Page 3 of Amadeo
I heard the voice, it was the patient’s sister as she must have just arrived. I didn’t turn. I waited to see if this was a cognitive movement by my patient.
Deacon then plopped back down onto the bed.
I immediately checked his eyes for dilation with my pen light, his pupils didn’t react. No sign of awareness and his breathing hadn’t changed much either. I looked over at his EKG monitor to see that his heart rate and rhythm was the same. With maybe a blip or two of an increase.
“I-is he…” Valencia’s question faded away.
I looked up at her and slowly shook my head. I wish I could tell her something positive but I had nothing at this point. “He is still non responsive.”
“But I-I saw—” Valencia again halted as she raised a shaky hand up to her mouth.
Amadeo stepped up next to her and nodded his head at Deacon. “That looked responsive to me. I mean I know they move and stuff, but he sat upright.”
I shook my head at him and explained it, “Abnormal movements might be seen in the comatose state and they could represent motor paroxysms in the setting of cerebral herniation.Such as flexor or extensor posturing secondary to severe brain injury and subsequent cerebral edema.”
Amadeo stared at me and then blinked his eyes as he raised his phone up to me. “If you could just tell me what language you’re speaking, then I can get the translator app. Cause woman, you lost me atabnormal movements.”
Nurse Jocelyn giggled from behind me.
I resisted the smile that tried to spread across my lips. I often forgot to talk like a normal person, not a medical encyclopedia. When I was in medical school my father used to say Iwasa walking encyclopedia. I wasn’t a normal person though, not by any definition.
Valencia stepped toward the bed and asked, “So, he’s not awake?”
Awake? Not even close. And we had no way of knowing if he would ever be awake. This could go on for years until someone decided to pull the plug. If I understood right, Stephano would be that plug-puller. Valencia waited for me to reply. It had taken lots of work and training to care about anyone other than my patient but I remembered mycaringcard, or my bedside manner as one of my professors had called it. I gave her a sympathetic look and replied in a soft voice, “No. He is not awake. His condition is the same.”
Releasing a pitiful sigh she looked saddened then she sat in the chair next to the bed. This had been what she had consistently done since Deacon arrived here at the estate. Sit vigil.Fare il leale.
I had to give her credit, she was loyal.
“I remember when I was twelve,” she spoke softly. “I had a nightmare. Deacon heard me crying and he came to my room. He asked me what happened. I was trying to be brave and cool like he was. I think he was about nineteen then? I told him it wasjust the boogeyman. Not sure where I heard the expression but I shrugged and tried to hide my tears. He came over to my bed and handed me a little troll doll. Like the ones with green hair, a huge smirk and a wide face. I asked him why was he giving me such an ugly doll? He said, ‘because it is uglier than any boogeyman and will scare them away.’ I smiled at him and he left my room. I kept that doll by my bed for so long that it was a collectible by the time I moved it.” Valencia laughed a little and reached over to pat Deacon’s hand.
“Did it really work?” Nurse Jocelyn asked her.
Valencia looked up from Deacon to her and replied, “It did for a long time until I went to college and lost track of it. But now I wish I knew where that uglyass doll was. Maybe it could scare the boogeyman away that’s holding Deacon under its spell.”
I paused at her comment. I studied comatose patients for a couple of years now. Some woke up and had no memory of what their coma was like. But there had been a few that spoke of hallucinations. Saying they could hear the people who were around them or seeing monsters. This boogeyman theory from Valentia should have been a stretch to me but I had read articles about this subject and it really came close to what some patients had said.
Amadeo moved closer to Valentia while looking concerned.
Gazing up at him, her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know why I want him to wake up. He hasn’t got a lot to wake up for.”
“He has you,” he told her.
She folded her hands into her lap as she still looked upset. “I just don’t know what would be worse… Him in a coma or him awake?”
This question she brought up touched on something I had wondered about. I glanced over at Amadeo.
He looked very troubled over her words.
I paused at this as Ifeltvery troubled over them as well. I knew only a little about this situation. Deacon had done some bad things, despite being an FBI agent. I didn’t know what those things were and I didn’t know exactly why Deacon Walker had been brought here specifically.
Amadeo patted her shoulder. “It will work out somehow.”
Valencia peered up at him. “I cannot see how?”
He shrugged. “Well, I heard that everything works out in the end. But if it hasn't worked out yet, then it's not the end.”
I stared at him. His statement had to be the dumbest yet most profound thing I’d ever heard.
