A Rather Difficult Patient (for charles wilbourn)

[ZeldaFan64]

Rhei Fukui, a traveler from another world beyond Earth, was on one of his voyages. While he lived in his own world named the Radiant Garden, at time-to-time he would venture out to other globes beyond the archipelago, whether they were either ones had alesady seen before, or to his excitement, new. Ever since he acquired the Keyblade Glider which was his weapon-turned mode of transportation, he would ride upon it like a hoverboard and travel. However, in new worlds that don't have knowledge of the Keyblade, he would cast a spell of invisibility to allow him blend in.

Right now, he came across a globe that was unlike the ones he'd experienced; this was larger with an aura of green, brown, white and blue all mashed together. The colours of this planet increased the teen's curiosity and from there, he swooped down to get a closer look. Upon landing at the sign of land, ever so suddenly had to make a frantic move to the left as he had to avoid what looked like a tower. Immediately afterwards, he avoided another one, where he looked behind to try and identify whatever was this strange structure. It so happened that one of them was directly in front of him, and before he could make a painful collision, he was rocketing perpendicularly against this building.

This was too frantic. He needed to get away. He flown over to a different part of this 'land' only to come across a nice large park. This must be a great place to disembark, so he aimed down below... only to come across more hazards. These strange colourful papery things cast by strings got in his way, and without hesitation, he was whizzing the other way.

Rhei wouldn't be that fortunate as unlike the buildings, luck wasn't going to play a part in this adventure. In seconds, his body got caught in a box kite, and from there the thread came lose that left the teen to be trapped in his new prison. The sights that the little boy would see was someone falling from a nearby tree, body tangled in a kite, and plummeting straight into the river, enough to cause this boy to one consciousness.

[charles wilbourn]

The young boy who saw Rhei's misfortune was not alone. He called his three friends together and told them that an older boy had had an accident and had fallen into the river. Ken, who was the name of the first boy, said "I looked real close to see if the big kid was moving at all, and he didn't even try to swim! We gotta get him out before he drown!"

Ken's observations to the other boys sounded long winded but they had been preceded by his directive "Come on! HURRY!" And he explained the situation on the way. At first there was no sign of the unfortunate boy, but in just a matter of seconds Ken found the target of his rescue and said, "I see him! Let's go!" Fully clothed Ken and the other boys dived into the river, where they often swam Saturdays and Sundays. Anyway all four of the kids, maybe 9 or 10 years old, were excellent swimmers, and to Rhei's added good fortune the current of the river was not as strong as at other rivers. It was a little challenging for the boys when first the boys swam in it. But by now they were accustomed to it, in fact had mastered it, enjoyed it.

The boys were moving faster than Rhei, but the older boys head bobbed precariously up and down, making the situation the boys faced all the more desperate, and Rhei's so very dangerous. He was out cold, and even the rather cold water did not cause a stir in him. But--it so happened that, after this surprisingly short time young Rhei was floating down the river he reached a group of rocks which, though he did not hit him, yet caused the current of the river here to slow, and Rhei, his lungs dangerously full of water, began to breathe shallowly, and then--to the approaching boys' horror--to sink: Cetain death if he were not pulled out and resucitated in a VERY short time. Ken was the best swimmer among them, and he swam straighttoward the apparently dying boy, lifting him under the arms--the boy was pretty stron. he motioned his friends to his aid, and the four of them pulled Rhei out of the river onto the beautiful, freshly cut green grass that banked both sides of the water. They laid him out straight on the park green and Ken, whose father was a doctor and knew some of the usual emergency procedures regarding drownin--he was a swimmer, so naturally he needed to know the basics. He also knew CPR. He felt carefully for a pulse and simultaneously put his ear against the boy's moth, checking for the sound or any other sin of breathing. His pulse was weak, his breathing shallow, so Ken first used the method of ridding a near-drowing victim of water, pushing up and down on his tummy, then turning Rhei over and doing the same to his back. It did not take long for Rhei, weak as he was, to regain consciousmness, then shortly the desired vomitting of water took place and his breathing became better, but a long way from satisfactory. Ken instructed one of his friends to hurry, get a cell phone and call an ambulance. It was not long before a red Fire Department ambulance arrived, and they took over Ken' rudimentary but effective and successful care of Rhei, and put him carefully on a stretcher. They tried to question him on the way and in the truck but the boy, though conscious, as yet speechless, and could only, just barely, make responses through writing. The ambulance-fire-fighters, seeing a very large lump on the side of Rhei's forehead, not breaking the skin but quite large, suspected a concussion, so they gave Rhei medication to keep him awake, and spoke very loudly to him, making direct eye-contact and gripping Rhei's arms and shoulders, gently shaking him, desperately trying to keep the youth from getting in too comfortable a position, which might induce sleep. Soon they arrived at a near-by hospital.

