A Second Chance
Chapter Six
Brian softly knocked on the door to Nick’s room. He had been in the hospital
for over a week now and his condition was getting worse instead of better.
The tour had been post phoned indefinately and Brian hung on to the hope
that Nick would be getting better.
He found Nick sleeping in bed, the television set blaring. He quietly reached
over and turned the TV off, glancing at his best friend sleeping. He was
shocked when he noticed that Nick’s shiny head of hear was now dull and
thinning, his breathing was labored, the fingers on his hands looked stiff and
painful.
Brian accidentally bumped the bed, waking Nick up.
“Hey buddy, how ya feeling?” Brian asked quietly.
Nick knotted his eyebrows. “What?”
Brian winced at how loud Nick spoke. He cleared his throat and spoke up a
little louder. “How are you feeling?”
“WHAT DID YOU SAY?”
Again Nick shouted at Brian. Even though he was yelling at Brian, his voice
sounded weak and skaky. Brian had no other choice but to shout back at him.
“I SAID, HOW ARE YOU FEELING?”
“LIKE SHIT,” Nick shouted in reply.
That brought a bit of a smile to Brian’s face. Nick still had his was of stating
the obvious in blunt sentences.
“WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?”
Brian shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. Howie and AJ entered the
room, taking Nick’s attention off of him for a moment.
The words that Nick spoke next made Brian’s heart sink.
“WHO ARE YOU? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”
AJ and Howie stopped short of their approach towards Nick’s bed, stunned.
After a few moments, when they decided on trying to talk to Nick, his nurse
entered the room with his breakfast tray.
“Do we need to leave?” Brian asked.
“No, you can stay if you wish,” the nurse replied as she set the tray down on
the bed table.
Brian, Howie and AJ watched in astonishment as the nurse proceeded to
take a large napkin and tuck it into the collar on Nick’s gown. She then
uncovered a bowl of oatmeal and spooned a small amount out and placed the
spoon to Nick’s mouth. He did a poor job of eating as most of it ran down his
chin, the nurse having to scrape it off his face with the spoon, like an infant.
As the nurse continued to feed Nick, his doctor entered the room.
“What the hell is going on?” AJ demanded. “He’s regressing, he’s not getting
better! He doesn’t know us!”
“He has the middle stages of Alzheimer’s Disease,” the doctor replied.
“What?” AJ asked, stunned.
“He is slowly losing his cognitive skills, he can’t remember people, places how
to dress, it’s all part of the disease.”
“But he was fine three days ago,” Howie protested.
“I can’t explain this, I don’t understand this myself,” the doctor defended.
“Why isn’t Kevin here?” AJ spat, "he seems to have copped a non-caring
attitude lately.”
Chapter Seven