Red Band Society

one // introductions

Blaise

I sit straight up in my hospital bed; a nurse at my bedside was putting an IV in my arm. The action itself was not what scared me, it had been done many times before, what scared me was that yesterday I was told I didn't need one.

"Why do I need this?" I ask the nurse.

"Your vitals dropped tremendously while you were asleep, Blake, probably because you aren't eating enough," she said eying me. Its not that I don't eat on purpose, I just rarely ever get hungry. My stomach is always pumped full of medicine that keeps my heart beating.

"Please don't call me Blake, I go by Blaise."

The nurse was obviously new, I knew this partly because A. She's barely out of college, B. Nurses who have just started their residence are usually really bad at inserting an IV which, C. She was. I mean come on, its been like ten minutes and she still hasn't gotten blood.

"Do you think you can switch arms?" I finally ask her. "This one is starting to feel like a pin-cushion."

She gives an annoyed roll of her eyes before taking the tourniquet off of my upper arm and making her way to the other side of my hospital bed.

On the sixth try the small cup at the end of the needle fills with hot red blood.

Thank God I think in my head.

She quickly pulls the needle out of my vein, leaving the slender clear tube to transport fluids into my bloodstream. She hooks up the IV to the bag of saline and the clear watery fluid begins to drip, taking a syringe from a tray on a cart behind her she inserts the smaller needle into the tube connection to my hand.

"There is a small amount of sedative in this as well, this should help you fall back to sleep."

Terrific. Sedative sleep isn't like normal sleep. Narcotic sleep is a horror-movie-like blend of vivid dreams that weld with little slips of reality. It is like you are swimming through a sea of blankets, fear, and confusion. I stare at the ceiling and wait for the ocean of terror to swallow me into an unrestfull sleep.

Soccer Practice. My favorite time of the day. Today however that is not the case. I clutch at the dull throbbing pain in my chest. When I try to run my legs fill with pins and needles to the millionth power. I try to flag down my coach or a line judge to signal a time-out, but nobody is watching. Everybody is watching the forwards at the front of the pitch as they set up for a goal and shoot. Everyone is watching them, that is, until my vision tunnels and swallows me in darkness.

I wake up in a hospital bed with the gooey gel of a heart monitor on my chest and the cold plastic of a red band on my wrist. Looks like I wont be going home today, or anytime soon for that matter. My parents notice that I have awoken and rush to my bedside.

"What, happened," I croak.

"Blaise, buddy." My dad begins, choking on tears "You had a heart attack."

My mother's body racks with sobs and my father holds her tight. A heart attack? I thought only old people had heart attacks.

My parents must have seen the confusion on my face, as my father begins again.

"You must have been stressed about your soccer game, because your blood pressure was off. The blood clotted in your heart and blood wasn't able to circulate correctly through your body. The doctors were able to get most of the clot out of your heart."

I look down at my bare chest and see hey look at that stitches that cover an incision the size of a kitchen knife.

"We'll go get you something to eat." My parents say in unison, turning on their heels and walking slowly out the door.