Danny

Chapter 2

The urge to use the toilet brings me out of my slumber. It takes a few moments before I try to open my eyes. There is a leftover of a dream that slowly fades away and I try to recollect events and surroundings. Only one eye opens successfully and my head movements are limited. The pale ceiling and walls are an indication that I am not at home.

Random thoughts buzz around in my head. I remember pain and discomfort. Why was there pain? Fear creeps into the back of my mind. I feel like a child in the dark. Something unseen lurking in the dark making me want to pull the blanket over my head. What am I afraid of? Maybe it is the unfamiliar place.

The urge to urinate reminds why I am now awake. I try to sit up but find my arms are tied down. Understanding slowly washes over me. That seemingly irrational fear hits me as I try to struggle to get free. I am tied down! Somebody has tied me down! The more I struggle the more urgent I feel I need to urinate. The more urgent it feels the faster my heart is beating for fear of messing myself.

I manage to partially sit up despite the b*****e on my hands. My one open eye desperately searching for a way out. I feel pain traveling viciously up and down my left and it reminds me that something is horribly wrong there. My desperation to pee overcomes the pain. Despite the pain in that arm I am still struggling to get free.

At the point a small petite fair lady walks into the room through the door on the right. She is slender dressed with a tight fitting blouse with navy piping along the sleeves and over the edges of the pockets and collar. Her navy pants hang loose over black shoes. Her head is c****d to one side with a gentle smile touching her ruby lips. With her head c****d to one side her curly tied back neatly lightly touches the shoulder.

"Oh no my dear!" she says gently while reaching for a box on the counter next to her. "We can't have you dislocating your shoulder again. You need to lie down and relax."

"Where am I?" I ask hoarsely. For a second I am stunned to find I can speak. A flashback of my mangled jaw reminds me of the discomfort of not being able to communicate.

"You are in the hospital," she replies. Her face still showing concern. She had put pale gloves on her hands. Things are happening so fast and so slow at the same time. I remember seeing her grab a box, but I am not able to recall seeing put the gloves on. The box must have gloves in them.

I find some logic in what she is saying, but I feel anxiety spread over me as she slowly approaches me with those gloves on. She is still smiling gently while she soothes me into lying down. She tells me I don't need to worry. I was badly injured in a car accident and she is thereto help. She advises me to lie down because I have many broken bones. Her gloved hands are applied to my chest to reinforce her opinion.

Her words are soothing and her touch brings a calm over me. I allow her to gently lay me down and realize that what she has been telling me is true. I can feel pain radiating up the my left side especially around the chest and left leg. While she is talking to me and helping me to lay down, I am becoming more aware of my own body. All the while as the pain is becoming more obvious to me, the feeling I was experiencing is also coming back to me.

“I need to go to the toilet,” I tell her desperately. She shakes her head in response and bends down somewhere. She lifts a bag full of dark urine and tells me that I have a catheter which is helping me pee. She explains to me that the pipe was inserted into my bladder and is irritating the nerve and that gives me the feeling that I need to pee. She assures me that everything is going to be okay before bending down again.

She stands up and gives me a sympathetic smile before taking her gloves off and leaving the room. Once she was out of the room my anxiety returned. My need to use the toilet is still bothering. I fear that if I stay here much longer I will wet the bed and that to me is very embarrassing.

With the remaining strength I pull past the pain and pull myself into an almost sitting up position. I start fighting the restraint on my right hand. I pull and push rattling the cotside. This was getting me nowhere. I turn my head to see with my good eye what held me down. It appears to be some bandages. I start twisting the arm to loosen the bandage. The cotside rattles even more.

The nurse that attended to me earlier comes back looking stern. She frowns at me seeing my upright position and my arm twisted awkwardly while trying to loosen the b*****e. Her caramel complexion shines in the light of the doorway as she stands there with her hands on her hips.

"What did I tell you?" she asks as she slowly approaches me. "You are very badly injured. You need to rest. Lie down now."

"I need to go to the toilet," I tell her with tears in my eyes. I am desperate. To me it feels as though I am going to mess the bed. Anxiety washes as over with the thought I am going wet myself. I hadn't wet myself for so long.

She smiles gently and then tells me it's okay. I need to relax. She advises me to practice some breathing with her. In through the nose and out through the mouth. All the while her hands are on my chest calmly laying me down. She then pulls the blanket up to cover me.