[ZeldaFan64]

If it wasn't for the boys then he would have been a goner. No-one would come to his funeral because he didn't have any family or friends here. He had back in his own world but not here. It would have been a horrible day for Rhei, but luckily those kids seemed to be determined enough to let his life lead on. During his time bobbing in the river, some of the freshwater entered his throat and also his lungs, where if he had too much of those clogged into his windpipe then he could drown and die a watery grave.

He didn't react once his trim stomach underneath his shirt was pushed so that water would escape, but with every touch, something tickled his throat with a horribly-tingling feeling. He didn't move or make a sound so it might cause fear to see a person slowly decompose into a corpse. Rhei couldn't die as he had various experiences with the darkness in his past so water wasn't going to do him in. Oh no. Not like that. It took a few attempts to get the water flowing where at the fifth push, it all came out. Dirty water ejected from his mouth like sick and already, he was slowly gaining his breath back. He tried to look up... but the collision caused him dizziness.

Then came the long journey to somewhere. Rhei didn't know where he was going but he was mostly centred on answering every question that was being thrown at him. The boy was still loopy from his fall and near drowning, so he had to resort to pen and paper to answer. All he wrote was 'Rei' and 'Garden'.

He stared blank into the doctor's eyes, locking his oracles straight at his, but he won't get so much of a peep out of this boy. He was just too confused... where he was going?

[charles wilbourn]

The red, fire department ambulance was somewhat superior to regular ambulances. The truck was manned by firemen, and naturally they had, if only a slightly, better knowledge of speeding to the scene of an accident or other emergency, which was why the boys had only a few moments to wait. But there was another advantage: depending on the situation, such as a heart attack, severe burns--or drowning or near drowning, there was always an intern physician on board, serving at least part of his preparation for private practice or work in a hospital as a full doctor.

He and a couple or more of the other men who surrounded Rhei, working in desperation toget Rhei to respond to questions, vocall, then failing in that the doctor gave the youth a pen and paper to see if he understood what the men were asking him, and if the presence of mind to answer them in writing; but Rhei's respons of the unfamiliar "name or whatever it was," and "garden," left all of the attendants, including the doctor, stumped.

Almost immediately after these enquiries, asked specifically for brain damage, the doctor took out his pocket-size bright-light and carefully examined Rhei's eyes. He got almost no response from them, not even to their brightness; to the doctor the eyes revealed a serious concussion, so it was on his orders that the firemen, and himself, worked desperately to keep the boy awake. All of the attendants knew that if their young patient were to fall asleep he might fall into a coma, the brother of death, and no amount of effort even from the most brilliant men of medicine could bring the kid out. He might wake up from this, maybe in a few days, maybe in a few years; but it was more likely Rhei would die in this state. So it was that the doctor injected Rhei with the medication that--everyone hoped--would keep him awake and as alert as his condition would allow.

The fire-crew succeeded in doing this, and led by the doctor the firemen-parimedics rolled young Rhei in into the opening of the emergency room, and 2 3rds of the emergency staff was there to meet them. They took him at once to the x-ray room to see for sure how serious the concussion was. As it turned out, rather miraculously considering the fall Rhei had taken and the unhappy contact he made with at least one big, heavy rock on his way down, enough to knock him out, x-rays revealed that yes, Rhei had suffered a concussion. But it was not serious enough to warrant immediated concern. The head of surgery at the hospital, a very able man who never lost a patient and was proven invariably right in all his diagnoses and subsequent treatment, having been informed of the young man's entire experience, said "This boy's incomprehensibility and apparent suffering of head damage is not caused by this. He nearly drowned, and he is STILL in danger of drowning! I've seen it before. His incomprehensibility results fom a state of shock, and the strange appearance of his eyes is a part of this. This kid is scared! And, what about his breathing?" The head doctor used his stethoscope to check Rhei's breathing, and the physician detected a very foreign sound in his lungs: not phlegm, not wheezing. The doctor recognized water at once. So, his first procedure was to raise the boy up to his waste and induce coughing by hand, hitting hard the youth's back. Whether he was "altogether" fluent as to what was going on, his physical reactions, at least in his back and his front, would be the same. Rigt now the doctor wanted to induce only coughing in Rhei, feeling that pushing directly on his lungs or turning him over on his back, though both ofthese procedures were essential at first to rid the boy of the "tons" of water he had inside him, coughing would cause water gradually, and painlessly to be sputtered out of the boy's system. IF the water somehow seeped into his tummy a stomach pump would be necessary; the physician felt the boy had been in enough pain and he did not want him again to taste all at once the very bitter water--now effectively poison--which might damage his system, might cause him to vomit blood. Neither of these, the doctor felt, would help the young patient. He asked for the assistance of the young head nurse of the entire hospital, Julie, to hold the boy up during the procedure, and he sent an assistant nurse to bring a small pitcher of milk and the close. While Julie gently but firmly grasped Rhei next to the doctor, holding him by the shoulders, the physician told Rhei--and he hoped the youth understood him, "This won't take long, my boy. Then we'll give you some milk." He told Julie that it was safe to give Rhei morphine, since there was not any danger of coma if the boy fell asleep.

