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Recap of Chapter 2: Strawberry Waffles
Katherine explains to Justin that he shouldn't trust strangers. Katherine takes Justin and Blair to the zoo where they have a great time. For a split second, Justin thinks he may of seen that stranger again. William prepares a gourmet anniversary dinner for Katherine and receives a fine knit sweater. When driving to school, Katherine and Justin get into a car accident that critically injures Justin.
Chapter 3: The Coma
Opening her eyes, Katherine saw a white ceiling with florescent lights. Recognizing she was in the hospital, she turned her head to the left and saw William holding her hand and staring down at her. His hair was messy, his eyes with dark circles, were bloodshot and he looked very somber.
Remembering, she gasped in fear, "How's Justin?"
Shaking his head, William said, "Not good." and began to cry again.
"Is he dead?"
"No, but he is on life-support." William bent over to hold Katherine and they cried in each others arms. "You must be careful dear", William finally said. " The doctors say you suffered a couple broken ribs, one broken arm and a dislocated shoulder."
Overall she was fine; physically anyway. But her heart was indeed broken. She was still on heavy medication and soon grew quite sleepy.
"You need to rest honey", William said softly as Katherine went back into a deep sleep.
The next day, Katherine awoke and found a few bouquets of flower had been left at her bedside. She had received a smaller arrangement from Kyle, a co-worker, consisting of yellow daffodils and pink carnations. Another arrangement came from Blair's parents, Jim and Francis. The biggest and most beautiful arrangement was an incredibly exotic combination of red and yellow tulips, star gazer lily's, violet scabiosas and many other flowers she couldn't recognize. It was quite the display. When Nurse Latresky walked in, Katherine asked how Justin was and if she could see him. She said things hadn't changed. Even though it was to early for Katherine to be moved, Nurse Latresky made an exception. A wheel chair was brought over and very slowly and carefully they helped Katherine into the wheel chair. As Katherine was wheeled into the ICU, she saw Justin laying with dozens of cords and tubes running in and out of his body. He had a huge white bandage covering his head with small holes for his eyes, nose and mouth. Being a neuroscientist, Katherine could expect all of this, but Justin was her baby and it was still shocking. As she started to tear up, she also saw William asleep with Justin's hand in his. He had positioned his chair right next to Justin.
"Please wheel me to William", her voice shook.
"Hi honey", said William waking up. "I must have dozed off."
Katherine couldn't say anything as her eyes began filling with tears. The realization of it all hitting her even harder. 'How could this be happening? Why Justin? He is such a happy energetic boy.', She thought.
"Oh my god! I am sooo sorry Justin" She started to ball. "I don't know how it happened. This was my fault. I can't believe it! Was it my fault? I am so frightened".
"It's okay. It's okay honey." said William. "The accident was not your fault at all. A drunk driver ran a red light."
"No no no. I don't know...I am so confused" she cried getting even more hysterical.
William approached her and held her hand with both of his. "You will be okay honey. We will be okay. We will get through this. I love you very much honey and we will get through this." he said warmly.
"Come on Honey, let's go back to your room", he said as he began to wheel her back to her room.
It was not long before Katherine recovered and everyday she and William took turns staying with Justin as he lay asleep in a coma. She wanted to be more involved in her son's treatment and under normal circumstance she would probably be the best authority. However, treating your own family member is discouraged as one gets personally involved and will often misdiagnose or make decisions based on emotion rather than medical data.
After a couple of months Justin's condition remained the same. He was still in a coma on life-support at Saint Anders. Since Katherine and William were visiting the hospital so often, they learned much about the medical staff. Doctor Pearce, the chief neurologist, was single and loved golfing, when he wasn't working. He was a member of the prestigious Bel De Flur private golf club. He golfed three to four times a week including every Tuesday morning when he plays with the club pro. Nurse Decantor, the head nurse of Saint Anders had been working there for 28 years and had only one year left before retirement. She ran her staff like a drill sergeant and most of the nurses were afraid of her, and for a good reason.
There were several nurses who assisted Justin, but the most friendly, was nurse Latresky. Nurse Latresky was easy going and quite friendly. She didn't get along well with the head nurse Decantor, as she thought Latresky should be less friendly and more professional with the patients. Still nurse Latresky was quite competent.
It had been approximately three months since Justin's accident and doctor Pearce, the head neurologist, suggested that William and Katherine consider taking Justin off of life-support.
"But that's my baby", cried Katherine.
"I know, but we have exhausted all possibilities and he will never recover. I am sorry."
She knew that as difficult as this was to hear, he was being straight forward. Katherine was pondering his words and being one not to resign, she concluded that she must take matters into her own hands. 'After all, what do I have to lose?', she thought. After extensive studying of Justin's complete medical records including the CAT scans and MRI's, Katherine discerned that Justin's injuries fell right in line with her current research.
