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Chapter Twenty-Seven







Jess hurried to the hospital. The doctors had
told her last night that they were weaning Nick off of the
medication that was keeping him sedated. She was anxious to
find out how the surgery took and wanted to be there when
Nick woke up since he would be scared having the tube in his
throat and not being able to talk.



Jess was relieved when she walked into Nick’s room
to find that he was still sleeping and hadn’t woke up yet.
The respirator was still keeping it’s noisy vigil making the
hissing noise as it filled Nick’s lungs with oxygen. A
heart monitor made pinging noises with every heartbeat.
Jessica took a chair beside the bed and took Nick’s hand and
held it.



After sitting next to him for about an hour, she
felt him move his fingers. She looked at his face and saw
his eyelids flutter open. His eyes had fear in them as he
looked wildly about the room.


“Nick, it’s okay, I’m here.” Jess stood up so
that Nick would see her face.



Nick grabbed at the tubing in his throat. Jess
took his hands away from it.



“Let me call the doctor, don’t do anything with
that tube, you could hurt yourself.” Jess tried to calm him
down. She pushed the call button and within seconds a nurse
appeared in the room. She saw that Nick was awake and did
an about face and came back in with a resident physician.



“Okay, take it easy there, Nick. Don’t fight the
tube please.” The resident physician talked in a soothing
voice to try to calm Nick down.



Nick looked scared. He couldn’t remember how he
got here or what had happened to him. He tried to think of
what had happened but was drawing a blank.



“Nick, I need to know if you can move your arms.
Can you do that for me?” The doctor asked Nick.



Nick thought the question was sort of odd, but he
did what the doctor had asked and raised both arms up in
front of him.



The doctor, satisfied with Nick moving his arms
asked the nurse for a medication to be injected into the IV.
The nurse left and returned quickly with a syringe.



“Okay Nick, just relax.” The doctor said as the
nurse injected the medication into the IV. As soon as she
started, Nick’s body went limp as he slipped back into
unconsciousness.


“We needed to sedate him before we took the trache
out. We will have to suture the wound closed.” The doctor
told Jess as he slipped on gloves.



Jess stayed away from the bed as the doctor and
nurse worked on Nick to remove the trache and sew the hole
shut. Once they were done, the nurse told Jess that he
should be coming out of the sedation anytime soon. He’d be
a little groggy but otherwise would be fine.



Jess sat down next to the bed and looked over at
Nick. He appeared to be resting comfortablly. His throat
had a large white bandage covering where the tube had been
inserted. It was good not to hear the hissing of the
respirator. When they took the tube out of Nick’s throat,
she heard him make a gasping sound, which she thought was
normal because the doctor and nurse didn’t react to it.



It took about a half an hour before Nick started
to wake up. His eyes fluttered open and he looked around
the room.



“Hey, how are you feeling?” Jess asked Nick
quietly.



Nick looked over at Jess. His eyes darted back
and forth as if they were searching for something.



“You’re back at Tampa Hospital. You had to have
emergency surgery, you don’t remember what happened?” Jess
asked Nick.



Nick’s only response was a puzzled look on his
face and he frowned.



“You had fallen and then couldn’t move and they
did some tests and found that you had some blood clots on
your spine. They figured it may have come from a fall that
you had before the car accident. Brian said that a couple
of months ago you had fallen off stage and landed on your
back. They think that’s what caused the clots. They had to
do surgery to remove the clots. You have been out of it for
about three days.” Jess quietly and slowly recapped what
had happened to Nick. He listened intently.


Nick opened his mouth to speak but nothing came
out. He tried again, still nothing.



“Nick, it may take a little while before you
should try to talk, they had to do a trache on you and it
was just taken out less than an hour ago.” Jess tried not
to look worried.



Nick, on the other hand, was scared to death. He
knew what it meant when they do traches and how it could
damage a person’s voice by altering it completely. All he
could think about was that he would be finished as a singer,
he would never be able to sing again.



“Nick, Dr. Gaynor didn’t have a choice, he had to
do it. If he hadn’t of, you would not be here right now.
You were suffocating and he had to help you immediately.
You were paralyzed from the base of your neck down. The
muscles you use to breathe were not functioning.” Jess
tried to explain why this had happened, but Nick did not
seem to care, if he couldn’t sing what would be the point of
living.



Brian walked into the room with a smile on his
face. “Hey Nicky, buddy, good to see you awake. How ya
doing?” Brian patted Nick on the head. Nick always hated
when Brian did that.



Nick smiled weakly at Brian and rolled his eyes.



“They just took the tubing out of his throat about
an hour ago.” Jess explained.



“Oh, I see, that’s good.” Brian wanted to ask if
there was any indication as to whether or not the surgery
was a success, but didn’t know if it was a good thing to
bring up.



Dr. Takaghishi walked in with Nick’s chart in his
hands.


