I hear people talking. My mind is foggy. I don’t think I know the voices. I feel like I was given anesthesia. My body is heavy and sluggish, like I’ve been drugged. Did I have surgery? I feel a sense of urgency. I have things to do. I struggle to open my eyes. I can see I’m lying on a hospital gurney in an examination room. I quickly inventory my body to see what has happened, but I don’t have anything hooked up to me. I don’t have an IV. I don’t seem to be injured. Feeling less scared now I know I’m not hurt, I pay more attention to my surroundings. The lights are muted, and I don’t recognize the room. It’s doesn’t look like Memorial Hospital. Was I in an accident? I don’t remember what happened.

An older woman dressed in scrubs, maybe a nurse, is crouched down and looking at me through the rails on the side of the gurney. We’re looking at each other face to face. It’s odd, to have someone looking at you through the side rails of the hospital bed. Like I’m a child and she’s ducking down to my level. She’s sitting on a rolling chair, staring at me, in the darkened room.

She asks me, “Do you want to hurt someone?”

“No”, I say.

She asks, “Do you want to hurt yourself?”

“No”, I say.

Why is she asking me these questions? I’m foggy and confused. I don’t know what is happening. I ask, “Where am I?”

The nurse says, “You don’t know? You’re at the Teddy Roosevelt Hospital Emergency Department.”

I ask, “How did I get here?”

She says she can’t tell me. I can’t seem to stay awake and I fall back asleep.

Friday, August 26, 2017 9 pm

I’m having a really vivid, detailed dream. I’m on a hospital bed. It’s moving. And it’s really bright. So bright that it makes me wake up. I realize I’m on a gurney in an ambulance. Did you know that the lights in an ambulance are really bright? I’ve never been in an ambulance. What’s happening? Where am I going? Where was I? Why am I moving? My head is rolling around, my eyes are opening and closing, with the motion of the ambulance. My mind wanders randomly.

A man in a uniform, I think a police officer, is looking at me.

I say, “Hey”.

He says, “Hi”.

I ask if this is an ambulance.

He says yes.

I ask him, “Does my insurance cover the cost of the ride?”

He starts laughing. He’s chuckling at me, and says, “Don’t worry about that”.

I reply, “Ok” and fall back asleep.

The feeling of cold wakes me up. I am laying down, in bed, with a blanket over my legs, but it’s not enough to ward off the chill that I feel. I immediately feel how exhausted I am. It is quiet. I don’t hear anything that I recognize. This isn’t my bed, in this dark room. I can see that I’m not at home, but I also don’t recognize this room. I am tired and confused. My mind is fuzzy. I hear the voices of women talking quietly. Two women come into my line of view. They are the voices that I heard. They can see that I’m awake, but they ignore me and continue undressing me. I realize that I am topless. My sweatshirt and bra were removed. I don’t remember this room. This place. The women are dressed like nurses, one standing at the head of the bed and one at the foot. I try to stand up and they help steady me. I feel almost like I’m drunk. I’m not stable on my feet and they are supporting me so I don’t stagger. They are still working to remove the rest of my clothing.

By this time, I’m buck ass naked. In front of two strange women. In some strange facility. For some unknown reason. I’m standing naked in front of the two women while they start staring and inspecting my body. I’m hugely uncomfortable with their scrutiny. I’m no prude. I am proud of my body, but I’ve never had two women with their faces 3 inches from bare ass. And yet, I feel so disoriented that I don’t protest or push back. Standing up, on my own, takes a lot of energy that I don’t really have.

One nurse, a young woman with spiky, short, bleached-blonde hair and tattooed arms is asking me about my scars. She wants to know how I got the scars. Why does she want to know this? (I would wonder later if this questioning was about their liability and completing my medical profile, but it was an intake process.) I’m naming the surgeries, ACL one, ACL two, tubal ligation, etc. As I’m reciting the list of procedures, she tells me to turn slowly while they visually inspect every inch of my body, taking notes. I feel like a prisoner getting stripped, washed and body cavity searched. It’s not just embarrassing, it’s degrading and I feel ashamed for some reason. This is humiliating. I brace myself for the “squat and cough” command to come.

She asks me if I’ve gone to psychotherapy before. I tell her yes, once. The only thing I remember is that they teach a technique to make sense of what I should worry about. When something happens, you write down what is happening and identify whether it’s rational or irrational. Then you ignore the irrational, because that’s just emotional.

The nurses are chatting about how lucky I am that I got my own room. Seriously? They used the word “lucky”. My own room? What are they talking about? Are they being sarcastic? They tell me I’m special that I got my own room. The room has two beds. They let me choose the bed I want, and I choose the one by the window. They help me back into bed. I’m still really cold, even though they put hospital scrub pants on me. I don’t like the feeling of being without a bra, so I ask for something with support, like a bra. They don’t respond, but they provide me with a sports bra type thing to put on under the hospital scrub top they put on me.

They tell me to go back to sleep. I’m following directions, moving where they tell me, doing as they say, even though I don’t know where I am or what is happening. I am disoriented still. I am not thinking normally. I don’t allow myself to think about anything but following directions. I still feel exhausted. I’ve never been so tired. I don’t register much more than the need to sleep. I close my eyes and follow their instructions to sleep.

Someone keeps flushing the toilet. Every time I feel myself nod off to a deep sleep, the toilet flushes and wakes me back up. This isn’t your regular household toilet sound. This is more like a giant sucking sound. Or maybe the sound of a cruise ship or airplane toilet. And it happens regularly through the night. Each time I wake up I can see that it is still dark out. I can feel shocks through my body. Did I have some trauma? I can’t fall asleep completely with all the noise and yet I can’t seem to stay awake. Something is making me sleepy.

Who keeps flushing the toilet? Is this some form of sleep deprivation? Someone must be doing this intentionally because it seems like it happens every 30 minutes or so, although I don’t really have a sense of time or place. I’m too tired to get out of bed to figure out what’s happening with the toilet and try to fix it. I’m relieved when it seems to stop, but maybe I’m just so tired that I sleep through it. I drift back to sleep wondering where my family was.

Photo by Shazmyn Ali on Unsplash

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Nikita@dontreleaseme.com

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