Waking Up Confused

Opening her eyes, Jackie tried to blink. Her lashes fluttered against the harsh, scratchy glare. Everything around her was blurry. The images bathed in a white-gold light and yet, unfamiliar. She sniffed.  Disinfectant. Rubbing Alcohol. The smell of it almost burned her nostrils.

And that’s when the pain hit her. Her breath caught, her stomach burned, seized, making her eyes water, her fingers curl pitifully down at her sides. For a moment, the pain infused her whole body, paralyzing her.

And then, it eased. Taking a shallow breath, Jackie felt her legs relax, her shoulders droop as her head fell back down into the pillow.

She was in bed.

But it wasn’t her bed.

Jackie eye’s shifted madly— across the stark white blinds at the tall double windows against the far wall, roam across the turquoise chair snuggled up against the corner, the tall custom-built wardrobe…

“Ms. Cambridge,” a voice called out. Jackie’s head whiplashed toward the sound. Groaning at the harsh movement, she winced up at the woman standing at the base of the door. She wore pastel colored scrubs.

Scrubs.

Jackie swallowed painfully. Her throat was dry, acrid. But she didn’t ask where she was. As her disorientation started to fall away, she could almost feel her synapses firing, absorbing everything.

The IV drip on her left.

Those teal scrubs.

The distinct squeak of shoes out in the hallway.

She was in a hospital.

Eyes growing wide as the thought imploded through her consciousness, panic stealing through her body once again, Jackie moved without thinking. Bracing her hands on either side of her, she went to push herself up off the bed.

“Whoa—!” Crossing over to her bed in a flat second, the nurse softly but firmly took hold of Jackie, and with the pressure of her hands laid her back down. “Take it easy. We don’t want to rip the stitches now do we, ducks?” The nurse offered a weak laugh. “Here. How about I incline the headrest?” And with the flip of a button on a remote, Jackie felt the top half of her shoulders elevate upward until she was halfway sitting.

“Stitches?” Jackie repeated, her voice little more that a squeak. “What-what happened to me?”

“Having a hard time remembering?” The nurse asked knowingly. She patted Jackie’s shoulder. “It’s all right. It’ll all come back shortly. Sometimes the anesthesia clouds up the mind. In fact…” She turned then to fiddle with one of the bags attached to the IV drip, punching something into the monitor.

Jackie held her breath, diverted by a sudden, acute ache. In her struggle to get up, she’d revived that sensation from earlier—the ripping, burning, paralyzing sensation when she breathed too fast, too hard.

She watched as the nurse changed one of the medical bags hanging there.

“What are you doing? Jackie asked once she could speak again.

“Just giving you something for the pain.”

“Oh.”

Jackie wet her lips nervously.

And then, before she could ask any more questions, her door opened again. This time a white-coated man strolled into the room.

“Nurse Hansen,” he called out curtly, nodding in her direction.

“Dr. Thompson,” she returned cordially.

Jackie stared at him curiously, her eyes following him as he reached the end of her bed, his hand automatically taking hold of the clipboard hanging on the railing there.

“You’re awake. Good,” he muttered absently, flipping over one of the pages. His eyes drifted over the sheets of paper until he was finally looking at Jackie. “How are you feeling this morning, Ms. Cambridge?”

Jackie swallowed. Her mouth felt dry.

“Jackie’s a little disorientated …” Nurse Hansen said into the silence. That caught his attention. Slowly, he dropped the clipboard back into the sideboard.

“Oh?” He queried with a gentle smile.

“She having some difficulties… remembering,” she added meaningfully.

He nodded slightly, but his eyes remained on Jackie’s face. “Can you tell me what you do remember?”

Jackie licked her lips. “I-I was on the bus. Going home.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“And, and,” Jackie turned helplessly toward the nurse, her eyes filling with tears. “And then I woke up here.”

The doctor gave the nurse a look and with a bustle of activity, plumping Jackie’s pillow and reminding her to call if she needed anything, she slipped out the door, leaving the two of them alone.

The doctor came around the side of bed.

