Minor Recovery

Two miniscule scabs on the upper chest, near my shoulder joints on both sides, indicate a paravertebral nerve block. This would explain why I couldn’t feel my chest, torso, or either arm. I came out of the anesthesia in a fog, a nurse sitting at the end of my bed smiled at me.

“Are my teeth blue?” she asked. The nurse, whose name I either wasn’t given or forgot entirely, displayed teeth that looked an icy blue, but I couldn’t tell if it was because of the light or if her teeth were actually blue. I had been conscious for approximately forty seconds. There was an awkward ache in my chest, something cold. I debated bringing this up to the woman.

“I-I’m sorry?” I was groggy and couldn’t feel anything. I was sipping ginger ale from a can through a straw and have no recollection as to either how it was placed in my hand or where it came from.

“I just had a blue raspberry slushie. Wanted to make sure my teeth weren’t blue.” She smiled again, okay, her teeth were definitely blue, probably, the room was darker than I expected it would be. She stood up. “Great, you’re awake, that’s step one.”

“Step one?”

She gestured to a checklist on the wall. "Five steps here. Step one, wake up. Step two, drink at least six ounces of a liquid and keep it down." She gestured to the soda can I was holding. "And it looks like you're doing a pretty good job so far. Three, stand up out of bed. Four, take a short walk. Five is just getting your discharge paperwork. So you're twenty percent of the way there." The blue-toothed nurse checked off the first box, then turned to face me. "Do you need anything?"

"I had some friends who came with, I don't know where they've gone."

"Oh. I'm sure they're at the cafeteria or something. Try not to worry too much, I'm sure they'll be back." She headed for the doorway, covered by a curtain whose numerous designs were bordering on the obnoxious. "Just press your call button if you need anything." The nurse flitted through the doorway, curtain barely waving in her wake.

And then I was alone, surrounded by the sounds of medical equipment, the constant announcement of an EKG, and scurrying nurses and doctors on the other side of the doorway. Not much to do other than lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to fall back asleep. Turns out, it's much easier to do that when you've got lidocaine, fentanyl, and propofol all in your bloodstream. I was shivering - this is commonplace after being under anesthesia - and I was having trouble moving my arms.

I could overhear a nurse at the centre station talking on the phone. Someone had a surgery scheduled for eight o'clock the next morning, so they had to be at the hospital by six. I was not envious of their timetable. I tried to orient myself in the room, which was arranged as such: directly in front of me, an off-white curtain hung from the ceiling with multicoloured blocks and rectangles covering it from ceiling to floor. It was unappealing and filled me with an irrational anger the longer I looked at it. On the hallway side of the curtain was a doorway with two glass doors at opposite ends; they could close in the centre if needed but were opened to allow for ease of access. There was a single bar of fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling, running from the doorway back to the wall behind me, flanked by recessed bulbs mirroring the fluorescents. The recessed lights were on, thankfully; I have a minor abhorrence for fluorsecent lighting and at any rate it would probably have made me ill. A television on the wall to my right; it was on some sort of telescoping arm, but I didn't bother with it much. Never been one for television. A stock photo of a beach, framed at the centre of the right wall. My bed was in the centre of the room, headboard close to the wall behind me, two long and narrow windows flanking me. Various medical equipment sat behind me: the aforementioned EKG machine, anesthesia machinery, to be perfectly honest I wasn't totally sure what was there as I didn't have the energy to move my head and torso to get a good look. To my left: a door, theoretically leading to a bathroom, and the checklist that would determine how long I was planted in this manner. Still no sight, or sound, of my platonic caretakers. Where was the cafeteria in this hospital anyway?

I never was a fan of hospitals. My father died in one, decades ago, and alone, the victim of cancer treatment. He had gone under the knife to remove cancerous tumours from his throat and neck and, while the surgery was a success, the treatments caused his carotid artery to weaken and, ultimately, burst. That can lend itself to a somewhat irrational fear in a healthy young woman that she will die in similar fashion. I could feel the walls closing in, and it was harder to breathe. I felt the ginger ale bubble up to the back of my throat and tried to swallow it down. I couldn't hear the EKG, but I felt my pulse throughout my body. Fingertips, toes, a throbbing headache, and in each incision on my chest. I felt sick, and reached for the paddle to my right that had a large red button at the end, trying to signal for a nurse, blue-toothed or otherwise. No responding light, vibration, or sound, so I pressed it again. And again. I pulled on the paddle, and it jumped into the air, an errant plug flying at the end, landing with a sharp thump on the freshly-stitched incision on the left side of my chest. I cried out, but no one came. The bed suddenly became hard, every movement accosted by sharp needles. I pulled on the call paddle by the plug, pulled it off of me, pulled it toward the bedrail, and let it clatter to the floor. Staff and patients would pass in the hallway every few minutes, yet none of them stopped. I felt my limbs grow heavy, body still throbbing with pain, and let my head roll back, falling asleep.

I came to some hours later, no one in the room. The check on the board had been erased, and the recessed lights were brighter. It was dark outside, and still no one had come to see me. The plug of the call paddle was caught in the bedrail; I pulled on it, pulling the paddle into bed, and then threw it at the curtain. It disappeared through the fabric and made contact with either a cart or the opposing wall, a dull thud against an impenetrable object. A hand threw back the curtain, and the formerly blue-toothed nurse came back in.

"You're still here?"

"I'd like to go home."

"You can't leave until all of these checkmarks are gone."

"Two of those should be gone, technically."

"You fell back asleep."

"I couldn't get in touch with anyone. What time is it?"

"About nine-thirty."

"Did my friends ever show up?"

"What are their names?"

"Loreli and Sam."

"Oh. They came back, yeah, stayed for a few hours. Must have left not too long ago."

"They left?"

"I suppose so."

"Can I call them?"

"Do you have a phone?"

"I thought I left it with one of them."

"It might be best for you to stay the night, then."

"But how will I know when they come back?"

"If they come back, we'll send them to your room."

"I'd really like to be able to make a phone call."

"You can't even keep yourself awake. When you can keep yourself awake, we can start the process again, and then maybe you can call someone."

"Can you stay with me, at least?"

"There are other patients in recovery, I'm sorry."

"I really don't like being in hospitals alone. I thought they would have stayed."

"I guess they had to go home."

"Please?"

"I can't, I'm sorry. There's a television in the corner to keep you company."

I looked at the nurse. Her smile had gone. She seemed stern-faced, thin-lipped. "Okay."

"Just call if you need anything," she said, turning to the curtain.

"The call button doesn't work."

"The nurses' station is just across the hall."

"Okay."

"When you can walk to the nurses' station, we'll get some of those checkboxes filled, okay?"

"Okay." I was looking at the ceiling, trying not to cry. Spending the night, alone, in a hospital did not quite fill me with joy. "Can I get some water, at least?"

"I'll have someone bring you some water, sure."

"Okay." She started to walk through the curtain. "Thank you," I uttered, voice barely above a whisper. The nurse had disappeared, lights dimming as she left. All that remained was the light diffused by the curtain, casting a sickly warm glow in the room. My stomach flipped again, and my palms became sweaty. I cried out, hoping someone would hear. But no one came.

I continued to cry, and no one continued to come.