"I don't understand what you're saying!" I stammered out as I stared at the doctor. The world looked hazy. The walls were closing in, shrinking smaller and smaller with each moment that passed. The thick air was suffocating, catching deep in my lungs. I forced myself to expel it and then took in a small quick gasp, struggling for breath. My heart started to race in fear, its uneven thumping causing me to gasp out loud again.

"Brain injury? The doctor in the ER said nothing about a brain injury. He said Justin would be out tomorrow, uh, today."

"Yes, well, he shouldn't have said that, especially with your husband's injuries being from a motorcycle. He may have seemed fine when he was admitted, aside from the liaisons and a broken arm, but now we have reason to believe he has a Traumatic Brain Injury. Some symptoms, such as the ones Justin is showing, show hours after the initial injury. Once the MRI comes back, we will know more," he said, but the words meant nothing. I didn't understand what he was saying.

"But they did a CT scan yesterday," I stuttered again, which irritated me because it showed my weakness. I never stuttered.

I was dimly aware that many new things would start happening during this part of my life, and stuttering when upset was one of them. I would just have to deal with it later; I would learn some way to calm down so that I didn't stutter.

"The MRI will probably show small lesions corresponding to traumatic microbleeds. The original CT scan they took yesterday showed a very small amount of bleeding; the bleeding was so small that I had to get right next to the screen to see it. That's most likely the reason the doctor that admitted Justin didn't think it was an issue. He might not have even seen it." Dr. Fylde talked slowly, shrugging coolly as if he saw this all the time. Which he probably did. As a neurological doctor, this was just another day in his job. Nothing special, just another patient with a neurological physician. Justin was just another body that he had to look at and make some kind of decision to what was wrong with him. If my husband had a brain injury, it didn't really matter to him, as it wouldn't affect his life in any way.

The itch to slap the doctor clawed at me. My hands balled into fists behind my back to resist the urge, my manicured fingernails cutting into the skin of my palms.

"What changed from yesterday to this morning? What symptoms is he showing now that he didn't have before? What made you want to do an MRI?" I asked, staring at Justin through the glass wall of his room. He laid perfectly still; I would have thought him dead except for the slight rising of his chest with each breath he took.

Numbly, I wished I wasn't standing there alone with a cold doctor. Maybe I would get Lydia to come sit with me and wait for the results. I wasn't sure if I'd remember what the doctor said later as everything he was saying now felt foreign. Questions clouded my brain. I wanted answers, but not the answers I knew I would get. False hope is what I wanted; some form of faith that everything would work out okay.

"According to the night nurse, he was very combative and confused as to where he is and what happened. When I checked him at the shift change, I had a hard time getting him to wake up and stay alert enough to answer questions. We cut down on the morphine during the night so he should have been able to wake up enough to talk to me. When he did wake up, he couldn't tell me the month or year he was in. He was very confused about everything we asked him," Dr. Fylde continued, his gray eyes watching me as I shook my head, trying to clear out the confusion that was starting to push its way into my tired brain.

I couldn't figure out why my world was being turned upside down. I hadn't seen my children in twenty-four hours; I missed them. This morning had felt off, not just because Justin was missing but because my whole world was missing. My family was my world; waking up alone to an empty house had been disheartening. I had laid in bed, straining to hear some sort of noise from within the house. But there was nothing.

Last night, lying in bed, I had decided to accept my current circumstance. I mean, really what else could I do? I imagined him flying off the motorcycle, but countered it with a forced positive attitude and belief that everything would be okay. Believe in the best, and the best will happen. He wasn't dead, and I had to focus on that. Life was full of hiccups, and this was a mere hiccup. We would all get past this, as a family, just like we had with every other hiccup in the past.

"Mrs. Poole, are you okay?" Dr. Fylde asked, his hand lightly touching my arm, interrupting my dreamy daze.

"Yes, it's... Um... I just don't understand how it went from overnight to he'll be out tomorrow to now he may have a brain injury. What happens if he does? Will he be okay? How long will he be in here?"

I wanted to ask a million other questions, and I wanted real answers, wanted to know the future. Yet I didn't really want the answers; I wanted to be allowed to live in my dreams, where everything would be okay.

Justin was our family's only means of income, our backbone. What would we do if he never recovered? Shame filled me; instead of being concerned for his health, I was worried about money.

"I have bombarded you with information. He could be okay; however, I truly believe he has brain trauma. But we'll see. Don't worry yourself before we know the full extent of his injury. Let's wait for the scan to come back. Here's the radiologist now. I suggest you go get something to eat and then come back up." He smiled and suddenly looked much younger than what I had earlier thought. His gray eyes showed sympathy and compassion. Maybe I just hadn't seen the empathy in his eyes when I looked into them before. The urge to smack him lessened, my body slightly relaxing.

It must be hard to be a doctor and have to tell families bad news. Any anger towards the hospital staff was wrong; none of them caused Justin's injuries. Justin caused it himself, even though it was an accident. When Justin came out of this, I swore that after I hugged him tightly, I would make him pay for the agony he was putting me through. Something inside me warned that any agony I felt now would be nothing compared to the agony that would come later. Heartbreak, my soul told me; later it would be heartbreak.

"Yes, that's a good idea. I haven't eaten yet. When the nurse called, I drove straight over," I agreed, although I didn't feel hungry, but then my stomach rumbled, arguing loudly with me. Last night's dinner, Taco Bell, still sat on the counter at home, untouched. After leaving the hospital late last night, I had stopped in to buy a Bean and Cheese Burrito – some comfort food is what I thought I wanted. But the smell of it was nauseating, and the thought of eating it disagreed with me even more. So, I threw it on the counter alongside the dirty dishes from that morning and went to bed instead.

Upset that I'd left the house with a dirty kitchen, and even more upset about Justin's favorite blue coffee mug still being dirty, I had to get home soon and get it clean, so it was waiting for him when he got home.

The mug had been a Christmas gift from Jace two years ago. The mug said World's Best Dad on it. Justin had beamed when he opened the gift that beautiful Christmas morning. The inside was filled with coffee stains that I tried weekly to get out with vinegar. Before the vinegar worked but now it didn't work so great. Justin never minded the stains, they fueled his secret smile when he took it out of the cupboard every morning.

Once, I had accidentally made his coffee in a different cup, and he just poured into his favorite mug, whispering sweetly into my ear as he passed by, "It doesn't taste the same when I use a different cup."

"I am expecting the results of the scans to be back in a couple of hours. Once I get them, I'll be back to explain." Dr. Fylde smiled as he turned on his heel and walked off, leaving me with Justin's nurse.

"Mrs. Poole, go get something to eat, or check on your children, or get something to read, or even take a walk. I'll call you if the doctor comes back before you return. You have a long road ahead of you. You won't be any good to anyone if you aren't taking care of yourself," Justin's nurse said, gently touching my elbow and gesturing towards the exit.

I allowed myself to be guided along, closing my eyes against the dull brightness of the lights. My head threatened to ache again, but I didn't have time for a headache.

My body stiffened; I was going to have to be everything to everybody. Yet I wasn't sure if I was up to the job, but who else would do it? It saddened my soul, knowing somehow that I was never going to have the support I had become accustomed to. All I once had was gone.

A prickly shiver ran up my spine as I thought about my future; the loneliness I would have to endure.