"This is exactly what I have been researching for the past five years.", she thought. Dr. Katherine Time is probably the most renowned expert in neurology. For the past 12 years, she had been doing research on the brain during states of comatose. Using Chimpanzees as subjects, she was very close to a monumental break through.
About five years ago, she discovered a natural enzyme that the brain excretes only when it is coming out of a comatose state. What she proved, is that this enzyme, she dubbed as Plythorium, can be used when combined with other chemical agents to create a serum that is able to bring subjects out of a comatose state. However, the problem with this method currently, is that the brain only excretes Plythorium during the transition of exiting a comatose state. Because of this paradox, she is currently doing experiments on chimps in comatose. She is trying to stimulate their brain, to artificially excrete the Plythorium enzyme.
It is also a known theory that when people enter a comatose state, their consciousness leaves their body and can travel anywhere. She believes their consciousness may be able to travel anywhere in the universe and perhaps even time travel! When people return to their body from a comatose state, they remember little to none of their traveling experiences and for them, time had stopped. Patients are shocked to find out that they have lost days to years of their life while they were in the comatose state.
For weeks, Katherine doubled and then tripled her efforts in seeking a solution. She would spend all day in her laboratory at the Neuro Science Institute for Advanced Scientific Research. During the evening, she would visit Justin. She was surviving on roughly three hours of sleep per day. Occasionally she would sneak in syringes, Petri dishes and other supplies, to retrieve samples and conduct further research, while learning more about Justin's specific neurological state. She had to be careful that no one would see her. Other than William, nobody knew what she was up to. William's admiration, support and trust for her was so abundant that he was hopeful she would find a solution. Even if she could help Justin get out of his coma, they still had no clue what permanent brain damage may have been caused. They still have the portion of his skull that ripped away and are keeping it preserved. He still has a good amount of brain swelling, but that should subside in time. Currently, the doctors see no reason to schedule the reattachment of his skull, as his brain is still too swollen. From his mother's stand point, although the brain has received trauma, it seems to be blunt force trauma. Nothing pierced his brain, so currently there is no recognizable damage. Maybe once the swelling goes down, they may learn more.
After seven months, Justin was still in a coma. His parents obviously refused to 'pull the plug' as they still had hope. The swelling in his brain had almost completely left and no one noticed any obvious problems. The doctors and administration were aggressively encouraging William and Katherine to take Justin off of life- support.
During the seven months they became friends with the medical staff and especially with nurse Latresky. She took the night shift most of the time and had more free time than the day nurses as many of her patient's would sleep. Nurse Connie Latresky and Katherine became good friends and Connie was fascinated with Katherine's knowledge in neuroscience. Connie Latresky was a single mom, with a 12 year old son. She had a new boyfriend and they seemed to be a perfect match. Katherine was very happy for her. Occasional nurse Latresky would need to step out for ten minutes as she would call the baby sitter just to check in. As she was the only nurse on duty, she had no problems asking Katherine to kinda watch since Katherine was there anyway. She was more than willing to watch things and she was certainly qualified.
Every night William or Katherine was with Justin. Katherine would often kiss his hand. They also spoke to Justin. Through Katherine's research they knew that when someone is in a coma, their consciousness can occasionally return. They would tell Justin about current events.
"Ruffus is doing well, but misses you", said Katherine. Blair and his parents would also visit him occasionally.
"Justin...guess what?", Blair said knowing he wouldn't get a response. I spoke to our teacher Ms. Engleman and asked her if we can have a Justin Day for school.", he began to cry. Trying to keep his composure he continued, "She said it was a great idea and I should speak to the principal. I was thinking...", he started tearing again, "of them serving strawberry wawawaffles for lunch with whiwipped carcaream.", he cried louder, " since I know that is your fafavorite. And I was also thinking that..." He couldn't continue.
"It's okay Blair", said Francis, his mom.
"Thanks for visiting Francis", said Katherine
"We need to go now, but you know our prayers are with you and Justin", Francis said as they starting walking out of the room.
"Thank you and thanks for all of your support", said Katherine.
It was about a week later in the evening. Katherine thought it would be prudent to trace back her steps and reviewed every conceivable attempt she tried to successfully stimulate the neurocenter of the brain. She knew in her heart that stimulating the neurocenter was the key to having the brain extract the natural enzyme, Plythorum. As of now that natural enzyme would only excrete for a very short time when a person first comes out of a coma. She recalled experimenting with electricity, fire, heat, liquid nitrogen, ice, pressures and punctures. She tried every possible combination of injections with a variety of active chemicals.
