This choice: your 40-year old mother, Jennifer. • Go Back...Chapter #3your 40-year old mother, Jennifer. by: Wassel "Mom? What's happened to my mom?" you suddenly cried out, recalling them image of your mother sitting in the passenger seat of the van, laughing at some stupid joke your dad had made right before it had happened, feeling your practically lifeless body quickly filling with dread as you heard this news.
The voices stopped and two doctors attention quickly shifted towards you, as you watched two authoritative looking, middle aged men in white coats appear at your bed. "Hi there, Timothy, how are you feeling?" one of the men asked, a slightly balding fellow with dark black hair, a mustache and a pair of thick glasses, his tone soft and reassuring as he blatantly ignored your question.
"What's happened to my mom?" you repeated again, your own health taking a back seat while you found out what the hell was going on, "Is she okay?"
Both men looked at each other for a second, not sure how to respond, before the other man, the slightly older, taller looking one with the gray hair said, "Your mother is just fine, son, but there were some uh,...some complications."
"Complications? You mean that transplant thing you were just talking about?"
Glancing again at each other, the gray hair doctor responded, a great deal of unease evident in his voice (this obviously being the one who was against the procedure), "Yes...the brain transplant."
"Look Timothy, my name is Doctor Kerry," the balding, spectacle wearing doctor suddenly interjected, introducing himself and indicating over to his colleague, "and this is Doctor Saunders, and you and your family were in a very nasty accident - you are very lucky to be alive. Unfortunately there were, as Doctor Saunders just mentioned, a few complications when you were brought into the hospital, and we had no other choice but to perform a rather new and rather radical procedure to save your mother's life."
"You mean you actually swapped her brain? I wasn't just dreaming that?" you croaked, having half expected hearing that to have been an effect of the drugs you were on, not quite ready to believe such a thing was even possible.
"No, Tim, you didn't dream it, the procedure is very real," Saunders assured you, placing a hand gently on your shoulder, "It...well it just hasn't been properly tested before...Until now, that is."
Seeing the look of shock on your face as you tried desperately to process this information, your current emotional state being bad enough as it was without adding some weird science fiction like medical procedure to the mix, Doctor Kerry tried his best to both calm and comfort you, explaining that, "I know this must be quite difficult a concept to grasp, but I assure you it really was the only way. Without this procedure your mother would simply not have made it. And as far as we can tell, everything is fine. The operation went smoothly. There is no sign of brain injury or nerve damage. Your mother's synapses seem to be all firing correctly, and she appears to have all her motor functions in tact, just as we'd hoped she would. It really was a resounding success."
This all sounded like mumbo jumbo to you, and other than the part where he'd basically said that your mom was fine, right now you couldn't really care less about the rest of, wanting to see for yourself rather than have some crackpot doctor explaining it all. "Where is she? I want to see her!" you told him, trying to lift yourself up off the bed and finding it a little more difficult than expected.
"Whoa, now just calm down there, son," Kerry said, quickly trying to restrain you as you did your best to sit up, "You need to rest. You've just been through a very serious ordeal." Before you could protest this, Saunders then placed a hand onto his colleagues shoulder and said almost as a whisper, so you couldn't hear, "Bill, come on, the boy's fine. He just wants to see his mother. It really is the least we can do..." Kerry thought about this for a moment, then let out a reluctant little sigh, letting go of your body with his hands and standing back up. "Alright, Timothy, you can see her. She'll be waking up soon anyway and I'm sure she could use someone to help her through this."
Happy with this, though at the same time slightly scared, not quite sure what you were going to see, you tried to hold it together as the two doctors helped you out of the bed and placed you into a wheelchair, Saunders explaining while he did about how this was all going to be somewhat of a shock to her when your mom woke up, and how you were going to have to try and be as strong and supportive as you could, before wheeling you out of the room and into the hall.
Though you were still obviously very weak from the drugs you'd been given, you could feel your fingers clutching apprehensively to the arm rests of the chair as they wheeled you down the corridor towards your mother's recovery room, before Doctor Saunders then paused outside the door to tell you something. "Listen, Tim," he said, kneeling down in front of you so that his eyes were level with yours, "Before we go inside to see your mo, there's something we need to tell you about her new body. It's a very new, very experimental procedure as Doctor Kerry has said and there really isn't very many donors available just yet. That's why we had to use..."
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