“Oh my God, that sounds really serious. Has he still got a hole in his head?” said Cait, concerned, but at the same time getting drawn in by the details of Rishi’s treatment.
“Well, yes and no. The piece of bone that was removed was surgically stapled back into place after the hemorrhaging was rectified, but he does still have a small tube known as a ventriculostomy inserted into his skull so that we can monitor the pressure inside his brain. Hopefully we’ll be able to remove this in a few days, as soon as the neurosurgeon is satisfied that the worst is over and Rishi’s intracranial pressure has stabilized. Then if all’s okay he’ll be taken out of his induced coma and discharged from the ICU and sent to recovery. After that, if all goes well for him, he’ll be allowed to go home.”
“That’s a relief. At least we know that he’s on the improve,” said Jools.
“Well, not exactly. Unfortunately Rishi’s not in the clear yet. The next twenty-four to forty-eight hours will give us a good indication of how he’s recovering. But in brain injury cases like this, it really takes at least seven days before a proper evaluation can be made. And of course, he has to be out of his coma.”
While Jono was trying to be positive, he didn’t want Cait and Jools to just assume that all was on track for a full recovery. In fact, it was far from it. Rishi’s current health status was tenuous at best, and he could easily suffer a major setback at any time. He could be dead tomorrow if he was suddenly dealt a bad hand.
“Jono, thanks for spending so much time with us and for the detailed explanation.” Jools cut him off almost midsentence because she could sense where the conversation was heading and she didn’t want to place any more negative thoughts in Cait’s head. Instead, Jools felt that her daughter needed to be able to digest what she had just been told.
God knows, Cait’s going to get a shock when she sees Rishi. After having a craniotomy and being so heavily sedated like that, he won’t be a pretty sight. And he’s being ventilated, poor kid.
“I know you must be busy, so we really appreciate your time. Is there any chance of a quick bedside visit?” asked Jools.
“Absolutely. I’ll check if it’s okay to go in. If he’s not having any procedures done, not a problem. And please remember when you do see him, he’s just had a near-death experience and that he’s still in an induced coma, so he’s not going to look like how you remember him. However, he may still be vaguely aware of what’s happening around him. He won’t be able to respond, but he may know you’re there. For someone in his condition it can be really reassuring for them to hear familiar voices.
“So talk to him, even if it’s just about what you saw on TV last night. Also touch him. Hold his hand. Let him know that he’s not alone and that you care. Most importantly, just be as normal as possible and try not to show any signs of shock or concern.”
“That’s right!” said Cait as if she had just been hit by a blinding flash of the obvious. “I remember now. At uni we studied about the importance of communicating with unconscious and semiconscious people. There’s a whole side of psychology devoted to enhancing recovery by ‘communicating with the dead’ as we jokingly used to call it behind the lecturer’s back.”
“Did you study psychology?” asked Jono, welcoming the diversion.
“Yes, I graduate in a few months.”
“Now what are we going to see?” Once again Jools cut Jono off. She had a good idea of what Rishi would look like, but she wanted Jono to give Cait an indication of what to expect before she actually saw him.
“Good question, Jools. I’ll fill you in on what to expect as we go in. You both ready?”
Even though Cait had been given a heads-up by Jono, and also by the nurse who was accompanying them to Rishi’s cubicle, when she turned the corner of his room and set eyes on him, Cait stopped in her tracks and gasped. She felt light-headed as the color drained from her face, subconsciously cupping her right hand over her mouth. Cait was momentarily paralyzed with fear and concern.
“Oh my God, Rishi . . . what have they done to you?” Cait muttered quietly, almost mouthing the words.
Her mother’s suggestions about being positive and using The Gift were suddenly non-existent. It was as if they had been blown away by a hidden breeze blasting through her mind. Quickly recovering her composure, Cait walked in silence toward Rishi, her senses heightened, her body in tune with the rhythm of her own heartbeat. Picking up a chair that was against the wall, she sat next to him, placing both her forearms gently on the edge of the bed as if she didn’t want to disturb him.
