Game Over: Life's Over

Home In No Time

The pain in my stomach picked back up after I woke up from my nap. It felt like it had gotten worse than it was up to that point and it scared me to think what could be wrong with me. Nurses came into the room and tried to give me pain medicine through the IV but it didn't seem to be doing enough. It was like the pain was stronger than the medicine.

The scans and tests they did on me showed that my stomach had shrunk. They said that instead of being the size of a normal teenager, it shrunk to that of a child. The rest of my organs were struggling to keep up so my body was attacking itself. They said I should have been able to keep food down but because my body was in shock, it wasn't allowing me to have anything. If it weren't for the IV giving me the nutrients I needed, I would have wasted away day by day.

The doctors who were on my case suggested a medication that would speed up the process of shrinking my other organs and body parts. They said it was a grueling process that would take 72 hours for my body to get to where it needed to be. In order to do that, they needed to put me under so I wouldn't be in so much pain during the whole process.

It didn't take long for Mom to decide to go ahead with it. I was in a lot of pain and slowly wasting away because I couldn't eat anything. If they didn't push this forward, who knew how long it would take for my body to do it naturally?

I was glad Mom talked it over with Eric and Theo. They were my family, too. Being my caretakers, they could make decisions for me similar to how Mom did. They might as well have been my dads because they did everything that a dad did.

Mom stayed with me the entire time. The nurses as well as Eric and Theo tried to get Mom to go for a walk or go outside but she didn't want to leave me. The only time she ever did was to go to the bathroom.

Eric and Theo came and went. They gave Mom time to be alone with me while they went and got something to eat or took a walk around the building. I was glad someone was always with me, even if I wasn't awake to appreciate it fully.

The doctor ran a few tests to be sure I was ready to wake up and that my body was done regressing. He said it was common for this to happen with people who had my mutation but he didn't see it happen to those individuals more than once. At least I wouldn't have to go through that again.

It just made me hope that I never had to go through anything like that again. I was tired of shrinking and getting smaller and feeling less and less like myself.

When I woke up from my extra-long sleep, it felt like I was waking up from a nap after school. The kind where dinner had already came and went and it was dark out. I felt disoriented and had to look around the room a few times to really understand where I was.

Mom smiled at me. She was sitting beside my bed like she had been before I slept. "Hey, sweetie. How are you feeling?"

I rubbed my eyes for a minute. My whole body was sore and achy. Thankfully, I felt a lot better than before. So, that was a relief. I coughed to clear my throat and I felt a tooth come loose in my mouth. I held out my hand and spit the tooth out into it. Several teeth came out into my hand. Two of them were big teeth like molars. The other two were small teeth.

Mom got up and grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser at the sink by the door. She came over and held it out for me to put the teeth on. "It's okay, baby."

I made a face as I got rid of the teeth. I wiped my hand on my gown. "Ew, that's gross."

My voice sounded a bit higher than what I was used to but I tried my best to ignore the embarrassment that it made me feel. I would have to get used to it so the less I let it bother me, the better.

She laughed.

The doctor, an older man with wispy blonde hair, stood at the foot end of the bed. He smiled at me when I finally noticed he was there. "Hi, Jacob. It's good to see you awake."

I looked over at Mom before looking back at the doctor.

"I'm Dr. Laslo. It's nice to meet you. You were asleep every other time I came in here so I haven't had a chance to properly meet you yet," He said with a laugh.

"Yeah."

"How are you feeling?"

"Stiff."

"That's to be expected after your last few days. Are you in any pain?"

I shook my head. "Not really. My stomach kind of hurts but I think it's because I'm hungry?" My words came out sounding like more of a question at the end. I figured I would be hungry since I hadn't been eating for several days. I knew they were giving me stuff to keep me from starving to death but I still felt hungry.

"Yes, that's normal after fasting like you have been. We're going to hold off on giving you food for now so we can get your body adjusted to it again. We're going to start with water first and then work our way there. Once we know you can handle water, I'd like to start you on something similar to formula."

I scrunched my face up. "Isn't formula gross? I thought only babies drank it."

He chuckled. "It has a similar taste to milk. We give it to children who aren't meeting their growth milestones, not just to babies."

"But I'm not a kid."

"In this case, you are. I believe in treating my patients in the most beneficial way for them, regardless of their age, race, or gender."

I frowned. It was already bad enough that I was regressing before my body shrunk. If people didn't think I was a baby before, they were definitely going to think that now.

"You're still you, Jacob. I'm treating you and whatever that looks like in the moment."

Mom rubbed my arm. "We'll take it one thing at a time, okay? You're okay and you're going to be okay. That's all that matters."

I sighed. I was tired of being upset and angry that my life was going in such a different direction than I expected it to. I never wanted my life to look like it did. I had such high hopes and dreams for myself and none of that involved turning into a baby. I wanted to get past it but it was hard to not dwell on it all the time. Every time I looked at myself, something else was different or smaller and it was disheartening. I couldn't look on the bright side when I kept moving further and further away from it.

The doctor nodded, agreeing with Mom. "We'll start with the water and if you can handle it today, we'll be moving forward with the formula as early as tomorrow."

Mom smiled. "That's great."

"I'll have a nurse come in and check on you in a little bit. Hang in there, Jacob. We'll have you home in no time."

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Happy New Year!