Exercise 4

My body trembles and I wonder when the doctor will come.  I need to remain calm and not panic.  Do not panic. Pain can be fought. Fight it!  I turn my head just enough to see the tv monitor.   In the blackness I see her, knees drawn up towards her chest and arms hugging her stomach.  She looks so pitiful. Good.  Maybe the doctor will believe that she’s in pain. Where is her mother? Her father? Could work possibly be more important than the health of their daughter?  No, they’ll come.  They are on their way.  Her father is probably honking his horn at slow drivers.  Her mother tapping her nails on the steering wheel while staring at the red light.  They are coming.  She needs to remain calm.  My eyes clench and hot tears stream over the bridge of my nose and fall onto the pillow.

A nurse enters and instructs me to undress.  She tells me to put on a hospital gown.  She asks me if I need assistance.  I don’t move.  The nurse lifts me into a sitting position and moves to grab the bottom of my shirt.

“I got it,” I snap at her and push her hand away.  The nurse exits abruptly, pulling the curtain behind her. 

What nerve.  A girl may be in pain but the nurse doesn’t need to see her naked. She deserves some privacy.  The curtains sure seem thin. I look around to see if the curtains have gaps.  She cannot stand the thought of some stranger seeing her undress.  She decides she hates hospitals.  I begin to pull my shirt up over my head and pause when pain seers through my insides.  She’ll need to move quickly, through the pain.   I yank the cotton up.  The collar catches on my nose for a second before the t-shirt goes flying.  It lands on the floor next to the bed.  One of her favorite shirts is forever ruined by whatever germs and filth is on the floor. No amount of washing will satisfy her.  Too many diseased people must have been here in the last week, month, year . . . Oh!

I reach for the hospital gown and pull it up in front of my chest.  I reach behind my back and feel for the clasp.  I pause.  They can’t expect her to take off her underwear.  I unfold the gown and look for the arm holes.  She remembers that hospital gowns are open in the back.  She’s disgusted.  I put my arms through the holes and follow the edge with my fingers finding the string.  I attempt to bring the strings together and pain stops me. Where did that nurse go?  Would the nurse even be willing to assist her after she had been so cold and abrupt? 

I hear feet shuffling and voices growing, “vitals seems okay. She’s in here.”  She hopes it is her mother, come to help her undress.  The curtain opens.  The nurse steps aside as my father comes into view.  She is mortified. Can it get any worse?