part 11

   14

When I wake up Sheena asks me if I’m still sleeping. I tell her I’m up. She tells me that she is feeling worse, and the Doctors want to keep her longer, for observation. I have mixed feelings. On the one hand I’m happy she will remain by my side, on the other, I feel bad that she feels so crummy. I tell her that I hope they find what is wrong with her and fix it.

I get a text message from whom I think is Brian. He says he hopes I have a good morning and this cheers me up. I text him back and we continue this throughout the day. I do not ask him to come visit, because I do not want him to visit. I do not want him to see me like this. But this doesn’t come up. I am in pain again, so I am given more narcotics. They do not help the pain, but they make me sleep, so I take them. And I sleep.

When I wake up I have another text message from Brian. It is only later that I will find out, this is not Brian. I do not know this right now, so I’ll refer to him as fake Brian. He simply asks me how I’m doing. His message was the thing that woke me up, so I am not amused. It’s not even the next day. It’s just late evening. I must have only slept for an hour. I ask Sheena how she is feeling but she does not reply. So I come to the conclusion that she is sleeping. I call the nurse to ask for my sleeping pills and she brings them to me. I watch TV and then I fall asleep.

When I wake up it is early afternoon. I ask Sheena how she is feeling. There is no reply, but I don’t think much of it. The nurse brings me my usual medication. My morphine pill. It does s**t for the pain, but it makes me feel sedated. And it makes me sleepy. I want to sleep as much as possible. I do not want to be awake for what has now become my reality. I drift in and out of sleep. A Doctor comes in to see me. It’s the same Doctor each and every day. I suppose he was assigned to me. He always asks me how the pain is. I always tell him that the pain is always there. We carry on this conversation until he says there really is not much he can do at this point, as always, and then leaves. I watch TV and I talk to Sheena. She does not answer, but I talk.

A nurse I haven’t met before comes in to give me a sponge bath. I get sponge bathed everyday, and I tell fake Brian over text message that at this point I feel that everyone has seen me naked. He replies back saying that I must feel humiliated. I actually don’t. I’ve always been very comfortable with myself. When I am cleaned up I see there is a large dressing covering my stomach. My stomach had been cut open, and stitched back together. It is not healing however. It keeps leaking. It is long. I estimate that it’s just under 30 cm long, about 14 inches maybe. It starts at around the rib cage, and goes well past my bellybutton. But at this point I do not care much. I will weeks later when I realize the implications a huge scar on my stomach will have on me, especially considering no one will bother to remove the stitches. Skin will grow over them and they will stick out. Despite popular belief, these stitches do no dissolve. But I do not know this right now, so I don’t care.

When I bring it up, my parents tell me that Doctors cut my stomach open several times because some of the organs had shifted and were lacerated. This had to be fixed. My parents tell me they lost track of how many times this was done, after Doctors did this the first 3 times. I’ll wonder how my stomach needed to be cut open more than three times, and how medical professionals could not get things right on the first try. I will wonder what was so difficult about sewing up my organs the first two times. Were Doctors just using me as practice, considering I had a 0% chance to survive? Months from now I will feel extremely upset about the very sloppy work these professionals performed on my stomach, but I do not bother myself worrying about this right now.

A nurse asks me what happened to me, if I got into a car accident. I tell her I didn’t. I tell her a cop threw me off a balcony. She replies right away like a broken record,

"Oh no! No, no, no. Cops are good people." She says this in a voice one would use with small children. I really do have to stop telling people a cop did this. People obviously have a hard time believing it, and instead just treat me like a crazy person.They make me feel likea brain damage lunatic.

For the first time, there is no comment from Sheena. I come to the conclusion that she is either sleeping or just doesn’t feel like talking.

 

 

15

Loupe comes by to visit me. I tell her I want to go outside and breathe some fresh air. She tells me she will gladly take me. I call the nurse to come and help me into the wheelchair. She tells me she will be right there with some help. We wait. About ten minutes have passed and Loupe tells me she’s had enough, and that she will transfer me to my wheelchair herself. I tell her she’s being ridiculous. I’m physically bigger than her. It took three nurses to put me in the wheelchair last time. In response she tells me that I’m the one being ridiculous, followed with a smile. She pushes the wheelchair to my bed. She puts the breaks on and lifts me out of bed, with what seems to be very little effort, if any at all. She places me in my wheelchair and asks if anything has caused me pain and I tell her, no, she did a very good job. I’m amazed she was able to do this with so little trouble. 3 nurses collectively had a problem doing the same thing a few days ago. But Loupe didn’t and I’m pleasantly surprised, and I thank her. In response she says,

"I guess you don’t remember, I’ve lifted you up before. You were actually heavier back then. Before this happened."

