Anderly described how my body lurched, my back arching up off the floor when they shocked me. A tear rolled down her face and she wiped it away quickly. Her eyes looked puffy and red. Bile rose in my throat and I swallowed it down.
You made her see that. You made her watch as you died on the floor. You made Hex feel the life slip out of you with his bare hands. Your only true friends in this world. You deserve the broken rib, the bruised heart, and the wrecked shoulder. You deserve to suffer so much more-
I took a deep breath, trying to shove the guilt down into the back of my mind. I struggled to keep my voice from breaking, but I still managed to look her in the eye.
"I'm so sorry, Anderly." I couldn't bear to say more. I felt the warm shiver of rising tears in my face. I didn't want her to see me cry right now. I didn't want to deal with the looming conversation, the elephant in the room. Did I try to kill myself? Did I want to die?
She smiled a small, quiet smile, and carded her fingers through my hair. I leaned into the touch, sighing, focusing on the feeling.
"I know, babe." She said softly. "I know. I just want you to try to relax and get better. Focus on yourself now, okay?" She gave me a knowing look, her eyes narrowing. "Stop guilt-tripping yourself, too. It doesn't help." Shit. This girl saw right through me, as usual.
"No promises" I said, caught. She rolled her eyes.
Visiting hours ended, and Anderly hugged me, being careful not to tug the IV lines in my good hand too much or hurt my fucked up shoulder. I tried to give her a smile as she walked out of the room, but if I managed one it was too small to feel.
I tried not to think about all the ifs. If I had just stayed home from the party like I wanted to. If I didn't have that drink and didn't panic I wouldn't have forgotten my phone. If Anderly hadn't been drinking, she would have gone to my apartment alone. But she wasn't the one who knew CPR. If I had been drinking too. If I had managed to find a knife before those fucking pills; I'm certain I would have tried to saw my own arm off to escape the pain.
I tried and failed not to imagine their faces had they walked in to find that instead.
~
Being in a hospital for an unforeseeable amount of time is fucking boring.
The recovery room was narrow, with 5 beds separated into their own little cubicles by ugly striped curtains hung from metal tracks in the ceiling. I stared up, at the speckled white tiles, and counted all the ones I could see. Like fifty times. So boring.
I was allowed to have my phone, but I wasn't allowed to use the WIFI, so I just played spider solitaire until I passed out. Typing texts to Anderly and Hex took too long with one of my arms in a sling, and reception was spotty. Hex still hadn't answered me. That hurt, but I understood. I would have stayed away too after going through something so traumatic.
My shoulder ached when the pain medication was wearing off. I craned my neck to see the bandaging they had going on over there, but my neck was stiff and I couldn't get a good look. A nurse told me some time after I woke up (my sense of time was off, I don't know when exactly.) that I had separated my shoulder again. I may have cursed. Okay, I definitely cursed.
Thank god I had Anderly sign those healthcare proxy papers, she was able to give them the go-ahead on the surgery since I was... incapacitated. They had put a titanium plate and screws in the end of my collarbone to hold everything together. The x-rays pictures were pretty crazy. I had to come back within six months for yet another surgery to get it removed.
"How did that even happen?" I asked. "I didn't do anything, I was just sleeping."
"We aren't sure what triggered your neuropathy, but we think you landed on your shoulder when you fell in the bathroom."
"Hmm." I muttered. Had I? "How did you guys even know I hurt my shoulder again? I was... unconscious."
She frowned. "It was a grade 3 separation. You tore through your ligaments, and your collarbone detached from your shoulder. It was sticking out pretty obviously."
I shuddered, suddenly queasy. "Oh. Gross." God damn it.
My first surgery had been four years ago, when I separated my shoulder (grade 1 separation) lifting a heavy box at my shitty warehouse job. That was the beginning of the end. I had needed arthroscopic surgery that left me with several small scars on my shoulder.
I was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, too. I remember the doctor had pinched the skin on my forearm and pulled, and it stretched like two inches away from my arm like taffy. He bent my thumb down: it touched my wrist with almost no resistance. He bent back my fingers more than 90°, and it was the same.
Apparently that isn't normal, but I'd had been pretty stretchy for as long as I could remember, and I just didn't know any different.
So my cartilage was shit, my connective tissue was shit, and I just wanted to fall into a hole and never come out.
A fun thing about EDS is you can hurt yourself doing normal mundane shit, and sometimes you don't even notice until you're on the ground. I once dislocated a rib during a hard sneeze.
I have been in the hospital like 10 times in that four year period, due to bad nerve pain, weakness and twitching in my fingers, and for revision surgery on my shoulder. I left my job, since heavy lifting is a no-no, and was put on disability at twenty years old. My guitars went to live in the spare closet, since I couldn't make my fingers do what I wanted them to anymore, and because it fucking hurt. I couldn't even finish one song. I was devastated. There went my music scholarship. My life had been thoroughly fucked before it even really began, before I even had a chance. My close friend Depression came to visit and never left.
Nurses and doctors visited occasionally, checking my IV bag, bringing me bland crappy hospital food, making sure I took my meds. The usual. I just blanked out most of my stay in the recovery ward, it was so monotonous.
One of the many nurses told me I would need to see a nutritionist to get my weight up if I didn't do it on my own. I fought to keep my eyes from rolling. It was hard for me to eat enough when all my meds made me want to puke. The nurse said they'd have a doctor adjust my meds to try and get the nausea under control, and you can bet they rescinded my oxy prescription. I'd get a referral to outpatient physical therapy, a psychiatrist, and a pain specialist. They e-mailed me my aftercare instructions.
Then they told me I would be sent to the psychiatric ward tomorrow, and all that included. Obviously they didn't believe me when I told them I took the pills because of pain.
Great. Awesome. I just nodded silently at the doctor, trying not to cringe. I'd do whatever they said, I'd be the picture of mental stability and compliance, as long as I could get out of there as fast as possible.
I shuddered at the words I'd left unsaid, but I just couldn't get them out-
I didn't want to die.
-Because it wasn't always true.
~
Comments (0)
See all