Expectations

I'm not sure what I expected when I walked into Dude's hospital room. I surely wasn't expecting the rigid security~the phone by the door, the pass clipped to my lapel. I surely wasn't expecting the third degree by the young woman sitting at the desk right outside his room, young enough to be my daughter, asking what my relationship to him was, and if I had permission from his family to be there. That should have been obvious, since I was wearing a pass...

That's all irrelevant. All of it is for his own good, and I knew that going in.

But what shook me to the core was the sight of this very vital kid, a kid I'm used to seeing moving at full speed, lying there in utter stillness, with only his chest rising and falling. Blood was caked around his lips, and the tube running into his lungs. His mouth gaped open slightly, showing the loss of several teeth~at least six. Lines ran into his body at various points, with monitors all over the room. His name was on the top of one, indicating his heart rate.

The left side of his skull has a bump at the temple, where the skin is grazed. There's a bit of dried blood in his ear, from the fracture in the left side of his skull. His wrists are strapped down, because even though he's in a medically-induced coma, he still fights the intubation when any procedures are attempted.

He's got pressure socks on his legs to keep the blood from pooling in his legs; but what I notice is the weird angle he's laying. People don't lay at weird angles like this. His legs are bent and he's sort of on his side, with his head back. It just looks awkward.

But what made us stand stock still and stare ... is that his hair is still upright and spiked. That's Dude's trademark. We never see him without it, and despite 24 hours of medical tests, scans, x-rays and MRIs, his hair is still holding strong.

Deep down inside, I believe he will, too.