Day 11 - The Wake Up Call

There was a horrible metal crunching sound. A sharp pain shot up on the back of my head. The atmosphere was turning into complete chaos. My head was throbbing and my glasses were askew. Everything was a blur. I heard someone scream my name, but it sounded very distant. The sounds slowly faded. The throbbing in my head got worse and every part of me was screaming with pain. Tears were burning my eyes. My mother’s teary face was all I saw before collapsing.

A sting on my hip brought me back to my senses. My mother was speaking to someone. The sounds were back. I felt the pain coming back. I was weighed down by some unknown force. It dawned on me that I’d met with an accident. My mother was screaming something into the phone, I managed to catch only a few words… head injury… hospital..... The word hospital confirmed my worst fears.

I was rushed to the hospital. When the IV started to run I did something that I had been trying to do for a long time… I screamed… I was given a sedative and I drifted off into a long sleep.

When I woke up, my head was feeling much lighter. I looked up and saw only white all around. My first thought was... “I’m dead. This is heaven.” Then I realized my IV was still running, worse still there were circular white stuff stuck on my chest with a monitor beeping behind me. Horrors of horrors a nurse was walking brusquely towards me carrying another needle. Before I could even protest the needle was in and out.

With oral diet prohibited, I lay hungry and weak all day. I sat up slowly, only to have wished I had never done so. Code Red on the bed right next to mine. That woman on it died, right in front of my eyes. My monitor was howling wildly by then. I was sedated... again. From then on it was regular, I was sedated three times a day. I slept every time wishing I’d die in sleep. I’d wake up to find myself alive...

A loud noise jolted me back to the present. Day Light pricked my eyes. I sat up. My heart was racing at top speed and I was clammy from all the sweat.
"Just a nightmare", I assured myself, and began my day.


PS: The incident described is real. It is etched so clearly in my mind, because that was the very first time in my entire life I had seen my dad cry... Also this was the beginning of the end of my goth years...