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Annie Walter feels like she's watching her son die.
When he'd been in that coma she'd been told if he wakes up - if he wakes up - then it would be nothing short of a miracle. Of course, the doctors didn’t say miracle, but the grim expressions, the being brought to a sitting room with Peter it—
She had known, from the moment the two of them brought back, it was bad news. That it was only going to be bad news.
It’s an if.
It's a lot of ifs.
If he wakes up he might not remember her. If he wakes up he might not be himself. If he wakes up, he'd probably be dealing with major brain damage for the rest of his life.
If he wakes up, he probably won’t be himself for a long time.
But— But then he does, he does, and she’s in the room. He sort of shudders, on the bed, coughs, says something unintelligible and thats part one, part one is just waking up, and she’d been so scared, then, but—
But only minutes later, bleary, sick, out of it, he heard her, hed said, clear, loud,
“Mom?”
And that's when she knew he was going to be okay. Him saying Mom. That even if— even if everything was different, he’d be okay.
He’d be okay.
But now?
Now Annie Walter is no longer certain her son is going to be okay.
Now, now, with him awake, aware, not-in-a-coma and miraculous and himself, she is no longer certain her son is going to be okay.
Because he can't eat.
He's in his bed at home, day and night, he's propped up with pillows, or against his headboard, and he can't eat.
He keeps coughing up whatever he gets into his mouth. He can't swallow. He tells her he can't do it. And he's so thin now. And he's so much more distant that he was even right after he woke up. And she doesn't know what to do.
He gives up. He keeps giving up. No amount of her coaxing helps. He manages to swallows a few spoons of broth, or a bite of mashed potatoes, and that's good, it's something. But the rest of his plate or bowl is splashed onto the napkins she'd laid out, or onto the tray balanced precariously on his knees. He gets frustrated. He get tired. Says his mouth hurts too much to keep trying. And he doesn't eat.
She can see the way he tears up when he chews too much. The way he pushes food away. Turns his head, says he can’t, he can't, begs her without saying a word to stop making him.
He can't eat.
And she needs to do something about it.
Its—
She needs to do something about it.
He’s dying right in front of her. It’s just slower this time.
She brings him back to doctors. And he hates going. Hates leaving the manor. Hates people seeing him. She wants to tell him it doesn't matter, but it does, it does, the fact he can't handle anyone who isn’t her, or sometimes his father looking at his face without breaking himself apart to tears and sobbing breaths, it does matter, it matters so much but he—
He hates leaving the house.
And he needs to be seen too.
He sits on the table at the doctors and they watch him try to eat, but he can't focus when he’s there, with them all looking at him, at his mouth, the way his skin has been stretched back over his face, the way his eyes don't sit straight on his cheeks, he scares himself, and the doctors can tell, calls it nerves, imply he can't be this bad at home, and he’s not this bad at home.
At home he can at least get a bit of food down.
But he hides his head in her arms when they leave the room, and she feels like she’s still watching him die, just slower this time.
She doesn't know what to do.
His doctor says it’ll take time to relearn how to eat. He tells her as Pete sits beside her curled over his arms. He tells her to make sure he’s taking his pain medication before he eats, and that he is sitting up straight, and that he makes sure to chew his food.
She just wants to tear out her hair because he can hardly swallow. Certainly the fact he struggles to chew because it hurts is a problem. But even with foods he doesn’t need to chew he can't not cough it up. And if he didn’t take his medication she would know, because his face is still so painful he hardly sleeps, and he’s restless, and hungry, and he’s—
He’s dying right in front of her.
But they go back to the manor. And her son keeps dying in front of her.
He’s still losing weight. And he’s getting worse. She can tell. He can't think, he tells her, he feels like he can't think. He doesn’t think it's because of the head injury, he says, but he’s not really sure, because brain damage is expected, brain fog is expected, but—
She hasn’t seen him eat more than a few spoonfuls at a time in months.
His doctor says he’s not trying hard enough. Every time Peter hears that she thinks she watches a part of him die. He sits there hiding his face as his doctor talks to anyone that isn’t him, and they aren’t listening, and he cries on the way home, silent and shaking, and she hurts.
She just needs to do something.
So she brings him somewhere else. Out of network. A new specialist. She doesn’t care and his father doesn’t either. And she tells this new doctor with her son beside her, her son who this morning tried to drink water, just water, and threw up more than he got down because he choked so badly, that she needs to help him.
