Danny

Chapter 1

The world around me starts to make strange noises. I am coming out of the dark that had pulled me in. The only thing to make me aware of the change of surroundings was the change of noise. I could no longer hear the rain outside but instead I heard the rhythmic beeping of something monitoring my heart beat. Suddenly I am aware of a small puncture in right hand. As the needles puncture through the skin the small sting makes me want to pull my hand away but something is holding me down. Then I realise that there is more things that are different and uncomfortable. There is a hard smooth surface under my back. A hard device seemed to be holding my head in one position. The pain in my left arm remains but that is also strapped uncomfortably in a device. My senses working their way to the surface brought more attention to detail. There are other noises in the background. Voices barking orders. Shuffling of loud wheels squeaking and grinding demanding oil. That constant beeping still flowing with my heart beat which seems to be thumping in my head.

“Relax, my dear,” says a quiet voice near my right hand side. It must have been the person poking some sort of needle in my hand. She must have felt my little resistance. I am starting to feel uneasy. I have no idea what is happening and the only way to better understand was to get a view of my surroundings so I attempt to open the good eye. As the right eyelid lifts up a bright light is shining in my face. Instinctively my eye begins blinking to adjust to the brightness.

“Hello, what is your name?” asks a deep melodic voice. The thing around my neck prevented me from moving my head to see the source of the voice so it was difficult to know who spoke.

A matured dark face appeared above me with a bright grin. He had dark eyes to go with that dark skin. He was wearing a bottle green loose shirt and around his neck hung a stethoscope. It is clear to me that he must be a doctor. Slowly everything was coming together. I am now grabbing a grip of reality and understand that I am in the hospital.

“Where…” I cough trying to test my voice. The cough brings about a new spasm in my chest bringing tears to my eyes. My jaw also aches incredibly with the attempt at communication. The difficulty to communicate brings a fresh new reason for tears.

“Try not to talk,” the doctor says in his deep melodic voice placing a gentle hand on my shoulder. “You are in the hospital. You have sustained some serious injuries but we will help you.”

His face disappears from view. The coughing subsides slowly and I began taking small breaths. There are someone else's hands placing a plastic thing over my face with a string going behind my head. I can feel a gentle cool breeze flowing from it into my face. Is this to put me to sleep? I am starting to panic.

I close my good eye in fear of what is happening. My heart seems to take a life of its own and begins racing. The beeping now more obvious trembles into rhythm of my racing heartbeat. Questions begin bubbling to the surface. Who are these people? What are they doing? What are they planning to do to me? How do I get out? Of course I can not ask these questions out loud, but in my confusion and panic I try saying something. I take a deep breath to begin and immediately regretted the idea as a new spasm of coughing accompanied by the severe pain in my chest commenced.

"Do you want to prepare for an ICD, doc?" a distant voice shouts towards us. As the cough subsided again I opened my good eye to see what was going on. At that point I noticed the top of someone's head nod yes. What the hell is an ICD? Are they planning to operate on me?

My attention focuses on another horrifying dilemma. I can feel cold hands grasp my legs roughly to spread them open. An image of a chicken on a kitchen counter being spread open to be stuffed for dinner comes to mind. I am now aware of a new shooting through my left leg. Something felt broken as they tried opening my legs. Strangled noise escapes my mouth with the pain. Someone utters an apology but continues holding my legs open until an awful sensation enters my lady parts. Almost immediately I have the urge to pee.

All finished down there, they start poking and pushing me all over. The doctor probably wants to check for any other possible broken bones until he gets to my left arm.

"Oh no," he says. "It appears your shoulder may be dislocated. That will make it difficult to insert the drain. The orthopods would have to assist us here. Give 50mg Pethidine Sr Shozi."

Something on my arm starts to inflate cutting the blood supply off to my fingers. Fear of the unknown overwhelms me. I try moving again. I want to take that thing off my arm. No matter how much I try I cannot get free. Every limb seems to be strapped down. I am held like a prisoner on this cold unforgiving bed. It takes a lot of energy out of me before I give up moving, especially considering all the pain I am enduring with all my struggles.