"Yes, doctor," the young nurse simply and respectfully replied.

[ZeldaFan64]

Was it Rhei's imagination or did he see faint blurry figures chanting not his face, unaware that these are the doctors that tried to get a straight answer out of him while keeping him awake. The boy ever so slowly rocked himself back and forth as his eyes drifted in many directions. "Nnngh...!" He recoiled at a snail's pace once the light went straight into his eyes, a reaction that was expected...

It was a quick journey towards the hospital. In fact, Rhei didn't even notice that they were even moving; it all happened way too suddenly in fact... Rhei was at the hospital before he knew it. It was like at the other side the ambulance doors were a direct portal... Now if that existed, that would have been great!

The teenager found himself wheeled into the hospital finally was it at that moment, he was awaiting to just get a hold of himself. That fall made him lightheaded; collision and nearly drowning in the water where some managed to snake right into his system. It was at that point where he really didn't have any control of his body due to his condition. It made the teen falter in lifting a paw to hold onto something or someone.

If there wasn't a way to get the water out then-

'COUGH!!'

Within seconds, the boy was hunched over during his stabilisation and without warning, a waterfall mixture of what looked like green and brown left his lips, making a nice big puddle on the floor. Some even got onto his shoes!! It was the dirty water that he accidentally swallowed during his slight capture by the kite and Glider and the sick that churned in his stomach like milk made into ice-cream... As the teenager managed to upchuck all he could, he then sat up and tried to gather in his surroundings... "where the... where the...?"

He looked up as dazed as he was, and before his eyes, was a beautiful young nurse who held him by the shoulders so he wouldn't fall. She looked around the ages of his caretakers, looking quite young and healthy. She had long wavy blonde hair tied back into a ponytail, which he had to admit that it looked cute...

"Who...?" that was all he could say at the nurse.

[charles wilbourn]

"Welcome back, young man!" Julie said to Rhei in a ratherly kind, nursely manner that other hospital nurses, seeing SO many patients a day, some of the patients even younger than Rhei, some even with worse condition s than his--were so jaded at the whole thing, their whole profession that every patient was just that: just another patient. Not Nurse Julie. . . . Youre perfectly fine now, son. You probably don't remember a lot of what happened to you while you were here. You had a lot andd alot of water insidde--in your tummy andd in your lungs--but you ddid the work of vomiting it all out, andd all you had to ddo was cough it all out. You're fine, now. All you have is a nasty bump on the headd, but that's not dangerous. . . . I'm sure you know what a concussion is? Well, that's why the men in the ambulance shinedd that bright light in your eyes: to keep you awake! A concussion means a crack in the skull, and anylkind of fracture that close to your brain could mean that if you fall asleep, you might not wake up again--at least for a long time--this is calledd a coma! And no doctor, even the best in the world! can wake you up from that! In fact, there have been people who have NEVER woken up!". . . . But Julie looked Rhei comfortingly in the eye and brushed his light -brown-to auburn hair--"But, little boy, you are fine! You don't have a concussion! You're not going to sleep forever. There may be alittle water left in your system, but you'll get ridd of it in--well, you know usual way. No more painful vomiting, no more bitter taste. Now, son, what is your name?. . . . "Julie tone andd conforting wordds, well, to other people greetedd by other nurses was not quite the usual fare.