Coma. Federico Betti
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day after the conversation with the nurse, Mario Mazza managed to speak to the anaesthetist that provoked the medically induced coma to his brother.
“Could you better explain to me what that is about?”, he asked.
“I know that you already were told, in broad terms, what we did” started doctor Parri, “His brother arrived here with a concussion of a non-negligible extent. The medical team of the emergency room, after taking all the possible examinations, believed that the only way to treat this trauma was a medically inducted coma. We administered some sedatives to your brother to induce him in a comatose state, considering that this way his body could ‘focus’ only on the injured part, the one that really needs treatment. We are monitoring all the improvements that your brother is doing, day by day, and I guarantee that they are evident. When we’ll see the complete healing of the concussion, then we’ll wake your brother up: he will stop the consumption of the sedatives and probably we will administer to him some stimulating drugs that will help the awakening”
“I see”, said Mario Mazza after listening the doctor’s explanation. “And how many are the odds that he will completely heal?”, he asked.
“I’d say one hundred percent”, answered optimistically the doctor.
“And that he will wake up from the coma?”, replied Mario.
“Absolute. Personally, I never came upon problems with the awakening after a medically inducted coma. We know which the doses are to give to the patients. Don’t worry about this.” Finished the doctor.
“Alright” whispered Mario in a sigh.
“Now I should go to lunch, I’m looking forward to a quite busy afternoon”
“Thank you, doctor”
“You’re welcome” said the doctor, before taking leave and go towards his office.
Mario Mazza was relieved after hearing those words from doctor Parri: they were positive, optimistic and hopeful.
The time for visits to patients wasn’t over yet, so he decided to stay a little bit more to check on his brother.
Going out of the hospital he felt his heart lighter: he was optimistic because he knew that Luigi would heal. In about two weeks, according to what the doctors said. Almost six day passed by, so it shouldn’t take long.
He went home, in the cold that weighted down on him and a freezing cold wind that blew on him, then he prepared something to eat and fell asleep in front of the television while a western movie of the ‘70s was on air.
IV
I’m driving, I don’t know toward what destination. And I don’t know where I am. I realize just now that no one is with me. I’m in the car, or at least it seems like that, but there are no passenger’s seats. Around me it’s all dark, homogeneous black. The darkness makes me feel insecure, because I don’t know what to expect. Meanwhile I’m here, sitting in front of the steering wheel. I feel like being still, like in one of those American drive-ins where you watch a movie sitting in the car, but in this case, it seems like the film isn’t projected anywhere. All around I only see the same pitch black.
Where am I? I’ve never been to America, so I’m not at a drive-in. So, where?
I don’t understand. With my left hand I touch the black, but it’s something tenuous, like the night’s darkness. But this is something different, because at night there are some lights on, but not here where I am now. So, where am I? What am I doing? I put my left hand back on the steering wheel, the only certain thing. I know there’s a steering wheel in front of me, but I don’t know anything else. If I had the chance to ask someone, it would be all easier; but there’s no one with me, not even in the proximity. I’m alone. Sooner or later something will happen, something will change, or at least I hope, but now it all seems motionless. I feel like being in a dark room, locked for some reason waiting for a verdict: as if I had to wait that a judge promulgates his sentence for something I did, but I’m sure I didn’t do anything illegal; I never committed a crime, I never made a robbery, I didn’t kill anyone. At least that’s what I know, provided that I didn’t have an amnesia, something that made me completely lose my memory, so in real life I really am in a dark room doing nothing until someone will come, maybe a policeman, to bring me to my destiny.
No, it can’t be. If it really was like that, how could I explain the steering wheel?
I don’t know where I am. If someone could help me understand…
Now I have a migraine too, a pain that starts on the left side of the head and slowly extends up to the right side. It’s not an intense pain, but it’s incessant, constant. I feel it pulsating in my head, moving from one side to another, from left to right, from right to left and, sometimes, I’m aching everywhere. My head is not splitting, but it hurts. Maybe I could use a painkiller to deal with the pain, or maybe I just have to wait that it goes away on its own, just like it came. I think that the only option to choose is the second, since no one’s here, no one I could ask where I am or why, no one that could somehow help me, giving me a painkiller for the headache, or letting me understand something of what’s going on with me. I stay here, alone in front of a steering wheel, in the darkness, at the mercy of events.
V
The examinations made on the seventh day showed a remarkable improvement: Luigi Mazza was responding well to the treatments and the healing in progress was making great strides.
He was thirty-five years old and his still young body was able to somehow able to get rid of the concussion that was caused by the car crash on the emilian county seat’s orbital road.
Although the man was motionless in the same position, without realizing when, periodically, the sedatives were administered to him to keep the state of medically inducted coma, nor realizing of possible visits, something was changing for the best inside him.
The doctors were satisfied and didn’t hesitate to tell the patient’s brother.
“Thank you so much for what you’ve been doing for him, really. If I knew who the guilty party in all of this was, I swear I’d tell him off. You can’t reduce someone like this, on thee edge between life and death!” said repeatedly Mario Mazza, talking to the healthcare team.
“He won’t die, you can be sure”, confirmed the head physician of Ospedale Maggiore, “He’s healing, even if he will need some time”
There wasn’t a day in which Mario Mazza wouldn’t go visit his brother. He was sixty years old, twenty-five more, he was widower since when, ten years before, his wife died prematurely because of a sudden leukaemia. So, they both found themselves alone, one by choice and the other one by constraint, and their bond was always stronger and well-founded.
Although they never thought of living together, they met each other habitually every day anyways. Only in some cases of impossibility due to the events, could happen that in one week they wouldn’t meet for seven days in a row.
They often had dinner together and, when they were both in agreement, they would also treat themselves with a dinner at a restaurant, choosing between several options that the city of Bologna and the near-by area offered to them.
They were both passionate about ethnical cuisine, to alternate with the traditional one or to pizza, often to try different flavours and traditions: from the more popular Chinese restaurant to the Indian or the Greek, up to the restaurants less popular by the masses, like the African restaurant or the Persian one, every occasion was good to vary and taste unusual dishes.
They agreed on many things, from the most important ones to the most trivial; they also had similar taste in music. Both Luigi and his brother liked almost every genre: one didn’t listen to house music because, according to what he said, it made him sleepy; the other one almost hated popular music, considering it inconsequential. He said that there’s music for every occasion and every kind of music generates different emotions depending on the genre; “The popular one doesn’t leave anything inside of you”, claimed the