Beep. Beep. Beep. The familiar sound of a heart monitor reached my ears before my body registered the pain. Forcing my eyes open, I gave them to adjust to the fluorescent lights. I was alone, but I could smell my parents under the heavy smell of disinfectants. As I tried sitting up, nausea hit me like a brick in the stomach. Leaning over the side of the bed, I started vomiting into the trash can when my door opened. My mom had walked in and, after calling for Donny, she rushed to my side.
Rubbing my back, she kept telling me that everything was going to be okay until I was able to stop getting sick. Helping me lay back down, she waited for me to catch my breath before helping me sip some water. My hands were shaking too much for me to do it myself. After my throat was moist again, I tried talking.
"Sorry, mom." I croaked upon seeing her tired and worried face. My throat still felt raw and my voice cracked. Gently clearing it, I tried talking again. "How long was I out?"
"Not too long, only about five hours. Three of those were spent working on you, though." At my raised eyebrows, she explained. "Your left tibia and fibula were severely fractured and displaced. Donny had to do surgery to put them back in place. The same thing happened to your ribs, so they had to fix those as well." She had just sat down in a chair beside my bed when Donatello walked in.
"I'm glad to see that you're finally awake, though I bet you feel differently." He said with a slight chuckle. "How do you feel? And you better be honest." At the last part, he sent me a small glare. Normally I tried to downplay my pain, but Donny wasn't going to have it today.
Leaning my head further into the pillows, I closed my eyes before I answered. "My head is pounding, the lights hurt my eyes, It's excruciating to breathe, and my left leg hurts." I didn't bother mentioning that I had just vomited since I knew he'd smell it. A wave of pain washed over my body, causing me to shudder and groan. Donny reached over and pushed a button before talking again.
"That's to be expected. You had three fractured ribs that were displaced and needed surgery to fix, the tibia and fibula in your left leg were also severely fractured and displaced and needed surgery as well. Not only that, but you also have a concussion. I'm honestly surprised that you managed to get up that slope in your condition." As Donny spoke, I thought about the incident.
"I think I know who did it." Not talking to anyone in particular, I mostly muttered this to myself.
"Who? And how do you know?" My dad, who had just walked in, asked while he walked to my bedside. Looking at my dad, I recounted my PE class.
"It had to have been Bill. He was the only one behind me at the time." I said when I was done talking about the class. Dad had a contemplative expression on his face before he replied.
"I'll take another officer to the school during that period to ask the students if they saw what happened. That doesn't mean he didn't do it, but we can't do anything without taking the proper steps first." He added the last part when I tried to protest. Sighing, I nodded. I didn't have much energy to argue, and the pain meds were making me tired. Turning to Donny, I asked him a question.
"How long do I need to stay here?" I hated hospitals with a passion, and I wanted to go home now.
"I understand that you want to leave, Andrew, but it won't be right now. You'll need to stay at least two or three days for observation. The fact that you had vomited as soon as you woke up has me concerned." As Donny told me this, I groaned. Concussions normally weren't too serious; but if you were unconscious, woke up, and then started vomiting? That was when it got serious, and for the next 12 hours a doctor or nurse will wake you up every 2-3 hours to make sure you were still responsive.
Right now, it was around 7 o'clock at night and visiting hours were over. As my parents said goodnight, Donny gave me some medicine for my nausea. He walked my parents into the hallway and turned off the light before closing the door. I gave in to the exhaustion, and soon I fell into a dreamless sleep.
The next day I was feeling a bit better despite my broken sleep. When Donny came to check on me, I had managed to sit up and was working on the assignments from yesterday. He was happy about this improvement, but he still had to ask the typical doctor questions.
"I'm glad to see you sitting up, Andrew. How are you feeling today?" He asked this while he looked at my patient chart.
"My ribs and leg still hurt, but the headache and light sensitivity have gotten better." I said this while trying to stifle a yawn. Donatello wrote down my vitals on the chart before walking up to me.
"If you keep recovering like this, then you should be able to be discharged tomorrow. Now, I want to try getting you on crutches today to get you mobile again. It's going to hurt because of your ribs, but it should be manageable." After he said this and I gave him an 'okay' as a response, he left to get the crutches. When he came back and had them ready, he helped me stand on my right leg.
Using the crutches was tricky at first, but I quickly got the hang of it. Donny was right that my ribs would hurt worse, but not unbearably. As I was making my way around the hospital room, the door opened and my sister Alexandra, or Alex as she preferred, walked in. She stood in shocked silence until I went up to her.
"Alex?" I called hesitantly, lightly touching her shoulder. That snapped her back to reality.
"Are you okay? Never mind, don't answer that." She said while shaking her head. Alex had a pained expression as she took in my bare, bandaged ribs and the cast on my left leg. Like mom, she could heal minor injuries but these were beyond their capabilities to heal.
"I've been better." Turning to Donatello, I asked a question that had been nagging at me. "How long will it take for me to fully recover?"
Sighing, Donny answered. "I won't sugar coat it, Andrew. Your ribs will take at least two months while your leg will take at least six months. Then you'll need physical therapy to restrengthen your leg. During the six months of healing, you can't shift and ABSOLUTELY no training of any kind." I knew Magnis and Nightmare wouldn't like the restrictions, but they understood the necessity. My safety and wellbeing were the main thing they could agree on.
Groaning, I told Donny that I understood the restrictions as I made my way back to the bed. Alex stayed with me for the day. As I worked on my homework, she worked on hers. She was taking online college classes for a major in nursing and a minor in business management. I remember asking her why she was taking a management class. Her response was that if my brothers and I ever wanted to start a band, then she could be our manager.
By 4 in the afternoon, I had already finished my assignments. We had to read Chapter 1 and answer the following questions for both History and English. For Math, it was a worksheet with problems to solve. Biology was labeling the major bones and muscles on a chart, and I did more work on my picture for Art. Josh, Adam, Damian, and Dominic came after school and we did today's homework together. They had taken detailed notes for all our classes, so that helped a lot. Mrs. Lovelace had given them a message to pass on to me. She said that I didn't have to work on the picture and to just focus on recovering.
The assignments for History and English were to read Chapter 2 in the textbooks and to answer the questions after. Math was another worksheet, and Biology was labeling the minor bones and muscles on the same chart as the major ones. Donny came and checked on me during this time and he said that I could be discharged in the morning. I had called my parents and told them the news, and it took some persuading to get them to agree to let me go back to school when I got out.
School wasn't my favorite thing to do, but it was better than sitting on a couch all day. Which made me realize something. My room was on the second floor, so I would have to sleep on the couch for a while. At 6pm, my family left to go home and I was given the last dose of pain medicine for the night.
The next day, my parents came with a change of clothes for me and news about the questioning yesterday. Going into the bathroom, I changed into the black basketball shorts and Disturbed t-shirt, and when I was done, I went back to the room to put on one combat boot. While I was putting the boot on, my dad told me what was said at school.
"So Mr. Oscar, the other officer that went with me, and I asked all the students in your PE class what they saw. Bill Watkins said that you just fell down, but everyone else said that they saw him pull your shirt. As of right now, he's at the station with his parents. They gave permission for a polygraph test to be done, so we'll know if he's lying about his story soon enough." That was as good as they could do right now, so there wasn't much I could do. After I was ready, Donny discharged me and I was on my way back to school. Donny had given us a note for my absence and another for my PE teacher exempting me from PE until further notice.