2322 days ago, I woke up from a drug induced coma to the face of an unknown woman with crystal blue eyes, brassy yellow hair and gray roots. I don’t remember speaking to her. I don’t think I could. But I vividly remember the shock in her face when she looked down at me after she adjusted something over my head. She gasped and then exclaimed, “Oh thank goodness honey. We didn’t think you were going to make it.”

Minutes, hours or perhaps it was days later, I looked around and began to process where I was and what was happening. Sun was pouring into the rectangular window at the edge of the room. I was laying on a bed, but my head was raised and resting on a pillow covered in paper. To my left was an odd, electronic, sliding glass door with painted blue wavy lines and a putrid yellow curtain bunched in the corner. Outside the glass, under bright lights and enveloped in darkness was a cream colored high-top desk area that looked a reception area. I could make out what looked like some charts, or notes, and I assumed the desk was a nursing station. From what I could tell, this desk (or nursing station) was in the center of several other rooms with similar sliding glass doors. I did not see anyone at the desk. Everything was eerily quiet and still. Directly across from my bed was a door, a television and a video camera. The door was closed. The tv was off. The camera was pointed toward me. To my right was the aforementioned window, an uncomfortable looking steel blue chair and small oak table pressed against the wall. I began to become aware of my body. Medical devices were connected to me everywhere. I had tubes in my nose, throat, between my legs, in both of my hands and in both of my arms. When I tried to lean forward, I realized I couldn’t move at all.

Immediately panic set in.

My heart rate must have skyrocketed which in turn set off some sensors, because suddenly machines everywhere started beeping and flashing. A bright red light outside my door that I hadn’t noticed lit up the dark hallway. The glass door to my room swooshed open and three nurses came charging in. Without a word, the nurses hit buttons, examined and adjusted the bags of liquid that dangled at the side of my bed, poked at my body with cold, plastic covered fingers, and looked in my eyes. I felt a cold rush run inside the veins of my right arm, and my body felt like it was filled with ice. Overwhelmed with panic and utter dread, with nurses frantically fussing over my body, I longingly looked back over to the sun streaming in through the window. Without a speaking, I said, “Please.” A warm sense of calm heavily rolled over me. The light began to fade. The nurses became blurry. Then there was nothing.

“Oh thank goodness honey. We didn’t think you were going to make it.”

My next memory was looking up at the ceiling and being acutely aware of a warm stickiness between my thighs and the painful urge to use the bathroom. The door in front of me was open, and I could see what looked like the edge of a sink. Instinctively, I lurched forward,. As my hands grabbed the brown plastic sides of my bed and I sat upright, I realized I was no longer trapped. My head began to grow dizzy as I sat alone on the cold lonely plastic hospital bed, but I couldn’t help my eyes from darting around the room. My brain started clicking…

Left:glass door.

Front: door, probably bathroom. Tv. Camera.
Right: window, chair.

pow!

A sudden excruciating sharp pain sliced across my abdomen forcing me to coil into a fetal position.

They said I let out a blood curdling scream, but I don’t remember any sound at all.
I remember everything stopping. Like the moment froze in time .
I remember knowing electric suffering and isolating blackness. I remember feeling like my chest felt like it had a million pieces of rugged coral piled on my chest suffocating me.