Chapter 3

loud beeping sounds fill the air as I start to stir. It takes me a minutre to remember where I am but when I do I realize that it's the waiting room. I must;ve fallen asleep because now a nurse is coming and heading my direction. When she finally reaches me, she looks me right in the eyes and tells me" Tris your brother just got out of xray and is now in a room, we won't know whats happening until we get them back but your welcome to go sit with him though"She says. I nod my head yes and I follow her down the hallway till we reach his room, i'm scared to go inside because I don't know what I will find but I muster up my courage and go in anyways. The sight I see when I open the door is a bit frightening, he's laying there on the bed in a gown, oxygen tubes coming into his nose,and an iv drip taped to his right wrist. He doesn't seem to hear me come in at first then I realize once I get closer that he's crying. "hey,shh, you'll be alright caleb, are you just hurting,do you need me to go get the nurse so she can give you something"i ask, "no tris,but thank you though, they've already given me something, i'm just scared because I don't know what's going on,i kind of want mom"he says hoarsely. "oh I know, and I wish she could be here for comfort, but I'll do the best I can,ok"I say, "yeah"he says.

Sitting on the bed, despite the tubing,he lays on his side his back against my stomach, I try to do what mom used to do when we were sick,which was to rub our backs and to run her fingers through our hair. We stay like this for awhile until the doctor comes in with the xrays and puts them up on the screen. "is he awake"the doctor asks me quietly, "yeah"i say, as Caleb starts to stir and then sits up on the edge of the bed holding onto my arm for suppourt. It's weird seeing my brothers xrays because it's a vulnerable side of him I;ve never seen before, but somehow I manage to look at them as the doctor points out things to us and then tells us that according to the x rays he has appendictis and needs surgery. This scares me quite a bit because I don't know if the surgery will go well or not, but the doctor says it's not a big procedure normally but because his appendix might have ruptured,it could turn bad really quick. The nurse comes in as the doctor leaves,so she can prep Caleb for surgery. The first thing she does is take his temperture, then she places a catheter as he turns red with embarrasment because I'm in the room, and the last thing she does is to give some medicine to relax before taking him to the or. The nurse then clears her throat and says "it'll be about half an hour but we'll come by to get him for surgery", "ok"i say.

A half hour passes really slowly as I sit on the bed holding his hand, trying to reassure him that he'll be ok and it'll all be over before he knows it. Sooner rather than later the nurse comes in and says that it's time, and when I ask to go with him while the anesthetic is adminstered,she says that it's fine for me to go. We walk down the long hallway as I start to remember the first surgery caleb went through when I was 14 and he was 15, after he had taken a hard fall. I remember our mother walking down a hallway just like this,holding his hand, talking to him quietly, then being led into the OR. We eventually make it to the Or and I very quickly put scrubs on over my clothes and then go inside. It's very cold and dank in here,the only light being the one over the table shining bright and leaving a white glare. My brother is already on the table, gown down to his waist, abdomen exposed, chest heaving up and down in silent breaths. I approach the table and I stand in the space by his head, I gently stroke his forehead just like our mom used to do as they put a mask over his nose and mouth and tell him to breathe. His body tenses up at first but then relaxes as he falls into a deep slumber and they put him on oxygen. The last thing I see before I leave is someone cutting the skin on his stomach and blood welling up to the surface and it's almost more than I can handle because as soon as I get outside I start to cry.