enemy to doctor - the hating game

37 - accostumizing

Josh helps me with bathing- again.
Just this time without the additional minutes with me on the counter and him between my legs.
He is overly careful and doesn't let me do anything except for washing myself where I can reach to easily.
Being completely naked in front of him while he is taking care of me is still a little weird but at least the bubbles in the bathtub cover some of my body.
We barely talk throughout the process and I simply enjoy the warmth seeping into my muscles.
After about 20 minutes, he lifts me up and out, then drapes a huge towel around me.
I sit in a wheelchair again while Josh dries my hair and then helps me with getting into new, comfortable clothes. They aren't sterile hospital clothes anymore. Simply some grey sweatpants and an oversized longsleeved shirt.
The process tires me tremendously and I am happy to finally go back to the room and lay in bed.

"Ready?", Josh asks as soon as I am done with brushing my teeth and rinsing my mouth.

"Yeah, I think so. Thank you.", I give him a genuine smile.

"You're welcome Shortcake."

He picks me up bridal style again after having put everything away neatly. Then he carries me back into the room. I'm so incredibly tired that I swear I could've fallen asleep there and in his arms.
But something doesn't let me. Something coils deep inside of my stomach, something like-
Dread?
I push the feeling aside, or try at least, and let Josh place me into the soft bed. I sigh and let my head fall to the left.
Then it jumps into my eye.
To my left, on top of the night table a tray with two injections has been placed. The feeling of tiredness vanishes within a bare second and I frantically turn to look at Josh who is turned with his back towards me, taking care of the dirty sheets.
I try to say something but somehow my tongue is like paralyzed and I just lay there, staring at him. A minute later he finishes with cleaning up and changing the sheets and beddings and walks over to the cabinets on the far end. Panic makes its way into my system but when he turns around, there's only a stethoscope hanging around his neck and a blood pressure cuff in his hand.
As if not having noticed the two syringes in the tray to my left, he sits down on the side of the bed and props the stethoscope in.

"May I?", he asks, before moving closer and placing the cold disk below my shirt. He moves it around for at least a minute, asking me to breathe in and hold it for a few seconds. As soon as he finishes, he wraps the blood pressure cuff around my arm and pumps it up, then places the disk of the stethoscope on my pulse.

"All good. I'll measure your fever later as you just got out of the hot tub and the temperature would surely show wrong digits."

"Okay", I say awkwardly, waiting from him to finally announce what I know is about to come but instead of turning me to the side he walks over to the other side of the bed and lays down next to me. Then he wraps an arm around me and pulls me up and towards his chest.

"Can I just see your IV real quick?"

I immediately place my right hand inside of his waiting palm.

"Does it still hurt?" He gently strokes the skin around the tape.

"Just when I move it. If I keep it calm it doesn't particularly bother."

Lie. That thing annoys the shit out of me but I'm happy that pain management works effectively through it so I just decide to shut up.

"The pain relief will wear off soon. I'm also going to just place a bag for hydration and add the pain relief to it."

I nod and watch him as he carefully peals a bit of the tape back to check the discoloration of my skin. No more purple and blue but rather green and yellow.

"If it doesn't bother you I'm just going to leave it like this. Adjusting it would probably hurt you more."

He gets back up and brings all the supplies back to the cabinets, then neatly puts them back. I'm weirded out by the fact that he hasn't so much as paid a glance to the tray on my left side. If he is trying to get me to tell him to go ahead and do it, that is not going to happen.
A minute later he walks back to me and makes quick work of an IV bag and attaches the tube to my hand carefully. Immediately I can feel the cold seeping into my veins and out of instinct I pull the blanket Josh has draped over me, up and closer.