Borderlanders

Chapter 3

Three

Melissa’s private notebookThis is it. As of right now. I bet it will be full of ripped and torn pages. Not because I’m an emotional person, but because I keep forgetting my shopping list.

Why do I have to write this thing, anyhow? I’ll explain that later. First, storytime. I’m going to leave out most of the screams and quite a lot of the throwing up.

I don’t want to remember this story, so it’s got to go down on paper. I hate how this happened. I’ve calmed it down a lot, but there’s still trigger pain and this memory is definitely that. So, the story …

This is just one. The one that got me onto a new track, why I’m writing, why I’m angry, and why the world and I do not talk.

Sometimes days start the same. As if they’re ordinary. As if, when someone asks, I’ll be able to answer “Not really a special day” without lying. Except I would be lying because that kind of day is special just for existing.

I woke and thought I was the kind of person who leapt out of bed shouting, “Places to go! People to see!” I got out placidly. Without pain. And I said, “Ordinary day.” That was my high point.

A piece of paper had drifted. Not from my marbling toolbox, for that was safely away because of the cats. It was there. On the floor. Where it shouldn’t be. I could slip on it and that would not be a good thing.

In a moment of extreme virtue, I picked it up. Sometimes I sweep things up the wall a bit, to make it easier, but today, I bent. It was only a little bend and I only felt a little twinge and I was getting a massage that day. A massage! On bad days massages bring me back from the edge. I was dreaming of that massage from the moment I got up, because a massage on a good day can get rid of that toxicity that floods my system. I can take steps forward with such massages on such days. And twinges were just twinges on days like this.

I drove. I know I’m not supposed to, but I did. And I was fine. Well, not fine, but not so bad. And the massage was everything a massage should be and I felt almost good. As if my life could be like this every day.

I could deal with twinges. I felt so damn confident that I bent down to put on my shoes. Stupid, stupid, stupid i***t that I am. I don’t have that kind of flexibility most days. I don’t wear shoes that require bending down. I fell into old patterns because my body felt possible … alive … almost normal.

It hurt. I didn’t ask for help, even though the kind massage person was there. I felt so damn normal that when it stopped hurting because I stood up straight again, I stopped worrying about it.

Got back into the car. It hit. Worst damn pain ever. Throw-up kinda pain. I didn’t, but I wanted to. I wanted it to go. To never have come. I couldn’t think. I was sitting there in the car and had to do something. I couldn’t. I couldn’t do a damn thing.

My brain melted. All I could think of was “go to hospital”. Which would’ve been fine if I’d used my damn phone. I didn’t. I drove myself there. I don’t know how often I nearly rammed into other cars or they nearly rammed into me. The whole trip was me in my body, screaming for help.

I got to Emergency. Yay me.

I couldn’t get out of the car. (This is why I no longer drive. Taxis. Always.)

Finally, I opened the door and pushed the seat so far back it was almost flat and I half-tumbled out. I don’t know how I stayed upright. I don’t know how I got into the hospital. I don’t remember shutting my car door. I was in the hospital saying, “Help!” and they told me to sit down. I couldn’t. I said so. Hurt so much. So damn much. I sent a message to Hal and he must’ve closed the door to the car, because I don’t remember doing it. I stood for thirty minutes before anyone saw me. In the end, they saw me because another patient said, “I think you need to see that lady before me. She’s in real pain.” Then I was triaged.

Thirty minutes wasn’t long for the hospital, but it was long for me. Other people measure pain by spoons, but that was the day I started measuring pain by how long time felt. By a minute turning into an hour and an hour turning into a week. I didn’t put it in words then, but I could feel time pulling apart, elongated by pain. It was ten weeks of pain.

The doctor made me walk up and down and then gave me an injection and threw me out. Didn’t tell me what was wrong. They don’t unless I ask and when I hurt that much, I can’t ask. Hal was ready for me and took me home. Or tried to. There were delays when I threw up.

I should’ve gone back to the hospital.

Some decisions are too difficult to make. They look so easy from outside pain, but everyone asks and asks, “What do you want to do?” “What would be best?” and all you can think about is the pain eating up your life and stretching time. That’s right, I remember, the shot was wearing off by the time I got home. Time was stretching again.

When we got home, Hal said, “I’m going to take you to the other hospital.”

I couldn’t face waiting there. All I wanted to do was go to bed and hope that sleep would subdue the pain. Sleep can do this, if I’m lucky. It did, for a bit.

It was midnight. I remember that. I thought it was an unlucky hour. All the pain was back, and none of the things I do to deal with pain were working. So many pain tricks I have. Sometimes it’s walking, and sometimes breathing, and sometimes … so many pain tricks I have. Tablets aren’t as useful as everyone says. I need the pain tricks. But they didn’t work that night.

Hal called the home doctor. We didn’t know about the home doctor until then, but he was worried and researched to find an alternative to hospital. At 2 am the doctor came. The doctor said I needed to go to hospital. Then I waited an hour (a big hour, a bloated hour) for triage to be done and I was told to wait because someone would see me. Soon. Their soon.

Their “soon” was four hours. I found this out afterward. Such pain. I can’t compare it to other pain because it was all its own and I hated it. Every long second. Throwing up didn’t help, but I threw up often.

I don’t know what the hospital staff thought. All I know is that they didn’t give me any help until five hours after I’d arrived. I don’t know what they thought of me screaming with pain, because they didn’t talk to me about it. I was a sick person in a hospital and the hospital didn’t want me there. That was what I felt.

When the doctor finally came, he asked about my history and about medication. He gave me two Endone tablets and told me they would make me sleep. An hour later they hadn’t and he was very surprised, but he sent me home anyway. I wasn’t in as much pain, so I could leave. Simple.

I’d stopped screaming.

My new doctor is the one who sent me to the physio who gave me a diagnosis. I should’ve been in hospital for three days, the physio said. My pelvis had slipped. My new doctor listened to the physio and did an examination. The first examination.

I said, “What can I do?”

She said, “Write everything down. Some of this is for you, and some of this is for me to help diagnose, but some of this is so that if anything like this ever happens again, you’ll have notes.”

I said to her, “I wouldn’t’ve been able to write that night.”

“Dictate. Or write when you can. Do as much as you can when you can.”

She’s helped. I haven’t had anything as severe as that since. I started living my life again. Not in the same way everyone else does, because I was sick before my pelvis slipped and I am still sick. But my life is back. I can do things. And I will.

Now I don’t need to remember that day, because it’s all written here.