have bet my professional reputation that he was going to die. Now I’m not so sure…I think he may actually have a fighting chance….as long as there are no more complications.”
Jesse thanked the doctor again. The doctor watched as Jesse and Daisy left his office. He wondered if Luke Duke knew just how lucky he was to have a family as close and as supportive as his was. That kind of family bond went a long way in a patient’s recovery. And the doctor believed that it was that bond that had kept Luke alive so far.