She wheels me out, first past Sheena’s area then into the hallway. Sheena is not in her bed. That explains why she hasn’t said a single thing to me all day. I decide that they must have done some tests on her and found nothing wrong and just sent her home. I know she’ll find me, but I still feel a stab of loneliness. Loupe rolls me outside. It is getting colder. It’s early October 2010. Theoretically it’s fall. It’s chilly but the fresh air is nice. I long to just get up and walk home. I can’t. I know that if I tried it might take me 7 years, roughly, and cause a great deal of pain. It’s more likely I would die of old age before I got home if I walked. We sit outside for a few minutes and then roll back inside. In the lobby there is a large aquarium and we stop by to analyze the fish. The aquarium looks like it is cleaned everyday, more than once a day. It is spotless. It is very nice to look at the life that exists outside my hospital room. My back begins to hurt.

Only later Gwen will explain to me that my back was broken badly. Several inches of my spine are now held together with metal. I will no longer be able to bend my back as effectively as I did before. But it is early October 2010, and I do not know this.

Loupe picks me up off my wheelchair and places me into bed. I call a nurse for pain medication and turn on the TV. I give Loupe the remote and she settles on a channel she likes. The nurse brings me my morphine, Tylenol, sleeping pills, and that pill that I am told will prevent nightmares. I take them all and Loupe crawls into bed beside me and we watch TV. My cell phone vibrates. I grab it. It’s a massage from fake Brian. He’s been messaging me everyday, and now he asks me what I’m doing. Loupe asks me who it is, and rests her head on my shoulder.

"I think it’s Brian. Its from a phone number I don’t have, and I know I deleted his contact information when we went our separate ways a few months back. I’m guessing it’s him. Like who else could it be?"

"Alright. As long as it’s not Travis."

"Travis? Who’s Travis?"

She takes her head off my shoulder and looks up at my face with surprise.

"Travis... you know... you were kinda seeing him."

I shake my head and shrug. I tell her I have no recollection and ask her to fill me in.

"You were in love with him Kar. Like extremely in love. The two of you share a birthday. You met him in grade 8... saw him again this summer for the first time in like ten years. .." She looks at me to see if anything is registering. I tell her I remember a Travis I loved in grade 8, but have no memory of him after that.

"It’s good that you don’t remember him. He treated you like complete s**t this summer. Like he treated you really badly. And you would just take it cause you loved him. I forbid you to talk to Travis ever again!"

"Well now I’m not sure who’s been texting me then. I was sure it was Brian... I really don’t remember Travis after grade 8."

Loupe decides to end this once and for all and find out who I’ve been talking to every day. She messages fake Brian from her cell phone and asks him who he is. He replies quickly. He tells Loupe that he is Travis. He then messages me asking me if I had been giving out his phone number. I tell him I didn’t. Technically Loupe took his number, so not like I ‘gave’ it to her.

"I was seeing Travis?" I don’t remember seeing him. I remember falling in love with him in the beginning of grade 8. I realize now that I am still in love with him. I smile and Loupe sees this.

"Kary. He was an a*****e! He had pissed you off so bad last time you saw him, that you deleted his phone number off your phone, and decided you would never speak to him again. I don’t want you speaking to him. All he does is make you miserable."

I don’t remember him ever making me upset. I only remember him in grade 8, and we were never friends back then so we never talked. I spent the whole year admiring him, and then we went to separate high schools, and I do not remember seeing him after that. But I know I never stopped loving him. And now I find out that I had been seeing him in the summer. Although I wasn’t his girlfriend I had still been ‘seeing him,’ so now I feel very happy about this.

Loupe begins to notice that I am drifting in and out of sleep. Just then an announcement comes on over the PA letting everyone know that visiting hours are over in 5 minutes, at 8:30pm. I like to take my sleeping pills early. The less I am awake, the better. Even though I am a little sedated, on what I’m sure is pain medication, now and again reality sinks in and I am faced with what I have become. I like to avoid any chance of that happening. Sleep is the best resolution. Loupe says her goodbyes, I turn off the light and the TV and I fall asleep.

 

 

16

The next day as I am sleeping, a man comes into my room to see me. I wake up. He looks familiar.

"I know you. How are you?"

"Oh you remember me?"