Her subjects were comatose chimpanzees. A chimpanzee brain is 97% similar to a human brain, with the most successful advancements in neuroscience being made with chimpanzees. That being said, her chimpanzee subjects came from thousands of zoos across the world. There are millions of chimpanzees throughout the world. Although it is uncommon, chimpanzees can fall into comas just like humans. Many zoos have their own in-house veterinarians. Her company has contracted with zoos and veterinarians throughout the world.
That evening, Katherine was watching the news. It was late summer/early fall and the winds were strong and it was very hot. It was fire season. There were a variety of fires in the news and she marveled at the science used to fight fires. One particular huge fire that was in Stoney Hill National Park had already burnt tens of thousands of acres and it was rushing west towards the tiny city community of Bright Willows. Risky as it may be, the Glandor County Fire Department decided they had no choice but to light their own fire and turn it east towards the bigger fire.
"This had been done before, but never on such a large scale.", said the reporter. "But sometimes you have to fight fire with fire".
Just then, Katherine let out a gasp! "I got it! I figured it out! fire with fire", she yelled. She wasn't yelling to anybody since William wasn't home. However, Ruffus barked excitedly.
She rushed to her laboratory where she found Kyle still working. She said a quick hello to Kyle who was another scientist. Kyle was a co-worker of hers and specialized in stem cell research. Kyle was a pleasant and short 52 year old man who was very overweight. He was very respected and excellent in his line of work.
"I will be back later." Kyle said as he left the room.
Alone, she immediately examined one of her comatose chimpanzee subjects named Katie. Katie was a young six year old chimp. Chimpanzees usually live between 40 to 50 years old. Katie fell into a coma when she some how swallowed poison. Although the animal hospital was able to cure her of the poison, Katie fell into a coma from the trauma. Katie has been in a coma for about six months now.
"Let's see if we can help you come out of this coma", she said with hope. "Fighting fire with fire. Expelling a coma by inducing a coma."
An uncommon and highly controversial practice is to purposely medically induce a coma into a patient. The benefit of this is to reduce the metabolic rate of brain tissue. The hope is that, with the swelling relieved, the pressure decreases and some or all brain damage may be avoided.
Katherine's thought was to directly inject Phenobarbital, which is a barbiturate that is usually used to induce a coma, into the neurocenter of Katie's brain. By doing this, she hopes this "over-stimulation" will help Katie's brain create the Plythorium enzyme. Once she acquires the Plythorium, then she can make the serum.
Katherine first, used a skull saw to expose part of Katie's brain. Then with a deep breath, Katherine slowly injected Katie with Phenobarbital. After about thirty seconds, she noticed the Plythorium enzyme excreting. With the use of fluoroscopic procedure and by injecting beta-dine to show thermos activity, Katherine was able to capture the exact moment that the Plythorium was secreting from Katie's brain. Using a dropper she quickly gathered the Plythorium and put it into a Petri dish. She then added some chemical agents. As soon as she thought the formula was precise, she started drawing it through a syringe. Just then Kyle walked back in.
"What are you up to", said Kyle.
"The same old", said Katherine casually.
"I see. The same old except Katie is missing part of her skull."
"It's just a small part." she said with a smile and trying not to act guilty.
"Very funny", he said. "I need about 20 minutes with Grace and then I will get out of your way."
Grace was a 14 year old female chimpanzee who was paralyzed from the chest down. She has no usage of her legs at all.
"I injected Grace a few days ago using embryonic stem cells and I want to follow her progression."
"How is Grace doing anyway?" asked Katherine.
"If this works, she will be doing great", he said as he perspired.
"Why are you perspiring so much?" asked Katherine.
"I just took the stairs and I am trying to lose weight"
"That's good because as you know, you are at high risk for a heart attack and you have a lot more life to live."
"Thanks mother." he said sarcastically as he turned to Grace. "So Grace, let's see how you are doing."
Katherine made herself look busy while Kyle was inspecting Grace. After about 30 minutes, he was finished and as he was walking out the door he said, "You can get back to business now."
As the door shut, Katherine went back to the Petri dish and continued pulling the new serum through the syringe. Approaching Katie, she kissed her on the forehead. "Please God." she prayed as she began injecting Katie with the serum.
Katie twitched. Excitedly, Katherine injected the remaining serum. Nothing happened. Katherine examined Katie's brain waves and they were unchanged. 'There should of been an immediate effect', she thought. Five minutes, ten minutes, 25 minutes later, nothing happened. Tired, depressed and hopeless, Katherine leaned forward and collapsed her head on the lab table. She began to cry. She was thinking about how terrible the past nine months had been for her, William and Justin. Suddenly, Katherine broke down, sobbing desperately. With her head on the table balling, she suddenly felt a hand stroke the back of her head. "Leave me alone Kyle! I just want to be alone!" The hand kept stroking. In a frustrated and angry voice she yelled, "I said, leave me alone!" Then she looked up. It was Katie! The chimpanzee was lovingly stroking Katherine's hair!