The Hospital, the Socks, and the Brother | Teen Ink

The Hospital, the Socks, and the Brother

June 7, 2017
By evie.marie123 BRONZE, Atascadero, California
evie.marie123 BRONZE, Atascadero, California
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Glued to the frozen floor I lay, immobile. Every heartbeat I count with my aching head. I glance up to see my mother’s petrified face. The words she says sound like a different language. Then I hear a sharp “HELP!” escape from my her mouth. My Father, away at work, wasn’t nearby. My Brother, headphones in, didn’t hear a thing. She proceeded to lunge for a telephone. Out of the corner of my eye I see the flash of a light, the power was down. The telephone didn’t work. She moved to her cell, clinging to it like it had legs and was running. I hear her on the phone, talking slow trying to not burst with emotion.


Ten minutes later the sound of a siren echoed in my mushy brain. A muscular man opened our door wearing a ridiculous uniform, definitely not up to par on the trends. He comes closer and I figure he is a fireman. I am reassured of my idea when I am confronted by a square faced man and catch the corner of his burlap coat on my thumb. I hear the soft voice of my Mother talking to the second fireman that walked in seconds after the first. Out of the whole conversation my Mother had with the man I only seemed to catch the word ‘seizure’. Still stuck on the floor like a kindergarten child glued me there, I touch the arm of the square-faced man. Distracted by a small needle, I sure hope he doesn’t intend to impale me with, he ignores the gesture. I touch again. He looks down. As he begins to analyze my body a tall lanky woman walks in with a tote, I am sure this tote contains all sorts of pointy pieces of steel they are going to put under my skin. She props me up with a pillow that appeared from what seemed as out of nowhere. A man with black hair plastered to his head brings in a rolling bed. The woman grasps my ankles and the man my shoulders. He counts to three, and up I went. Loading into the boxy ambulance I see the firemen hopping into their truck. The man proceeds to ask me series of questions, none seem to stick in my brain so I suppose they aren’t important. The roads were crocked to the hospital the whole ride I fix my eyes on the bright morning sun trying to ignore the fact that I had a seizure and no one knew why.


The doors swung open and  the lanky women pleads my case, it goes like this “Evelyn, female, age 15, not under the influence of drugs or alcohol, experienced a seizure this morning around eight A.M.”. In the hospital room I lay still enough for them to plug me into this bag of fluid. I feel like a lamp plugged into the wall. Three bags of fluid later i’m still stuck in this awfully lit room. A portly man walks in and asks me the same questions I got a couple hours earlier. He wears a white coat and a name tag I can’t read. He suggests the curly haired nurse give me a dose of morphine. I’m not sure what this foreign word means. “Morphine?” I ask. “Yes, you’ll feel less pain” the man explains. I hadn’t realized I had a sharp pain in my side and abdomen. My face creases with pain. The morphine injected into my veins was a strange phenomenon. The feeling was gone when I fell asleep.


Three hours later I awoke to my Father, who in three hours seemed to drive to the hospital from work. He is reading a book. My Mother walks in with the nurse. The curly haired nurse suggests I try walking. My Mother reaches for my pale hand and gives a gentle pull. I sit up. I don’t recall anyone putting socks on my feet but they are there so apparently my slumber led to the putting on of socks. My feet hit the gray flooring. It looks like fake tile, the kind you find at your grandma’s house. I stumble as my feet meet the fake tile, slip to my knees and resolve to my bed. The nurse mumbles something to my Mother through her poorly applied lipstick lips. I don’t catch the words. Receding into sleep again I close my eyes… maybe when I awake she’ll reapply her lipstick… one can only hope.

 

I awake to my nurse, with her lipstick still horrible, unhooking my I.V. I am no longer a lamp plugged into the wall. I feel better. A wheelchair is rolled to my bedside, so I don’t repeat the incident that occurred earlier. The drive home is rocky my mind slips into this day and age and out, fluctuating. When I am home I meet my bed like a husband meets his wife’s lips. Alive, home, safe, not a lamp, and well... still wearing the socks from the hospital. I hear my brother walk out of his room and ask, “Where the heck were you, i’ve been looking around all day”.
 


The author's comments:

I wrote this piece about a hospital trip I took recently. I have made it more dramatic than it was. I have also added some humor to it.


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