Standing By

I Don't Feel Good, Doc

(Mitch)

"You hanging in there?" Dr. Matthews asked me, patting me on the shoulder as I waited, seated in a wheelchair. Just the small movement jostled my poor wrist and I gasped in pain, feeling my eyes water.

"No, I'm not hanging in there," I complained, dabbing at my eyes with my good hand. "It fucking hurts."

"I know it does, Mitch," he told me, kneeling down eye level with me. "I need to see the extent of the injury so I can reduce the fracture. I can go ahead and prescribe some pain medicine if you'd like though?

I nodded enthusiastically, feeling that nod all the way down to my poor fingertips.

"Do you have any drug allergies?" he asked me.

Every time I moved my head, my wrist felt it, so this time, I spoke my answer. "No."

He paused. "Can you rank your pain on a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst?"

"Eleven," was my immediate answer. Didn't even need to consider that. I wished I could pass out again so at least I wouldn't be conscious of the sharp pain in my wrist. It had been so weird passing out earlier, as I fell. At first, it was just falling—pain as my body got thrust through the air and banged around. Then I had reached out to catch myself and that was when I'd felt it break, and the pain had exploded all the way up my arm, rattling my teeth, and sinking into my brain like ice water. My brain had screamed and stars danced in front of my eyes as the last thing I'd seen before I'd passed out; I'd come to only to see Scott and Kirstie crying in front of my face, and Avi and Kevin looking afraid just a step or two away. Nobody had wanted to let me move, and Kevin had tried to push me back down but I'd sat up anyway and tried to scream out the pain. The pain still persisted, pounding through me harder than I'd ever felt anything before. I'd never really broken bones before, no major injuries as a child—perks of being non-athletic, I suppose. Worst I'd ever experienced was a wisdom tooth extraction and my tonsils taken out, both in the same year (yeah, that'd been a rough year for me).

Dr. Matthews pulled out a prescription pad and started jotting down some instructions. "I'm going to give this to Harriet and she'll rush it in, OK?"

I started to nod before my wrist got jostled again and I let out a squeal of pain. "OK. Thanks."

He paused again before handing a nurse the prescription. "Is your voice always this high or is it just because you're in pain?

"Both," I grunted, holding my wrist as still as possible with my other one. It would, of course, be my dominant left one. I felt even more helpless, knowing I wouldn't be able to use it like I'm used to and that I'd be forced to do things right-handed. I'd tried writing right-handed once, jut to be more "normal", but that didn't work very well, considering that the main purpose of writing is for it it be read and what I'd managed to etch out with it was largely illegible. "How soon—for that medicine?"

"I put in a rush order," Dr. Matthews told me. "Hopefully, within fifteen minutes."

I groaned. "Not soon enough."

"We're doing the best we can, Mitch," he said gently.

"How long on the X-ray?" I asked, glancing down the hallway.

"We've got two patients ahead of you," he informed me. "We'll get to you as soon as possible."

'As soon as possible' was more like thirty minutes. My medicine arrived at the same time they started to roll me back, and I swallowed it down with a small cup of water. They had me put my arm up on the machine and draped me with one of those heavy apron things. First they snapped images of my wrist, then my arm, then two views of my hand, By the time they pushed me back into the waiting room, my wrist had stopped screaming at me, in favor of a more manageable throb, but my stomach was starting to sour on me. I closed my eyes, trying to force it to settle down.

"What's wrong with him?" Scott's voice pierced through the air.

"Why's he— look like that?" Kirstie asked haltingly, eyes skirting from me to that Harriet nurse. I closed mine again, trying to keep things in order for my poor tummy. Goddamn, now that I was moving, I was also getting dizzy.

"Mitch?" Avi ventured as Kevin ran towards me, also calling out my name.

"Sir," Harriet told him, calmly but firmly. "We will be taking him to the back room in the ER to wait for the doctor to read the results. If you will, please, give us some space."

"He doesn't look right," a high-pitched voice—either Austin or Kevin, or maybe Rob; my tired and woozy brain was too jacked up to distinguish them right now—said.

Whichever one of them it wasn't spoke up in agreement. "Yeah, he looks like he feels worse now, if possible."

"Quit... moving... me," I grumbled, leaning forward with my head in my hands. Ughhh, the more she pushed me down the hall, the dizzier I got. And the dizzier I got, the worse my stomach felt. I seriously felt like I was going to throw up. And I hate throwing up. It's so gross, disgusting, and messy—and reminded me too much of a painful time in life.

"Can you just... stop, for a a minute?" Adam requested of her.

Tim's deep voice rumbled , seemingly from far away. "We want to talk to him for a second."

No. No talking. I was sincerely afraid that if I opened my mouth, what would come out of it would not be words, but vomit. I opened my eyes for just a second, just long enough to see Chance step forward.

"Please," he was saying, as he reached over as if to take the wheelchair from Harriet. She pushed from one side as he tried to pull it in the other direction. My head spun around as my foggy brain swam. Oh shiiit. I felt my eyes roll backwards in my head and my body start to slump over before I gave in to the warm dark blanket that was unconsciousness.