“Ms. Cambridge, that night on the bus,” he hesitated. It was marginal, a few seconds, but it reverberated through Jackie’s ears. “You were stabbed. With a short blade knife.”

“What?” Jackie blinked as the words floated distantly, almost comically over her head. “What? Wait. No. That, that doesn’t…” She tried to swallow but it scorched her throat. Then her eyes widened, wild. “Is that why I can’t breathe?”

Her voice was little more than a whispered pant of fear. “I was stabbed?”

Dr. Thompson continued, his voice even, detached. “The knife lacerated your liver, but luckily, the damage was minimal.”

“My liver?” Jackie whispered uncomprehendingly. Her hands moved, went to touch her stomach. Frantically, her fingers scuttled across the slim expanse. And then she felt it.

Her eyes widened disbelievingly. “Oh my God.”

“We had to perform emergency surgery. You lost quite a bit of blood.”

Jackie felt her heart rate giving out. Great hiccupping gusts of hysteria bobbed up her throat. “But, but that doesn’t make any sense!”

He smiled gently. “It’s a lot to take in. I understand if you…”

“A lot to take in? I-I…” Jackie’s eyes grew wild. Her heart was beating too hard. She could feel it shaking her. “I don’t understand. No, no!” she cried when he would have interrupted. “That just doesn’t…it doesn’t make sense. I was alone on that bus. I was just going home. It was a normal day. And I— I would remember something like that.” Her eyes were pleading. “I would! You don’t forget something like that.” She gulped, peeking up at him. “I was in surgery?” The words peppered the air hot and quick, as fast as she thought them. “No. No, this can’t. This can’t be right—” During her outburst, Nurse Hansen had silently reemerged in the room (at the telling look Dr. Thompson had sent her way through the hallway glass). But Jackie was too upset to take much notice.

She reached for the doctor’s wrist, her motion frenzied. “Please. Please, you’ve got to…” but whatever else she had been about to say would have to wait. The shot Nurse  Hansen had quietly administered had taken affect and, with it, Jackie’s eyelashes lowered, her speech stilling as she dropped off into a dreamless sleep.

Dr. Max Thompson stared down at her quizzically. Her dark hair hung limp and sweaty down the sides of her pale face. Large, dark circles were painted around each of her eyes. Her lips were patchy and dry. And her small fingers were still attached to his wrist, clinging there helplessly.

“Poor thing,” Nurse Hansen tisked, rounding the bed to properly tuck Ms. Cambridge in. “It’s always the hardest part. When they first wake up, so scared and confused.” She looked down at Jackie’s stark countenance. “And alone.”

“Any relatives?” Dr. Thompson asked curtly, as though the thought had only just then occurred to him, as in fact, it had.

“Oh sure,” Nurse Hansen said, “but they aren’t from around here.”

“And they aren’t coming?” He looked up then, his eyes hard when they latched onto hers.

She held up her hands defensively. “I called sir. That’s the best I could do. Mom’s poorly and when they heard that she was out of surgery and doing well, they asked for check-ups. Said they’d come if she took a turn.”

Dr. Thompson said something rough under his breath.

Nurse Hansen sent him a searching look. It wasn’t like him—it wasn’t like any of the staff—to get personally involved in a patient’s care. That was dangerous territory and everyone knew better than that. But then again, his was a little different case, wasn’t it?

“I’m just glad she had you, sir.”

Dr. Thompson’s head whipped up at that. His face took on a ruddy color before he carefully extracted his arm from underneath Jackie’s loosened fingers. “Watch for signs of infection, nurse,” he said then, his voice stanchly clinical. “It’s common with an abdominal injury.”

He said this as if she wasn’t perfectly aware of how to do her job.

But for once, Nurse Hansen didn’t bite back. She had a feeling she’d crossed the line with that last comment, anyway.

“Yes sir.”

And with that he walked briskly out the door, calling out a colorless, “good day,” as he went.

“Touch-y,” Nurse Hansen muttered to an unconscious Jackie as she watched him stalk down the corridor, his back rigid. She patted Jackie’s still wrist. “Now get some rest, baby girl. You deserve it.”