“Good morning, I heard that you were awake. I
have been waiting.” The doctor spoke as he was looking over
Nick’s chart. He set the chart on the bedstand and walked
over to Nick. He checked Nick’s eyes, listened to his chest
and then started to ask Nick questions that Jess and Brian
were waiting for.



“Nick, I want you to squeeze my hands.” The
doctor ordered Nick. Nick responded to the doctor’s
satisfaction. “Now I want you to wiggle your right foot.”
The doctor made that request after he pulled the blankets
off of Nick’s legs. Nick frowned as he tried to move his
foot. After what seemed like minutes but was only a few
moments, his right foot moved back and forth.



“Great, now do the same thing with your left
foot.”



Jess and Brian held their breath when the doctor
asked Nick to move his left foot. That was the leg that had
been giving him so many problems after the accident.



Nick concentraited very hard on moving this foot.
It wasn’t responding as quickly as his right foot and it
moved ever so slightly. If you hadn’t been looking for it,
you wouldn’t have noticed it.



“Very good.” The doctor did not like seeing that
Nick had limited movement in his left foot. He asked Nick
to hold out his left arm palmside up. When Nick complied,
the doctor put his hand on Nick’s arm and asked him to push
up against it.



Nick struggled to move the doctor’s arm without
success. His arm didn’t have the strength to move the
doctor’s arm at all. Nick was suprised when nothing
happened.



Jess and Brian both felt their hearts sink. This
did not look good at all. They both hoped that this was
only temporary and waited for the doctor to say something
after he finished writing in Nick’s chart.



“You’re doing good, Nick. There seems to be a
little weakness in your left side right now, but that was
the side that was affected before the surgery. I wouldn’t
worry over it just yet.” The doctor said.



“What about the trache, when we he be able to
speak?” Jess decided to go ahead and ask, she was sure that
Nick was thinking the same question.


“That too will take some time, again, I wouldn’t
worry over that just yet either.” The doctor smiled.



It wasn’t what they wanted to hear, they wanted
time, a date, sometype of guideline to go by to know when he
wasn’t meeting the medical goals.



“I’m sorry, it’s the best I can tell you right
now. Just get some rest Nick, this is what it will take,
time and rest.”



The doctor left the room. Nick wanted so
desperately to talk, he was frustrated that he couldn’t
communicate with anyone yet.



“I know, buddy, I know.” Brian tried to reassure
Nick.



Nick couldn’t help but let the tears that were
building in his eyes slip down his cheeks.



“Aw, Nick.” Jess wiped the tears away. “It’s got
to get better, it has to get better, don’t think of anything
else but that.”



“Yeah, Jess is right Nick. It’s easy to say from
our standpoint, but it really will get better.” Brian said.



Nick closed his eyes out of frustration. He
couldn’t talk, he couldn’t walk, he wanted to be left alone.


“Nick, would you like the radio on or television?”
Jess was hoping that this would take his mind off his
problems.



Nick opened his eyes. Jess had to repeat the
options so Nick could nod his head yes or no. He settled
for the radio. As Brian turned it on for him, he chuckled
when Britney Spears came on.


“Ya still want it on, Nick?” Brian smiled.



Nick gave a half smile back at Brian. He was
getting tired and could of really cared less at the moment
if it was Britney Spears, Cher or Madonna.



“Okay, we’ll go away for a little bit and let you
rest.” Jess kissed Nick goodbye.


After Brian and Jess left the room, Nick closed
his eyes and let his thoughts wander. He thought about what
had happened in the past few months. He remembered when he
was onstage at Orlando Arena and misstepped and fell
backwards and landed on his back. The pain when he fell
shot down to both feet. He told the guys he was okay after
he laid there in shock for a few moments, but things never
really did feel quite right. He remembered for the first
time since the accident, the fight he and Jess had and him
getting into his corvette to just go out and be away from
everyone. He remembered seeing a blue pickup truck go
through a red light and the squeal of his breaks when he
literally stood up on them.



All of the things that had happened in the last
six weeks were not good things. It would seem as if the bad
stuff should be ending anytime soon. Nick’s thoughts
switched when he heard the song Backstreet’s Back being
played on the radio. The lyrics being sung almost laughed
back at him. Nick never really listened to himself sing
before, now the voice was haunting him.



Nick opened his eyes. Maybe if I concentrate hard
enough, I can say something. Nick wanted this all to be a
dream. He opened his mouth and tried to speak. The only
sound that came out was a gasping garbling sound. It was
very faint. It hurt his throat when he made that noise.
Nick decided maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to try to
speak, he was afraid if he did get his voice back he could
run the risk of damaging the vocal cords by straining them.



Nick closed his eyes again and drifted off to
sleep. It was safer in his dreams, there was no accident
and their wasn’t any injuries.