Alarmed and shocked was what Zhenya felt the entire way to the hospital. She barely remembered how she got there, but suddenly she was standing in front of her brother and was in his arms. How did that happen? She became aware of her surroundings, the initial shock worn off. Right so her parents had been in an accident and were in the muggle hospital. It was only March so the twins were in school thankfully. Which meant they weren't in the accident either. But… but they would have to be told somehow. She was just about to open her mouth and ask, at the same time as Gary, what had happened, when a woman approached them. She was short, the same height as Zhenya, and round. She looked about the same age as her parents, and was wearing a white coat similar to Zhenya's. Except this one had "St George's Hospital" embroidered on the breast, similar to Zhenya's "St Mungo's - HEALER" on hers. She didn't even think to take it off. She didn't care, really.
Diana had walked out of Alexander Burton's Intensive Care Room after making sure he was stabilised. She needed to speak to the family. She recognised one of the men, the son. She didn't know his name. But she assumed the other two were relatives too. She nodded to the son and said "Hi, I'm Doctor Winchester, I'm the duty Intensive Care Consultant on today. Can you follow me and I'll update you in detail on your family members." She turned around and walked slowly in the direction which she came from and ushered them into a conference room. On the table was a jug of water and some cups. She sat down in one of the seat, inviting the others to sit down too.
"May I firstly ask who is who?" Diana asked the group. Two men, one lady.
Zhenya decided to speak first. "I'm Zhenya Burton, their daughter, this is Dimitri Burton my brother, and Gary Rush, my fiancee." Her voice was slightly shaky but she spoke clearly.
"Miss Burton, Mr Burton, Mr Rush, hello, please call me Diana. As I said I'm the Intensive Care consultant here at St George's Hospital. Now your parents have been in a serious accident this afternoon involving a truck down the highway. Unfortunately it was the truck which had lost control, and hit your parents car from the front, however the driver's side, which was your mother, was more damaged in the accident. The paramedics worked for about five minutes to pull them from the car and stabilise them on site before rushing them here. On arrival to the emergency department they were sent straight into the trauma room, where a team of us were ready to commence treatment. They were both intubated on scene and manually ventilated, and remain on the ventilator machines. We sent them both to theatre within half an hour as they were not stabilising. Your father has sustained some degree of brain injury from the accident, and had displayed clinical symptoms of increased intracranial pressure. Too much fluid and swelling inside the skull. We had to remove a piece of his skull to accommodate for that swelling, and he is currently in the intensive care unit in a stable yet serious condition. Our plan is to keep him sedated to allow his brain to rest and recover, and in a few days we will try to turn off the sedation to see how he reacts. Sometimes it can take even a few weeks for their brain to have repaired enough to wake up in a calm manner. Often the early days we see a lot of agitation, in which case we re-sedate them. But he will remain in the intensive care unit and will be very closely monitored. Unfortunately your mother arrived in a much more serious condition and is still in theatre. She had evidence of brain damage and increased intracranial pressure, and the surgeons have removed a piece of her skull as well. However we believe she may have some permanent brain damage as her pressure was very, dangerously high. She was also in hypovolaemic shock at arrival, and the surgeons are currently trying to locate the site of internal bleeding to fix it. They're doing everything they can to stabilise her and will be out to talk you through what they did as soon as they have stabilised her. You may visit your father in the unit." She stopped to give them time for the information to sink in and ask questions.
Zhenya blinked. What? "So my father is… what are they doing to my father in the intensive care unit?" she asked. Why were they cutting them up? WHY were they in a car accident? They should have known better. They were able to APPARATE for Merlin's sake.
Diana nodded at Miss Burton who had asked a question. "Currently we are monitoring him. He has a tube down his throat to help with breathing, he has been sedated, paralysed and has a morphine infusion to control pain. The intensive care team in there are watching his vital signs, his blood pressure through an arterial line, his oxygen saturation, temperature, respiratory observations and heart rate continuously. He's on intravenous hydration and is having a blood transfusion as he is slightly anaemic. He has a tube in his skull which is allowing us to monitor his intracranial pressures, in case it gets too high. He's also got some medications written up, and they are checking his reflexes every hour."
That was… a LOT of information. Zhenya nodded at the doctor. "Um… and my mother… they don't know if she will survive?" she asked. Seriously? Was this happening? She looked over to Dimitri with a puzzled look on her face. Was she dreaming? It didn't feel like a dream. "What exactly is wrong? Her intracranial pressure is high, yes, but what do you expect to happen? What could happen with the bleeding and shock? What can be done?" She had learnt all about this stuff in her training, the knowledge was there but she hadn't been over it in over a year now. She was doing something completely different in her field.
Diana could see that this woman wasn't inexperienced in the healthcare field. She saw St Mungo's - Healer on her coat, but wasn't sure what St Mungo's was. Was she a naturopath? Is that what it meant by healer? "With the increased intracranial pressure, by the time she had arrived and we had removed the piece of skull, the surgeons were worried that some serious damage had already occurred. What can happen is the brain tissue finds it has no room to move. The only place the brain has to go is down, through the spinal column. The brain stem can become damaged, irreversibly, if that happens. They're worried that may be the case. At the moment she's on life support, and although she's serious and we are all unsure of her condition, she's stable with her brain injuries. The only thing they could do was remove part of her skull which they have already done. For now they're working to stabilise her bleeding. They're concerned there may be a small perforation on a major blood vessel, or organ, and they're looking to see if they can locate it. For now they're giving her rapid blood transfusions until they can find and stop the bleed. The transfusions are only keeping her stable. If they can't find the location of the bleed and fix it, there is a good chance she will bleed out and die. We're doing everything we can to stop that from happening."
Wow… Zhenya licked her lips, feeling like she was slowly understanding. It was serious. Her father was stable but could still die. Her mother was stable and was likely to die. "Do you know how long they might be in surgery? Doesn't sound like they're close to finding out where the bleeding is coming from."
Diana resisted the urge to shrug. "It's hard to predict. If they find and stop the bleed, they will want to close her up and transfer her her into the intensive care unit where we will be observing her very closely, like we are with your father." She looked at all of them to see if there were more questions or comments. There weren't, so she continued. "When they find the bleed and stop it, she will come back here until she is stable enough and then we will probably do some scans on her. A CT scan, perhaps an MRI, and perhaps a brain function scan, to see what condition her brain is in. We don't want to wait too long to do that, because there may or may not be something to see, and there may or may not be someway to treat if there is. But we need to get the bleeding under control first."
Zhenya had nothing more to say. She understood. They were trying not to spell out the obvious, trying to give room for hope, but it was likely her mother would die. She probably had some kind of brain damage already. If they didn't control the pressure quick enough, then it was likely her brain would herniate. Zhenya almost shuddered.
