Beyond the Battlefield
I awoke to one of the hospital rooms. The white lights blinding my eyes. I sat up, confused. ‘How had I gotten here?’ The last thing I had remembered was being out in the field. I looked around for a nurse but found no one. I pushed the covers off and sat at the edge of the bed. I tried to stand up but fell face first. I gathered myself up and tried again but once more I fell. I looked back at my legs and screamed at the sight before me.
“My leg! Where is my leg?” I yelled out. The sight was horrific, my left leg was gone. All that was left in its place was an ugly stump where my knee should have been. Fear rose in me at the sight. My leg was gone, and I was destroyed. How was I going to make my family proud now? A nurse came running by and tried helping me up. I pushed her back. “What’d you do to me?” I screeched at her.
“Sir, calm down...”
“Don’t you tell me to calm down, I am missing my leg!” I interrupted her. “What have you done to me?” I screeched once more. My heart started to pound against my ribcage, panic rising in me.
“I need help over here!” the nurse yelled out.
I started to panic; my leg was gone. My body was destroyed and for what? I would never be able to serve my country again. A group of nurses held me down. “What’d you do to me?” I screamed out before feeling a slight prick and becoming sleepy. Everything became calm as I closed my eyes and fell into the darkness.
When I woke up, I expected it to be a dream. Being at the nurse’s station without my left leg. It had to have been a dream; I needed it to be, but it wasn’t. I threw the covers off only to still see the ugly flesh stump that replaced my leg. It still felt like my leg was there, but it was gone.
A nurse came by, “How are you feeling Mr. Capenter?” she asked me. I felt anger at her, though she probably wasn’t the one that mutilated my body. My rage was relentless.
“Where is my leg?” I asked harshness in my words.
“They had to cut it off to save you. It’ll be an adjustment when we get you a new one. Now I’m going to take your temperature.”
“A new one?” I questioned angerly, “I don’t want a new one, I want my leg back the way it was.” I demanded.
She looked up from the clipboard she held in her hand, a little taken aback. “I’m sorry but your leg is gone. There is nothing I can do about it.”
“Why’d you have to take it anyway? It was perfectly fine!”
“When you came in you were injured severely,” An old looking man wearing a white coat said as he walked in. “You had been shot in the leg. We had to perform surgery. We did everything we could to save your leg, but the damage was extensive. The blood supply to the leg was compromised and there was severe tissue damage. The infection set in quickly, despite our efforts to control it we couldn’t save the limb. The infection was spreading, and if we hadn’t amputated it could have spread to your blood stream, and you could have lost your life. We had to act fast. Saving your life was the priority. Now, how are you feeling?”
“Like I want to punch something! I never got hit, I don’t get hit. I’m the best out there, there is no way that I got hurt.” I harshly said trying to understand how everything happened. The last thing I remembered was being on the field talking to one of the soldiers. I think he was a Messager sent to me from one of my generals. He was telling me about something important, but I couldn’t remember what.
“Even the best soldiers get hurt. Now if you don’t mind letting my nurse take care of you,” the man said. He turned to the woman and whispered something that I couldn’t make out. “Don’t worry Mrs. Hart is the best nurse we have.” He left leaving me and the nurse. She set the clip board down and grabbed the thermometer.
“I’m going to take your temperature now,” she said. “You know, I know what it’s like to lose apart of yourself.” Her voice was soft and kind sounding.
“Sure, you do. I highly doubt that you’ve lost your leg.” I harshly said rage hiding behind my words. Silence filled the room.
Her face dropped. “Your new leg will be here a couple hours; the doctor is going to want you to test it out.” She said monotoned.
“I don’t want a new leg!” I demanded. She looked away awkwardly before closing the door and turning towards me.
“Look, I get it. You want your leg back, you're angry, and you have the right to be, but I am just a nurse. I didn't cause you to lose your leg. I didn’t cut it off or shoot it. I am just here to help make sure that you are ok and help you adjust to your prosthetic leg. I get that you need somewhere to put all your anger and grief, but I am not that person. So, make my job easier and suck it up.” she whispered yelled.
“I’m...” I stuttered a little shocked by her outburst, “I’m sorry.”
“Good, now I have other patients to see. I’ll be back when your leg comes in. If you need anything ring that bell over there.”
The hours I waited were the slowest in my life. Everything seemed to be going at a snail's pace. The world was bleak and dark through those hours. I tried sleeping to pass the time but every time I closed my eyes a sharp pain would hit my missing leg. I kept checking if my leg was missing or if it was all a horrible nightmare. Seeing that ugly stump that replaced my leg shattered any hope I had of it being a dream. My world was crumbling around me the more I checked. The weird thing was it still felt like my leg was there. I could feel my toes move and my knee bend, but all that was there was that ugly corpse of my once living leg.
“Mr. Capenter, your prosthetic leg is in. You ready to try it?” Mrs. Hart asked, opening the door.
“Do I really have a choice?” I asked my tone still harsh.
“Not really. The doctor wants you to at least try it on, so we can see if it needs adjusting.” She walked in holding a box I could only assume was my new leg. She set the box down next to one of the tables. She sat at the edge of my bed and softly spoke, “Look I know that this isn’t ideal, and I know what you're going through is hard, but you have to try. I promise that this will help things feel normal. Once you get back into the pattern of things everything will fall back into place.”
“No, it won’t. I can never do the one thing I was good at anymore. I can never make my family proud. I’m literally incomplete.” I pushed myself to the edge of the bed. My one foot touching the cold tile floor.
“That’s what the prosthetic is for, to make you a complete person. I know things won’t be perfect immediately, but it will get better I promise.”
“And how would you know?” My eyes started to burn with tears. I felt completely and utterly alone. My world was a shadow amongst everyone else's. I was nothing but a failure now.
Mrs. Hart paused, her face softening as she looked at me. For a moment it looked like she understood what I was going through. We both sat in the silence of understanding.
“I know what it’s like to be in your shoes, Mr. Carpenter. To lose a part of yourself and feel hopeless. Like the world is overshadowed by the lost,” She finally said. “But things don’t stay that way, they don’t stay lost forever. It might take time, a lot of time, but you’ll find a way forward. It’s hard, trust me I know, but you’re still here. That has to mean something. Don’t let this one little thing stop you. Not while you still have breath in your body.”
I couldn’t meet her eyes, the tears threatening to spill over, but I held them back. I was still shaking with the weight of it all, trying to process that the man I was, the man I had been, was gone. She didn’t wait for me to respond though. She simply opened the box, revealing the prosthetic, a sleek piece of equipment, practical but cold. She put it beside me gently, as though it was something precious.
“Look,” she said softly. “This is just the first step. We’ll take one step at a time together. I’m here with you. You’re not alone on this journey.”
I swallowed hard, feeling the suffocating weight of everything I had lost, but as I glanced at the prosthetic, something in me shifted, just the slightest bit. Maybe my life wasn’t over. A small bit of hope grew in me. I took a breath.
“Alright,” I muttered, barely above a whisper. “One step at a time.”
Mrs. Hart smiled softly. As she helped me try on the leg, I felt a sense of hope fall over me. I wasn’t whole yet, but maybe, just maybe, I could be.