Without even thinking about it, Cait lightly placed her left hand on top of his exposed right hand, wrapping her fingers tenderly around his. She felt a strange, momentary tingle through her fingertips. An image of Rishi lying bleeding on the pavement rushed urgently in front of her eyes, as clear as if she was there herself, looking down on him. Her mother’s words about using The Gift softly replayed in the back of her head, midway between her conscious and subconscious mind.
“Hi Rishi, it’s Cait,” she said in an almost melodic voice, hoping, praying, that he would respond in some small way.
“How’re you doing? Looks like you’ve had better days. Hope you’re comfortable.”
She was finding it hard to think of what to say that didn’t involve stating the obvious: “You don’t look good; in fact, you look really bad and I’m worried sick about you.”
So she settled for the first thing that came into her head.
“Hey, we’ve got to get you out of here soon. I’ve decided that you and I are going to have a joint graduation party. What do think about that? And we can’t have a party for the two of us without you being there, can we? So what do you reckon? I thought about having it at that funky new bar on Barkly Street.”
Cait was nervous, ad-libbing as she prattled on. In fact, the idea of a graduation party had only just popped into her head about sixty seconds ago, but it gave her an excuse to say something that didn’t relate to what she was seeing in front of her.
As Cait talked about everything and nothing all at once, the electric tingle returned to her fingers, but this time the sensation had a subtle intensity that lingered.
“Ah!” Cait exclaimed out loud. “Mum, Rishi’s finger twitched. I felt it!” Jools was talking to the charge nurse and out of earshot. But she was totally in tune with her daughter’s energy, and Cait’s sudden insight was demanding attention. Jools looked up with an all-knowing glance.
Cait’s just crossed over to the Otherworld. The Gift has taken over, Jools realized without giving it a second thought.
Then as if she was casting her own personal spell to aid Rishi’s recovery, Cait said ever so tenderly, “Get better, my love. I’ll be here for you when you recover.”
Just that moment an audible alarm sounded. A machine attached by a series of cables to Rishi’s chest, monitoring something that looked like it might be his heartbeat, was buzzing.
Screaming.
Cait tensed, quickly looking over at the nurse who was standing in the entrance to Rishi’s cubicle. She was quietly talking with Jools, ignoring the alarm.
“Hey, quick, something’s wrong,” Cait wanted to yell, but her silent words fell on deaf ears. “Can’t you hear that? Quick, Rishi needs help.”
The nurse picked up on Cait’s concern and said, “It’s okay, Cait. The alarms are always going off every time a measurement’s out of acceptable range. It’s just part of being in ICU. You get used to them after a while. Most times the alarm simply means that something needs to be checked. The one that’s beeping at present is just telling me that Rishi’s heart rate has risen.”
As the nurse was speaking to Cait, she moved over to the monitor and switched off the alarm, checked the other readings at the same time, and then recorded her observations in the chart that was hanging over the end of his bed.
“It’s interesting how his heart rate has risen slightly since you arrived. He’s in a coma, so he can’t communicate with us
, and all his other vital signs haven’t changed. You know, he just may be aware that you’re here with him. Stranger things have happened.”
Yes! Cait thought to herself. A sign. Oh, thank you, Rishi. You know I’m here.
Cait finally smiled, eyes bright with emotion. She leaned over and gently placed a kiss on Rishi’s stubbled cheek.
“I love you,” she said as a parting comment.
Jools was watching from the other side of Rishi’s bed, taking it all in as a mentor would do with a protégé, and thought to herself, Cait’s just had an epiphany. This is a magic moment. She’s realized the power of The Gift.
“So how’s Rishi?” asked G anxiously as Jools and Cait were buckling up their seatbelts in his car. “Judging from the looks on your faces, he’s not good.”
Jools and Cait had caught a tram up St Kilda Road to the Alfred on their way in to see him, and G had swung past the hospital to pick them up on his way home from work.
