Fizzled out

Chapter 10

Chapter ten

BEEP BEEP

"Uhhhh?"

BEEP BEEP

I sit up in my bed in the pitch black holding my forehead with one hand and reaching over with the other to stop the pounding noise coming out of my phone. I look at the numbers staring back at me indicating that I had 20 minutes before I had to leave for my appointment at the hospital. 20 minutes before random nurses poked my arms with needles and told me information that made no sense to me.
I had no one to impress at the hospital so after taking a much needed hot shower I pulled on some Victoria's secret sweatpants and a grey hoodie. I let my hair out of my towel and let it drip dry before brushing a comb through the damp tangles of my hair, My hair was always this strange colour that I never really liked. It was always to dark to be considered Blonde but too light to be a brunette. My mum always told me I had beautiful hair, like a princess she would say, but I guess her opinion doesn't matter now, well at least not anymore. She doesn't care about me anyway. Otherwise she wouldn't have left us, me and dad.

The trip from our house to the hospital is a short one but being stuck in London traffic at 6:00pm may tell a different story. That's one thing I do miss about Ohio, we lived in the city so I was used to falling asleep to the beeping of car horns, the sounds of speeding motorbikes, the sounds of the city. But here in our new house in London it's just, different. Quiet. But something I could get used too.

We waited and waited and waited in the waiting room for a good 30 minutes. No wonder they call it a waiting room. Finally my name was called out just as I was about to burst with frustration. I was then made to sit in a small room with various machines attached to my forearms as they took my blood pressure and multiple other tests. After about 40 minutes of that my doctor that had been with me these last couple days pulled up a chair, sat down and let out a sigh. Uh oh, when is that ever good... 
"Sydney darling how have you been feeling?" he chatted trying to cover up whatever was making him frown before looking at my results.
"yea pretty good, still getting the occasional headaches but apart from that yeah all good." returning the fake smile and adding in some extra perkiness for dramatic effect.
"your no dumb girl aren't ya Sydney,"
"You got that right doc, just dish out the bad news." I said with a little less perkiness as genuine worry started to set in. 
He half smiled and scratched the top of his almost bald head. 
"I was checking through your old hospital records and saw the occasional broken arm a few stitches on the knee, but the thing that I thought might have been related was a concussion when you were 8 I believe. " he asked with questioning in his eyes. I looked over at dad who was typing away at his laptop and tried to process my thoughts that were coming in rapidly like fan mail that not even the best celebrity could get through. My head pounded and the memory flashed in my mind. Falling. My back slamming against the ground my head snapping back and connecting with the ground as I landed my.
"Sydney?"  dad questioned as he and the doctor stared back at me.
I gulped. and croaked out a yes. 
"yes, that's correct, I did have a con.... concussion." I said so quietly I don't know if even I heard it. 
That was all he wanted to hear. A simple yes. My heart raced. My hands shook inside my hoodie pocket as I grasped them to try and stop the trembling. Calm down Sydney that's all he wanted to know, that's all.
I tried to listen as I calmed down the storm inside my head as he rambled on about the impact that concussions can leave on your brain.
"Traumatic brain injury." he stated. I gave him a puzzled look. "It's what I suspect you have, after studying your brain scans from that concussion to when you were in the coma and now that's what it shows. It's a very serious injury Sydney and I'm surprised they didn't see it before. It's a brain trauma and the outcomes range from complete recovery to permanent disability or death. Your very lucky especially as your previous doctors didn't notice it, And so what I guess I'm saying is that the brain injury therefore was the reason of your coma. It's quite common really." I soaked in all the information that was being fed. Dad was listening now, and had his hand resting on his chin like he does when trying to solve a problem.
"Another symptom of the brain injury is mood swings, inability to control your emotions, that sort of thing. Your mood may have spiked around the time of your coma."
This all made no sense and complete sense at the same time. Well at least that explained my random attack today at school. Oh yeah I hadn't told dad about that. 
"So that's really all I need to tell you, all I can do is put you on bed rest for the next couple weeks and dose you up on some drugs. Hopefully the moods will slow down in the next couple weeks but if any excessive things happen you have my number or there's this as well," he swiveled round on his spinny chair and passed me what looked like a business card it had some numbers printed on of some maybe counsellors? Normally this would have annoyed me but I had enough on my plate at this moment in time and I wasn't in the mood to add anymore.

After everything that had happened in that hospital tonight our brains were both dead so dad insisted we must stop for take out nando's on the way home. It was late and we needed some hot food to warm our stomachs. We drove home to the sound of the radio but neither of us were really listening to it. Once we were home we departed with one last look at each other as I went upstairs and Dad stayed down. "Hang in there bud," dad winked at me. "you're doing just fine."