Flight

Senses

I felt the heat of a lamp on my face and a nurses breath blowing loudly into my ear. "He's alive!" She exclaimed loudly across the room to someone else. I tried to say 'of course I'm alive' but I realised, I couldn't, and I tried to open my eyes,  but I realised, I couldn't, I tried to lift my arm, but I realised, I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't quite remember coming into the hospital. I couldn't quite remember why I was in hospital. I tried to remember, expecting the memories to come flooding back, but no matter how hard I tried, they didn't, they just didn't. I heard another person's footsteps coming across the room and a chair scraping across the floor towards my bed, I assumed I was in bed. I was rather disorientated. He lifted up my top and held a stethoscope to my chest. "All's well in there." He said, I was relieved. "We can be glad now that that transplant helped to bring him back slightly. Although the ansthetic was not nearly necassary." Transplant! What had I had transplanted, I had a right to know. I heard him get up and pull the chair away. Could you not. I thought, the chair legs did not get on well with the polished floor. "You're right doc, that puncture was a nasty one, worst I've seen in a while. I'm grateful we could perform the surgery so quickly." Puncture? I was now guessing that I had had a lung transplant, gross. I thought. "How are the others?" The female nurse asked, not moving from my bedside. I could only assume that I knew the 'others' but I couldn't remember who they were or how they were injured. "The girl isn't looking so good, but the adults are up and about again." Girl, Chrissie. That was my thought process, Chrissie was injured, like me. But doing worse. Chrissie couldn't die. No. I heard beeping, like the sound of a heart monitor, I'd seen and heard them on tv shows. But it was weird because this time, it was mine. It sounded okay to me, but it could turn at any moment and that would have scared me. But I don't think I'd be there to think about it. But I was alive and thinking right now, and I had to wake up. I remembered my name, Benjamin. I remembered, I had brown hair, blue eyes, I was 5ft3" and I weighed 7.5 stone. And that was good that I could remember that, I'd heard stories about people who'd woken up and could remember nothing. The thing is, I remembered everything except what had happened and why I was in this situation, it was like my brain had chosen to surpress the memory of it. And I was glad of that, sort of. I didn't want to remember the pain I went through, but I did want to remember why I couldn't open my eyes. I had all my senses, well almost all of them, I couldn't see, and when the nurse held my arm to give me an injection, for what I'm not sure, I couldn't feel anything at the end of my fingertips. Weird right? I heard her say to the doctor, who was still in the room. "How is he feeding?" The doctor took a deep breath in. "Let's see shall we." I heard him fiddling about with something next to me. "It seems he's feeding fine off of a drip. He'll have to continue like that for a little bit after he wakes up, solid food would make his weak body sick. He just needs the nutrition right now." I was cold, freezing in fact, but I couldn't help it. I couldn't ask for help or anything. But, conveiniently, the nurse went to feel my pulse. "Ooh." She said "his hand is positively ice. Shall I fetch him a blanket?" I was partying inside. It's weird what makes you excited when you're this restricted and confined. I'd had various injections and it sounded like I was about to have another. The doctor once again scraped the chair across the floor, I tried to grit my teeth and bare it. But obviously I couldn't do that. "It looks like when you get out of here you have a lot of people to thank." Really? I thought, I knew I had to thank the doctors but I didn't know who else. "Firstly there's all the surgeons who helped with your operation." He probably thought he was practically talking to a wall. But no, I could here. "And then there's the girl who gave you blood! And she was only 18!" Wow, I thought, she gave ME blood and she didn't even know me. "Because you lost a lot of blood when you were injured. And then there's your Mother, she barely left your side last week, you should be grateful that everyone who was with you at the time survived." I tried to smile, but couldn't. "And then of course, the doctors and nurses who've been slaving away for two weeks keeping you alive, but we love it. We'll be happy as larry when you get better again." So people do care I thought. It was something I'd always wondered, do the doctors actually care about the patients. And obviously, they do. I heard the nurse come back in the room with a blanket and felt the doctor push the needle into my arm. But wincing just wasn't an option right now. From what they were saying, it seemed that I had been in hospital for over a week. I felt the nurse place the soft blanket over me, it smelt like hospitals and disinfectant, which made me ask myself, what had it been used for before? I didn't want to think about that though. I heard someone suddenly rush into the room "we need assistance in room 312 Miss Woodman's in critical conditions." Miss Woodman, that was Christiana the man hurried out of the room and I expect he went with the other doctor. But the female nurse was still sitting by me. "My name is Kathryn by the way, and yesterday your nurses name was Laura, she's my sister funnily enough. It seems weird me talking to you, but I heard that sometimes in certain conditions people in comas can still think and hear. And I don't want you to feel alone." I felt like jumping up and saying 'Yes! Yes I can hear you!!' "I'm sorry that Doctor Cawley had to leave, he needed to see another patient." Chrissie, I thought. "A patient who is very, very sick, they need to do everything they can to keep her going, and if she did die, God forbid, she needs someone by her bedside." I didn't want Chrissie to die. "The difference is between you and the other patient. Christiana is her name, she is awake, she can feel the pain. I assume you know her, you were found sitting next to her." But where! I thought, we were sitting next to eachother, but that could be anywhere!! "It's a shame your trip had to end so early, I wonder if you were going or coming back." Honestly? I had no idea, I didn't know whether we were on a boat, train, plane or car. "Florida." She said "I always wanted to go there." Florida!! That's where we were going, another piece of the puzzle! "Well it's a good job you landed still in English territory, because then your operation was paid for by the NHS." So I was still in England, I could tell I wasn't near home in the countryside though, their accents were different. "Look at me, chatting away. To someone who probably can't here it." If I could have talked, I would have said 'carry on, it makes me feel not alone.' "My Dad can't here me when I talk, he's deaf, and never would have listened anyway." I wanted to ask her 'why? Did you not like him? Tell me more..' she sighed, and something beeped, an alarm or something "oup" she said "time for your medicine." She pressed something onto my skin, it felt like a plaster, I figured it must be like a medicine patch or something. I heard footsteps and somebody entering my room. "How is she?" The nurse asked, there was a long pause then the man who had just entered the room, I assumed it was Doctor Cawley. "Who knows what's going to happen, her heartbeat and breathing patterns are all over the place, they haven't detected any specific problems but her body is slowly failing, faster than it usually would have that is, she's going to die." If my body could could have cried right then, it would have cried rivers. "How long are we talking?" The nurse asked. "Around about a year, maybe less. We can't be quite sure yet but it's inevitable, there's nothing on this planet that can save her. Because we don't know the problem, her body is completely starved of carbohydrates, she has no energy to go on." She was on a diet, I would have shouted, she was avoiding carbs. The bullies did it to her, they've killed her. If I could have gotten up I would have killed those bullies, right then. But I didn't feel angry, nor sad, nor worried. I couldn't feel anything. I suddenly felt shivers in my fingertips and the feeling was coming back, it must have been the medicine. It was making me stronger, I could sense it.