The urge is so strong that I can't help myself anymore and I pee. I feel a little trickle come out the bottom, but the urge is still bothering me and I want it to go away so push what is left in my bladder and scream. For some reason it now burns.

The nurse had turned to leave now looks back concerned. Her eyes widen as I scream for the burning to stop. She closes her eyes and approaches me slowly.

"What's wrong?" she asks me

"Take it out!" I demand. "It is hurting me. That thing you put for me. I can't pee, it hurts too much."

"I can't take it out. Let me call the doctor for you," she says quietly. She is concerned I am not going to calm down as easily as I did before.

"You call the f*****g doctor and take this s**t out of me!" I yell at her while trying to yank at my restraints. All my yanking and fighting and eventually something gave in. A sharp pain pierces my left shoulder with one painful yank and a distinct popping noise is audible throughout the whole room." f**k! " I scream loudly at the pain.

The commotion I had created is enough to bring the whole crew. Nurses and doctors flood into the room rushing to get me down. I was furious they were not listening to me. I am in excruciating pain and they are not helping.

Nurses and doctors put their hands on me holding me down to the bed. A round faced young girl with round dark eyes, almost the same color as the rest of her complexion is above my head holding down my shoulders. It is hard fighting against her big puffy hands, but I will try anyway. She looks down at me with concern and advises that I calm down. All the staff are here to help me and all I have to do is listen to what they say. I shake my head furiously.

"Leave me alone!" I start shouting and immediately regret it. Through everything that was happening around me I hadn't noticed there was a tube sticking out my left side of my chest. It is a little painful to have it, but I have come accustomed to the pain in my left chest. Now my shouting requires deep breaths and it is now irritating everything around the tube. I start coughing uncontrollably.

"What are the sats?" that melodic voice asks from seemingly nowhere. Somebody is quickly clipping something to the middle finger on my right hand. I push it off with my thumb while still coughing viciously. The person who tried first time to clip it on my finger now tries to hold my hand open while clipping it on.

"BP?" he asks now. Somebody wraps something on my left arm. It starts cutting off blood supply to my fingers. For some reason I can no longer move that arm. I am starting to worry about my arm now. What has happened?

"Sats are 95, but dropping doctor and BP is 105/60. What shall we do?" a loud strong voice says clearly.

My coughing eases but I am not seeing clearly through my good eye. My vision is blurred like someone through cling wrap over my eye. I try blinking a few times to clear it with little luck. The big brown doctor now is smiling at me. Fear erupts through me and I take a deep breath to scream but start coughing again.

"Danny, can you hear me?" that voice asks. It has such a melodic tone. I think he is singing to me. My coughing eases and I start humming. I don't know why, but it seems like a good idea. The first song to come to mind to hum was twinkle twinkle little star.

" GCS is dropping! " someone declares in the distance. The world appears to be spinning with my one good eye so I shut it tight.

"Danny ?" he voice calls. I try to answer but words are failing me. My mouth opens and funny sounds come out. I close my mouth and start laughing.

The sounds around me are strange and random. Something is beeping with my heart. Something else seems almost to be whistling and amongst all the chaos are the voices of people telling other people instructions or information. I focus on all these sounds because I don't want to see what is happening. I am afraid my world will start spinning if I do open my one good eye.

Things start to feel strange. My world slowly drifts into an existence that does not seem to make sense. Almost as if I do not believe what I had believed before. The sky is not blue. The sky was never blue. Irrational thoughts cloud my judgment and I do not know what to say or what to do.

I am in so much pain, but I am also quite delirious that I am moving and jerking despite the pain. My eyes are closed but I feel every pull and tug while I fight to get free. Things are not making sense to me. There shouldn't be anything tying me down. The pain doesn't make sense. The voices don't make sense.

Suddenly there are hands every on me. Very strong hands pushing me down and keeping me there. Where did those hands come from? I want to cry for the fear inside is bursting out now. I cannot contain it anymore, but there is nothing I can do.

Things slowly start making sense. There begins to be order in my thoughts. I am feeling my body drifting into a pleasant sleep. The thought of sleeping was so pleasant. I was happy to be allowed to slowly go into this slumber. I realize that everything did feel right and I no longer needed to fight as sounds fade away into nothingness.