If Love Could Be The Cure We Need - A MakoHaru Medical AU

Chapter 16: Mind Is A Prison

Makoto Tachibana

A soft knock on the door echoes through my fuzzy-feeling head. I'm in my room, but I don't know how or when I got here.

I groan.

The door opens and nurse Danuja walks inside. She's carrying all sorts of medical things. There's a concerned look on her face when our eyes meet.

I'm still very tired and I can barely look up at her, since my eyes feel so heavy and my head stings when I try to move my eyes upward anyway. Closing them, I sigh.

"Makoto," nurse Danuja says. "Do you remember what happened yesterday?"

She sounds very worried, but I don't know what for. Maybe I had a seizure before I went to bed? No, that couldn't be the case otherwise I'd probably in the medical building.

I want to tell her that I don't know, but that proofs to be more difficult since my tongue feels numb and itchy and not really present. So instead of talking I just shake my head.

She takes a deep breath and tells me that that's exactly what she thought. "You had another episode," she explains. "And it was much worse than any other time."

I swallow. I don't want this to happen again, especially when my friends are close. It can't have happened any other time, because the last thing I remember we were at Rei's room, watching a movie.

They had to see the worst episode I had so far, and I bet I completely forgot who they were. Somewhere I know I can't help it, but I still feel guilty about it.

"We have to keep an eye on this," she continues, and she's right. "I made sure you'll have someone checking on you more often, and if you don't feel good during class you're always allowed to inform your teacher and leave to rest."

I wince, I don't want this special treatment, because it makes me feel invalid, while I'm still able to do so much without any help.

"I also talked it over with doctor Daiki." She pauses and glances at the door. "We decided to give you another prescription of medication, because we want to prevent you getting seizures and liver or spleen enlargement and we want to avoid the expanding of ataxia, gaze palsy and loss of cognitive skills." She takes a deep breath, and looks at me with an empathetic smile. "I have the med cart outside, if you want you can keep it in your room and I'll explain when to take what. Are you okay with that?"

I nod, because I've always liked being able to keep my medication in my room myself since it makes me feel less like an incompetent person and more like someone who's been doing this for quite a while.

Nurse Danuja gets the med card from the hallway, it's just one of those iron carts filled with bottles of pills, papers, empty plastic containers, disinfectant, etcetera.

She brings it to my bed, while I get up and take a seat on the edge of my mattress so I can look at the cart more easily.

"Okay." She places the cart in front of me. "You can fill this in however you think it's the best for you, but I suggest you do something where you can cross off what medicines you have taken."

I nod and since I don't want to worry nurse Danuja, I also force myself to tell her, "Okay." even though my tongue hasn't yet lost its numbness and it's still hard to talk.

"You ready?" she asks, glancing from the labeled bottles of pills to me. I nod again, because I'm completely ready to pay attention to her explanation about my new batch of pills.

Some of the pills I've already taken before today, medication like Prozac for possible depression, while others I haven't even ever heard of, like FS which is for my developing gaze palsy, or the red pills that should counteract the numbness I'm feeling every once in a while.

When nurse Danuja's explained what every pill is for and when to take it, she gets up and hands me a piece of paper where all the information is printed onto another time. "In case I forgot to tell you something," she says with a kind smile.

I'm just glad she doesn't say "In case you forget" because that'd be plainly evil.

After saying that she walks to my door and gets ready to leave. She quickly tells me that doctor Daiki still expects to see me on Monday like every week. "So he can talk over some things with you and check if this treatment is working for you," she explains before she walks to the hallway and closes the door behind her.

I glare at all the pills and empty plastic containers before I sigh. I'm just going to take a shower and arrange my med cart afterwards.

So I do, I take a short shower, with cold water because everyone has already showered before me and the warm water is just completely used up, and when I get back to my room with my hair still wet I sit back down onto my unmade bed.

Luckily I still remember what every pill is for and when to take them, things like that, so I put them on the containers. On little pieces of colorful sticky notes I write what's the name of the pill in the container, what they're for and when to take them and I stick the notes onto the container it belongs to.

Other than that I make a checklist for every morning, afternoon and evening. I don't only make boxes to tick off for the medication I have to take, but also things like showering and brushing my teeth in case I'm going to forget whether I've done that and when not; I don't want to walk around with yesterday's breakfast in my teeth because I forgot to brush them.

That checklist I stick onto the side of the med cart, and I lay a marker beside the checklist so there's no way I have nothing to write with.

Half an hour later I stare at the completely arranged med cart with proud, because not only does it look neatly ordered, it also looks colorful and not so depressing as all the other medical equipment I usually see around.

Somewhere I hope I won't be needing to check the check-list other than when I cross off what pills I have taken for the day. I don't want to forget so badly that I can't even remember such things.

But even worse, I'm afraid it'll happen, or that I'll wake up one morning and forget who my friends are, who my family is... who am I.

I still have another half an hour until it's time for breakfast, so I get up and walk to my desk where the unused post-its lie. I sit down at my desk and grab a pen and an orange sticky note and in big black letters write down:

'Makoto Tachibana = you/yourself/me/myself.'

I grab another post-it and continue to write in smaller letters. Trying to fit as much facts about myself as possible on one little post-it.

'Seventeen-year-old male (he/him), olive brown(-ish) hair and green eyes.'

I continue, the pen scribbling over the paper as I write down all facts and little things I know about myself; incase I'd ever forget who I am myself. Every little detail I can think off about myself until I have a little bundle of post-its about myself. When I've finished writing I take some green tape and tape it together on the side like a little book.

I do this for everyone I know and I need or want to remember; everyone from my friends and family to the nurses who care for me in my time here. And by the time that I have to start heading to the breakfast hall, I have a thick pile of informative bundles of notes lying all over my desk.

I get up and take a relieved breath; if I haven't forgotten to write down anything about anyone, I'll be able to always remember every little fact I know about everyone I know. Which means I can go eat my breakfast and lead my life with one thing less to worry about.

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Next Chapter:
A trip to the funfair just outside of the school grounds :)