A new warm brown face appears in my line of vision. Her smile is sweet to match her round eyes made to look bigger with her eyeliner and mascara perfectly applied. Her full lips curling back slightly stretching her round cheeks. All this is further enhancing her lovely features with a short neat hairdo on her head.

"I am here to give you something for the pain, honey," she says in her honey sweet voice. "Please don't move. You will only make things worse. I am going to give you this small injection here to help you." She then points to a spot just below my right shoulder before rubbing something cold on my skin. Seconds later I felt the small sting of the needle piercing my skin. The injection slowly infuses into my muscles uncomfortably before taking effect.

That thing on my starts inflating again bringing back the sensation of discomfort and fear. Why does that thing keep cutting off the blood supply to my fingers? I try one last time to wriggle free from my restraints. As I start fighting I realise that the pain is considerably less which gives me the courage to fight harder. As I am fighting harder another sensation occurs to me. My stomach of which had not bothered me before, now starts making uncomfortable contractions. I can feel the urge to bring up the contents of my stomach. As the contents travel up my throat I know what is coming and I am powerless to stop it from happening. The thick contents mixed with stomach acid pushes up my throat into my mouth. I spit what I can out into the thing that was covering my mouth, but some of it remains and starts choking me while I lay on my back powerless.

“Suction please,” the doctor starts screaming from somewhere near my feet. I cannot focus very well as the urge to vomit comes back with a powerful wave. I start coughing as the remnants sit in the back of my throat threatening to go back down. The coughing from that brings about a horrible spasm. Tears are forming on the sides of my eyes as I slowly feel the sensation of choking to death. Just as the tube enters my mouth for what I assume is the suction the doctor was talking about, the second eruption of my stomach comes up my throat.

Order quickly turns into chaos. The monitor beeps rapidly to my increasing heart beat. My mind is registering that it is too suffocating. The stuff that came up my throat is slowly being taken away by the pipe, but it does not appear to be happening fast enough. I am holding my breath in fear of choking on what is in my mouth. The doctor starts shouting for someone to please call the surgeon. He is pressing and prodding me all over until he hits it. The area to the left of my belly button but higher up. The doctors fingers travel gently around my stomach slowly reaching the sweet spot. As he finds his fingers prod a little harder and it hurts. It almost feels like I am being sucker punched. An involuntary yelp escapes my throat past the stomach contents.

A new wave of nausea starts erupting from my stomach. I start gagging bringing mainly stomach acid at this point. My stomach is mostly empty now. Someone's small hands removes the vomit filled plastic thing and attempts to wipe what remains on my face. Those small hands are using a damp cloth and it almost feels like a new form of suffocation.

Burning pain in my right hand suggested that someone was trying to give something through the needle there. I tried pulling my hand away with no success. The pain washing over my entire body was indescribable, but there was still the fear of not knowing what they want to do with me. That thing is cutting off the blood supply to my fingers again. All the anxiety one person can possibly feel takes control of me. I want to get out. I want to be free.

The fight shortly comes to an end as exhaustion washes over me. A certain numbness attacks my body. A calm slowly starts flowing through my veins when all of a sudden I have this urge to cough. Some of my vomit must have gotten stuck in my throat. As I take a breath it starts all over again and the spasms take over.

"Dormicum 5mg given IV," honey voice states to someone else in the room. With my right eye I see slender caramel arms reaching for some sort of bag hanging above my right arm. A fatter one is then put in its place.

"Second litre of plasmalyte started," another voice says somewhere in the room. I become aware of the bag hanging there and see that it is some sort of water. That bag has a small chamber sticking out beneath it and the water is slowly dropping into that small chamber.

Letting go of any fight I had in me I give in to the exhaustion. The spasms stop. I can focus on the dripping water without distraction. The beeping of the machine is slow and steady just like my heart. My head starts feeling fuzzy I slowly drift off into sleep while watching that chamber fill up with water but the level never rising. My eyelid of my good eye starts to feel heavy. Slowly I give in and close that good eye. Sleep comes peacefully to me.