"Yeah, I’ve seen you before. I think you were cleaning my room the other day?"

"Oh no," he smiles politely. "I don’t work here."

Later on I feel like a complete moron for confusing him with the guy who sometimes cleans my room.

"No Karina. I’m Sheena’s son. Remember we met a few days ago? Don’t worry, I didn’t expect you to remember me. I know you had quite a fall. It’s not a problem."

I still feel s****y about it. I tell him Sheena hasn’t been on her side of the room, and hasn’t talked to me for a while. I don’t know where she is so I can’t help him.

He tells me that’s not why he came by. He came by to see me. He holds a plastic bag in his hands with something in it.

"I, well.... we wanted to give you these."

He gives me the bag and it is from a bookstore. There are two books. I take them out and study them. They are step-by-step advice books on how to write my story.

"We remembered you said you wanted to let people know about what happened to you. But you had writers block, so we picked these out and thought they might help."

"Thank you. When did you want me to return them?" At this point I think he is merely lending them to me. I do not think that people who met me just once would go out to a bookstore to find and buy something for me.

"Oh no! This is a present for you. These are yours. You don’t need to give them back." He smiles and I smile back at him.

"Do you know where Sheena went? Did she go home finally? I didn’t even know she wasn’t on her side of the room anymore. I’ve been talking to her but there was no response."

Her son has a look on his face that suggests he is searching for the right words, then says,

"Well... the Doctors found that they had to perform surgery. She hadn’t been feeling well... we were all with her when she woke up from surgery. She seemed perfectly fine. Then she started to get up, and collapsed. Her heart stopped. She passed away."

There is no air in my lungs. I refuse to register what he said. My logic cannot respond but my emotions do. Tears burst from my eyes.

"Oh Karina, I’m so sorry."

"Don’t be sorry," I say through sobs. "You’re mother just died... I’m the one who’s sorry."

My roommate is dead. I feel empty. Her son stays for a while and tries to comfort me. I feel sleepy so we say our goodbyes and I sleep.

I tell my parents what happened when they come to visit. To this my father replies,

"Sheena died and her son came by to bring you books the next day? The man is in shock. I don’t think he’s realized what happened." My father lost his father when he was nine, and his mother a decade ago, so he is now an orphan and knows how devastating it can be to lose a parent. He sympathizes. In the books that were given to me, Sheena’s phone number is written down, so my father calls the same day hoping to talk to someone, but does not get a response. This does not surprise me. Sheena is no longer around to answer the phone.

 

 

17

I lie in bed and I cry after my parents leave. The nurse who comes by to give me my scheduled dose of Tylenol asks what is wrong. I tell her I am upset because Sheena has died, and she responds to what I have just told her as if I am a child,

"No, no, no. She didn’t pass away. She went home." She uses a comforting voice, and all it does is mock me. She looks at me and nods her head in a way that would suggest I am not very intelligent.

I don’t know how old I look, but so far every single nurse that has taken care of me in Green Meadows has asked me what highschool I attend. My answer is always the same,

"I finished highschool 7 years ago." This nurse would be the last nurse to ask me this question. Her attitude has already been annoying me because she treats me like I’m a three years old. So when she asks me what highschool I attend, I tell her that I don’t, and I don’t care to explain anything further, so she continues,

"Oh! You dropped out?" She looks a little disappointed in me, so I see this as permission to be a smart a*s.

"No I didn’t drop out. I turned 25, so I think at this point in time it may be illegal for me to keep attending." She doesn’t reply. She finishes whatever she is doing and walks out of my room.

Sheena is gone, but Travis text messages me, and now that is the only thing that makes me smile. I know Loupe has told me to never speak to him again because he did something awful, but I can’t remember, and she can’t give me a solid example. I don’t know what he did, but I know that I love him. I’m still in love with him. He hasn’t asked to come by and see me, and I don’t want him to.

I take out my hand mirror and study my face. My nose is still noticeably crooked. I push one side of it in an attempt to make it straight. It is only months later that Gwen will tell me that my nose was broken in two places, but right now I have no idea why it is the way it is.

A few weeks after I arrive at this hospital a social worker who works here, Billy, finally comes to speak to me. She tells me that I’m on a waiting list to get into 1 of 3 Rehabilitation centers. I have to wait until a space opens up, and will go straight there from Green Meadows, if they are willing to even take me that is.

Dr. Hasten, the Doctor who has been assigned to me, told me on the second day I was in Green Meadows that he didn’t see why I was even there, I should be in rehab. I wonder the same.