“Yeah, he’s not good. In fact, he’s worse than that. He looks terrible.”
Cait paused momentarily as the emotion of the moment took over, then continued, “He’s in a coma and has so many tubes and lines attached to him that I lost count exactly how many. You know what it looks like in the movies when someone’s in intensive care? Well try doubling it.”
“That bad, huh?” G said almost dismissively.
G was turning left onto St Kilda Road, about to move forward as soon as the lights changed, and he was focusing on the cars to his right, so he wasn’t overly forthcoming with a response. As Jools kept telling him, he was a male and it was in his genes to only be able to focus on one thing at a time. Of course G vehemently denied the accusation, but Jools knew she was correct.
She wasn’t a female for nothing.
“What Cait’s trying to say,” said Jools, finishing Cait’s observations as she noticed her daughter becoming choked up, “is that Rishi may well have had a concussion when the paramedics took him to emergency, but his condition was actually far worse than that.
“Instead, he had a slow hemorrhage into his brain after his bashing which only manifested the next day. So when he was taken back to the ER from our place, well yes, it wasn’t good. They had to do an emergency craniotomy soon after he arrived to stop the bleed and relieve the pressure. Otherwise he could have died.”
G was used to Jools’s thoroughness when it came to describing all things medical. It went with the territory of her profession.
“Holy shit. He looked a bit out of it when I helped the paramedics place him onto the stretcher, but I didn’t think it was that bad.” G was stopped at the lights at St Kilda junction so he had time to think.
“G, brain injuries always have to be closely monitored,” commented Jools. “They can go pear-shaped in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, Rishi’s situation has just gone from bad to worse over the last forty-eight hours.
“I really hate to say it, but I was talking to the charge nurse while Cait was sitting with Rishi and there’s no other way to put it. If things don’t go his way over the next few days, well,” Jools paused, “. . . there’s a chance he mightn’t pull out of this.”
“Oh Jesus, poor kid. That’s terrible. Is he aware of what’s happening? And how are Divya and Arnav holding up? Must be heartbreaking for them.”
The lights changed and G’s brain went into drive mode once again.
“Rishi’s still in an induced coma, so he’s not really compos mentis. But you never know with these things just how much they’re aware of what’s happening around them. I feel that Cait may have got through to him, but let’s talk about that later.”
“Yeah, I’d like to hear that.” G realized that in deference to Cait it was best not to labor the point right now.
“Dad, we need to help him. I really need to help him. I’m not going to let those bastards who beat him up win. Rishi’s going to recover from this, and I’ll be there for him when he needs me. He’s not going to die.”
Cait paused for a moment’s reflection, thoughts of her unborn child tearing at her emotions. “I simply won’t let him.”
G pulled up to the lights at Glen Eira Road, waiting to turn right so he could disappear into the maze of tree-lined streets that made up the leafy suburb of Elwood.
“Caitie, I’m sure you’ll be there for him. We all will. Give him all the support you can.” G was concerned that Cait could become so totally consumed with current events, that if Rishi unfortunately didn’t pull through he could take her down with him.
“But you need a fallback plan, sweetie. An escape route. Remember how I used to tell you stories about the great leaders in history; how they never went forward without always having a way to back out if things went wrong. Well this is one of those watershed times for you, Caitie. It’s time to draw upon those lessons.”
As far as G was concerned, life was so very karmic. If you shat on other people, then sooner or later you would end up with a huge pile of crap dumped in your own backyard. Just like the arseholes who bashed poor Rishi. Somewhere, at some stage in their miserable lives, they would pay for their violation of his personal space. And if they didn’t, then unfortunately their progeny would. Or maybe they both would, suffering the torture of a never-ending curse.
“So please Cait, if it’s not getting too deep, just remember that Rishi’s yesterday may be set in the past, his present moment is evolving as he breathes, and his next instant in time is still to be determined. What’ll be for him will be, and I’m sure that you’ll be part of it. Just take each day as it evolves. You’ll either be surprised or upset, but at least if you understand this you won’t be disappointed.”
