X, I silently corrected myself. Not Xavier. The staff sergeant had called him X. Just one of the things I'd learned about the soldier I'd been caring for.
Like the fact that X didn't have any family. There wasn't a lot the staff sergeant had been able to tell me, but I'd gotten the impression that had been more because he hadn't known rather than any sort of privacy issues. X's mother was deceased, his father unknown. No siblings, grandparents or other relatives. He had someone listed as his emergency contact, but that was it. The staff sergeant had said he'd make the call, but that had been Monday evening and it was Wednesday morning now, and with the exception of the one soldier, no one else had been in to see X.
He shifted slightly and I sat up, tensing as I leaned forward. Aside from the couple times I'd seen his eyes opening that first day, he'd been unconscious. He was on a lot of pain meds, which didn't make waking up any easier, but if he didn't wake up soon, even if only for a few minutes, I'd be even more concerned than I was now.
When it came to traumatic injuries, only part of the battle was physical. Emotional and mental health came into play more than a lot of people realized. While there were, sadly, plenty of people who fought to stay alive and lost, there were also plenty of people who should've survived their injuries but didn't, simply because they gave up.
If X had no family, no one to support him, no one to live for, I wondered just how high his chances of survival were. Yes, there were those with families and loved ones who gave up, but that support system at least gave them a fighting chance.
I didn't know X, or what happened to him besides what I’d heard downstairs or in the news. I'd never laid eyes on him before Monday. We'd never spoken or even exchanged a real look. There was absolutely no logical reason for the sense of duty and compassion I felt toward him. It was beyond what I felt as a nurse toward all of my patients, even the ones I liked. I'd occasionally checked in on some patients more than others simply because they were a joy to be around, but I didn't think about them off-duty. I didn't stay over or come in early, and I certainly didn't sit by their beds and wait for them to wake up.
I leaned back in my chair when it became clear that he wasn't waking up, just responding to a dream. I hoped he was having pleasant dreams. Something that soothed his subconscious. Something beautiful. Because when he did wake up, his life would be a nightmare. He would be in a great deal of pain, despite the medication. And that would be just the beginning.
Once he could get off the ventilator, we could get a better idea of any sort of permanent lung or brain damage, then figure out where to go from there. He had months of rehab ahead of him at the very least, maybe years, depending on the need for skin grafts. His arm being both broken and burned would cause the most problems, even without the risks that came with his condition. Broken bones needed to stay immobile, but the arm would need to move so that the scar tissue could stretch and he could keep mobility in his arm.
He was in for a long and painful recovery. A recovery that, no matter how well he did – barring an all-out miracle – meant he couldn't return to active duty. One of the few personal things the staff sergeant told me about X was that he'd been in the army for nearly a decade, joining up at nineteen. And that X had intended to make a career out of it.
He could do desk duty, I supposed. Recruiting or any of the other jobs that wounded career military men did. But he'd never go back in the field. His eyesight and hearing wouldn't be affected, but his lungs could have permanent damage. Even if those were fine and his other burns healed well, his left arm would never be able to handle the sort of conditions he'd be subjected to during active duty.
These sorts of injuries were difficult to recover from under the best of circumstances, but to lose something that had been purpose and life for so many years, to know that all the plans that had been made were gone...something like that could break even the strongest of men.
That, I'd learned far too young.
My heart twisted painfully as the memories came forward.
I was fifteen when my older brother, Logan, enlisted in the army. Right out of high school, he was gone. Proud of his country. Proud to fight. He'd done well in boot camp and had told us that his instructors thought he had promise. He'd wanted to go career, move up through the ranks to command his own unit, to keep the country safe.
He'd written letters to me about that, about how he'd felt called to serve and protect, to make the country safe for me and for our family. For the high school girlfriend he hoped to marry in the near future.
His first tour had come up almost immediately, and he hadn't been kept stateside. He hadn't even been sent somewhere safe like Korea or one of our other outposts. No, he'd been sent right in the thick of things.