The woman - she looks at him, at his face, with pursed lips but no irritation in her eyes. Asks him what it feels like for him to swallow, why he thinks he’s choking. He mentions that his jaw hurts but he doesn't think it's that, and she nods. She sits beside him and asks him to move his lips, move his jaw. Tells him to stop when the movement hurts, that she doesn’t want him to hurt himself.
She’s concerned.
Annie would take concern over anything at this point.
She tells him that he needs a fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallow. That that means she’ll need to use camera to see the inside of his mouth as he eats. He listens, he listens, and she—
They’re being listened to.
Six hates cameras, hates people looking at him, and he hates even more having a camera pressed down and his throat and needing to try and fail to swallow while a group of doctors take notes at how bad he is at it.
But they’re actually testing him.
And it must be concerning, because they order a videofluoroscopic swallow study for a few days out - and money is an object they have to consider, and they don’t have as much as she’d like, but it's for her baby and he’s—
He’s actually being listened too.
So then four days later it's another doctor visit. A nervous physician. And then it's Peter trying to swallow the barium fluid, coughing, and trying three times before he manages to swallow swallows. It's the speech and language professional coming back grim.
And then its answers. Finally answers. She’s just glad for answers.
His muscles in his throat are damaged, they don’t contract properly when he eats, don’t work correctly to close his airway. He has nerve damage, muscular damage, presumably from his accident. Not just him being avoidant from the pain. Or from the change. Or from the stress.
And then they’re in the general exam office again, and the doctor is worried. And she isn’t looking at Pete like he’s a particularly odd specimen, or like his face is the worst thing she’s ever seen — she recommends immediate placement of a nasogastric tube for enteral nutrition.
She sits on her chair, and talks to Peter, to Peter, not her, for once, explains what that means, that he’ll have a tube placed from his nose to his stomach, and that until they can work on swallowing better, is a good option, and Annie has to cut in and say—
“His sinus’ are damaged,” Because she knows everything about his health, his face, “Will that impact things?” And the doctors face gets pinched, stressed, and Peter, her baby says,
“Well, uh, I can still sort of breathe through my nose? And I sorta figured that's how they did it when I was in that coma?”
“You had one down your mouth, Pete,” She says, and Peter blinks, shrugs, and she hates how he said sort of, her son can sort of breathe through his nose, and she—
She’s scared
“Have you had a MRI of your head?” The doctor asks Peter, and Peter pauses, looks at her, he doesn’t remember much clearly, from when he woke up, but that was part of it, and—
“Yes,” Annie says, “He’s had two. About a month apart.”
“We can use an orogastric tube if it's impossible. Which is what you likely had during your coma as— nasogastric may have been impossible. It's— I prefer an ng, but at this point any nutrition is important.”
And Peter looks at her, leans over his knees, and he has a nervous look to him, but—
“He just needs to be able to eat,” Annie says, “Any way.”
And the doctor nods, expression still pinched, worried, and she says: “I’m going to pull your records and evaluate.”
And then she stands up, walks out.
Peter leans sideways against her, the moment the door swings shut, before he turns his face against her arm, and she—
She just needs him to be able to eat.
…
The doctor comes back and she’s a bit less nervous, a bit calmer, and she says “We can place an NG tube. I evaluated your MRI results. It might be a bit difficult to place, but it won’t hurt you.”
And Annie’s sidelined, then, as she explains what that means to Peter, what he’ll experience as she inserts it, that because of his nose, it might be more uncomfortable, might hurt a bit, but that won’t be for long, and once she inserts it he’ll be able to use a syringe or pump to feed himself, and that in the meanwhile they can work on swallowing. That if he tolerates tube feeding well, they can operate and place a gastronomy tube through his abdomen. And he—
She hasn’t seen him look like there was hope in too long.
She explains that normally they have patients sip swallow water while inserting it, but that that isn't an option here.
Pete holds her hand as the doctor inserts the tube, and the bones in her hands creak as she watches tears spring into his eyes, and later he’ll tell her that compared to anything else with his face it wasn’t too awful, but—
But it's okay. He’s okay. He’s okay.
He’ll be more than okay after this.
She shows them how to feed him, how to prime the tube, how to inject formula with a syringe - a gravity feeding - while they see if this will work for him - and they give him a carton of formula right there, and it's more than she’s had him able to eat in weeks.
Peter seems more awake than he has in weeks.
She hopes he can handle it.
She hopes this is better.
As she drives him home, tube taped to his cheek, cartons of formula in the back seat, he’s staring out the windshield, he says: “I don’t think I’m hungry.”
And just that is enough she thinks she might need to pull over, because—
He can't eat.
But she says, “That’s good, Peter,”
And she thinks,
She thinks,
She might see him smile from the corner of her vision.