G was playing his most sagacious self.
After a lifetime of contemplating his own existence, to G nothing remained more destructive than life repeating itself, like Groundhog Day. If Cait wasn’t able to let go of the present moment to eventually look back with fond memories and Rishi did end up passing over, regardless of whether she was pregnant to him or not, it would scar her for life. It would end up like a cancer, slowly eating away inside her as she went over his death again, and again, and again.
“Bit heavy, G, for driving down Tennyson Street,” said Jools, half joking, snapping G out of his philosophical homilies.
“G, let’s just leave it at that. Rishi’s in ICU, so we’re all going to put out positive vibes so he’ll recover, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, cool.”
But G just couldn’t stop himself. He had to make one final point. “Caitie, in your quiet moments, do think about what I just said, okay?”
As they pulled into their driveway and walked inside, Cait and Jools started filling G in on what had transpired in the ICU.
“Cup of tea?” inquired Jools, filling the electric kettle.
“Maybe something a bit stronger? The sun’s well and truly over the yardarm girls, at least somewhere in the world. And besides, I think you both need one.” Taking a bottle of chardonnay from the fridge, G poured three glasses of the straw-colored liquid.
He instinctively looked at the bottle—Stonier 2012, nice wine—and picking up his glass, he swished the wine around, then shoved his nose deep into the opening, taking in the bouquet. Then holding it up to the light to check the color, he looked at the lady’s legs running down the inside of his glass, took a sip and swirled the wine around the inside of his mouth.
“Mmm, lemon and melon up front, full middle palate, balanced oak, nice acidity . . .”
“Dad, shut the fuck up. Just drink it, okay?” Cait wasn’t shy when it came to putting her father back into place. Sometimes he could be so over the top he was boring.
“Sorry, instinct. You know what I’m like.”
Placing his glass down on the kitchen bench, G dragged his stool across the tiled floor with a scraping sound that grated on Jools’s nerves every time he did it, and sat next to the girls.
“So tell me about what happened at the hospital. I’m all ears.”
�
��Well, we met a really nice young doctor who’s looking after Rishi,” said Jools, picking up from where she left off in the car. “And Jono—that’s his name—was very forthcoming with information. Rishi’s stable at present, but he’s being kept under close observation until they’re satisfied that there’s no likelihood of another hemorrhage. So he could well be kept in an induced coma for up to another week, although hopefully it will only be a few more days if all goes well.”
“Yeah, that’s right, Dad.” For the first time today, Cait started showing a glimpse of her old self.
“But I’m sure that I managed to get through to Rishi, coma or no coma. It was almost like speaking to him in a dream. Kind of weird actually.”
“Mmm . . . that was The Gift guiding you, Cait,” interjected Jools.
"When I touched Rishi’s hand and started talking to him, you won’t believe it, but his heart rate increased! It even caused the alarm to go off. The nurse said that he may have known that I was there, but I know he was aware that I was there. Rishi even responded to my touch. He moved his finger when I squeezed his hand, Dad.”
Cait was replaying her experience in her head and unloading to G. “It was as if I could feel his life force. It was there, under my fingers, almost talking to me.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No G, what Cait’s saying is true. As soon as Cait started talking to Rishi, his heart rate rose. She’s got The Gift, G. I saw it with my own eyes. Just like her grandmother.”
“And you too Jools,” G commented.
G heard what Jools had just said, and in the instant of time that he allowed himself to glance over at his daughter he saw the future; the woman she would become in ten years’ time: incisive, understanding, caring, successful, respected. Cait’s ability to see through the smoke screen that people put up to hide their true selves was just starting to fully emerge. G had no doubt she would end up like her mother; perceptive and strong, with a real ability to truly communicate and touch a person’s soul.
The Cait Lennox Box Set Page 16