The days go by, and I do jack s**t. I lie in bed and watch TV and talk to Sheena. And I can no longer do that. In the Green Meadows Hospital my life is put on hold. So when Billy tells me I’m on the waiting list for rehabilitation I feel very hopeful. I ask her if there is a rehab in the hospital I’m at, and she tells me there is one, but because of my injuries, I need a much more advanced rehabilitation facility. I am on the waiting list for three different ones and they are considered to be some of the best in Canada. This makes me very hopeful. I would just have to bide my time. In the meantime I have the TV at least. It costs $10 a day, money that I do not have, but I decide I would worry about that later. If I didn’t have a TV to watch I think I would go clinically insane.

18

One day I begin to feel pain right behind my tailbone. It is uncomfortable but something I can deal with. Loupe comes by and I feel well enough to have her push me around in the wheelchair. We take the elevator to the main floor and decide to browse through some of the stores. We go into a food store and Loupe asks me what I would like, she’ll get it for me. I pick out an ice cream cone and some cheese. We go back to my room and Loupe picks me up and puts me back into bed. She tucks me in. I feel like I’m a 10 month old, but I do not mind when Loupe treats me like a child. I don’t mind when she tucks me in or spoon feeds me. If anyone else was doing this I would feel like a burden. When Loupe does it I feel cared for.

The pain behind my tailbone is becoming worse, so I assume I just need to sleep on it and it will be gone in the morning. Loupe needs to go home, and a nurse brings me my medication. Vitamins, sleeping pills, and one to help me with sleep and prevent nightmares. But then again I don’t feel like I have dreams anymore. I would close my eyes, and when I open them the clock on the wall will tell me several hours have passed. I didn’t know I was sleeping.

There is noise, and it becomes obvious that a new roommate is being moved into my room. With no warning I cringe all of a sudden. The pain behind my tailbone is now more intense. I begin to time it. Every two minutes it would strike, and would last about 20 seconds. And Travis would text message me, and that is how the entire day goes by.

The sleeping pills finally arrive, so I quickly take them. Some time passes and I begin to fall sleep. Eduardo shows up. It is 10:30pm. Visiting hours had ended at 8:30, but he’s here now and no one stopped him. His presence makes me happy.

So we watch TV and I am in pain, but I’m bearing it. Eduardo tells me he feels tired and looks over at me. "Your bed looks comfortable." I know what he is hinting at so I tell him he is welcome to lie down beside me. He quickly makes himself comfortable on my left side, and rests his head on my shoulder, and we watch TV and in this moment I feel normal. I do not feel like I’m disabled. He stays for over an hour, and then he has to go meet up with friends. It is a Friday night, and no work the next day, so I understand he has plans with friends and have no intention to keep him. I remember I had always done something fun with friends on Fridays. For me those days are gone, but Eduardo is not disabled, so I hug him goodbye. Soon after he leaves I fall sleep.

I am in a cold sweat when I wake up. What wakes me up is the pain. I look at the clock and apparently I slept for about 5 hours. Something is extremely wrong.

I call the nurse asking her for pain medication. She brings Tylenol and morphine. These things do absolutely nothing for me.

An hour goes by since I woke up, and the pain has not subsided . In desperation I call the nurse again, only to have her come by and tell me there is nothing she can do. She already gave me all of my medication for the morning. I have to wait. I wince in pain and she goes away. I wait, and the pain becomes extreme. Medieval torture would be more pleasant. There are times I cannot help it and I scream. I call the nurse again, and in turn she calls Dr. Hasten. My parents and I had been poking fun at him before because he is a pretty boy. You can tell right away that he takes a lot of pride in his looks. He doesn’t look like a credible Doctor, or a Doctor at all. But I know I should not pass judgment on his looks. He has a medical degree and right now he is the only hope I have.

Pretty-boy Doctor comes in and graces me with his presence. I tell him that I am feeling severe pain right behind my tail bone. He nods and tells me that he will change my dose of Tylenol to "extra strength" Tylenol. If I wasn’t in incredible pain, and able to walk, I have a feeling I would get up and smack him in the mouth. I tell him that I strongly feel that this will in no way help the pain go away. The pain is extreme. I’m not lying. He nods and tells me that he will just increase my morphine dosage. I will now get three times what I have been getting.

I spend the day taking three morphine pills every three hours. The pain does not go away, it is however more bearable. I don't scream as much. I watch TV. When my parents come by and notice I’m not at ease, I tell them not to worry, I just don’t feel comfortable today.