Later that morning, Daniel and his aunt sat down in two brown plastic chairs in the office of the consultant who had operated to save Daniel’s father the day he had been brought to the hospital. She told them it would take twenty-four hours to be sure that all the sedatives had been flushed out and only then could the team be certain that Daniel’s father was in his own coma. The consultant told them that some patients could remain comatose much longer than others, that each situation was unique.
‘How long someone remains in their own coma depends on its cause, which in the case of your father, Daniel, is what we call a traumatic injury, and also the severity of any brain damage sustained from such an injury.’
‘Do you know yet how much damage there might be?’ asked Daniel.
The consultant was about to answer when the beeper on her belt went off, and she unhooked it to check the message, nodding at the junior doctor sitting with them in the consulting room to take over.
He nodded nervously and cleared his throat. ‘There are various ways of measuring how much damage there might be,’ he said. ‘We use brain scans and there are also certain scales we use to ascertain the level of a person’s consciousness, the depth of their coma and the degree of their brain function.’
He stopped when he realized the consultant was listening closely, hands clasped together, and then he went on, aware that he was now being assessed. ‘Your father scores lower on one of the key scales we use which suggests a higher degree of brain injury.’
‘What does that mean?’ asked Daniel.
The junior doctor pursed his lips, flashed a look at his superior.
‘It suggests your father has a poorer outcome,’ replied the consultant. ‘That he might not wake up or, if he does, that he might be very different to the person you remember him to be. That physically and mentally he might be very changed.’
‘How different?’ asked Daniel.
The consultant took a sip of water from her plastic cup and set it back down on the table beside her. She looked at the junior doctor who seemed reluctant to say anything.
‘James, can you suggest anything here?’
‘At the moment we don’t know anything for certain,’ said the junior doctor. ‘We have to wait and see. Although you need to know the reality of your father’s situation, time is really only the best way we have of predicting what sort of recovery he might make.’
‘But how long till you start to worry?’ asked Daniel. ‘How long is it till you’re going to say that he’s definitely not going to be my dad any more when he wakes up?’
The consultant perched forward on the chair, listening to what the junior doctor might say next.
‘No one can say for sure—’
‘How long?’ asked Daniel’s aunt, ignoring him and looking straight at the consultant.
She nodded as if the anxiety in Aunt Jane’s voice had clicked something ‘on’ inside her. ‘The majority of patients like Mr Webb who score low on the scales are more likely to die or remain in a vegetative state.’
The junior doctor stared at the floor. When he looked up, the consultant was watching, waiting to see if he had anything to add, and he cleared his throat again and turned to Daniel.
‘More scans will give us a better view of what’s going on inside your father’s brain. We need to consider all the evidence before we start thinking about what might happen next. About what’s in the best interests of your father, what he would want to happen.’
‘That’s something for the future,’ added the consultant. ‘For all of us to discuss at a later date. Daniel, for the time being, we need to watch and wait and see how well your father does over the next few days.’
‘You haven’t told us everything.’ Daniel shifted in his chair and sat up straight as the three adults all looked directly at him. ‘You haven’t said why it’s happened.’
The consultant studied her fingernails and thought about that. James tapped his pencil on his pad.
‘I don’t think anyone can, Daniel,’ said his aunt.
‘So you’re saying none of you can tell me then?’ He waited for someone to speak. ‘I need to know because somebody told me everything happens for a reason and I want to tell them they’re wrong.’
‘Oh, Daniel,’ said his aunt, squeezing his arm. ‘Who said that?’
But Daniel just shrugged. When he felt his eyes warming up, he rubbed his fingers across them to wipe away the wet.
James leant forward and looked at Daniel. ‘Life may or may not have a purpose, but one thing it definitely has is love and you’re proof of that. It’s why you’re here in this room now, listening to everything we can tell you about your father. And all that love you have might be the most important thing to him right now. After they’ve woken up, patients in comas have talked about hearing loved ones around their beds. I read about one patient who said he felt his wife’s hand in his and heard everything she was telling him about their children and their life together as she sat beside him. That he had found her presence reassuring. So you let other people argue about why things happen in life, especially the bad things, because I’m not sure there are any answers to questions like that, at least not any good ones. You just focus on what you do best, which is to love your father like you’ve always done.’
Daniel nodded. Said nothing more.
The consultant folded her arms and stared at something on the floor and then she nodded too as she looked up at the junior doctor in the chair beside her. ‘Thank you, James,’ she said.