I Know How You Feel

My dreams were tainted with worries that swarmed in my head. Black, red, and bright white painted their edges. Words that didn’t make sense to me echoed throughout my mind. Then, like someone had flicked a switch in my brain, dream turned bad. I’d given up all hope and I wanted to die. Looking in the mirror I saw myself, but only long enough to see it wasn’t actually me. I was a dark-skinned man with swollen eyes and a needle. I had to ask myself if I wanted this. I’d lost everything now. What was my life worth? The sharp, painful feeling of remorse and morbidity woke me up just as I turned over my scarred knuckles and plunged the needle into my vein.

I gasped for air while jerking up like I’d just made it to the surface of the deep end of a pool.

My senses came back to me one at a time.

First was my hearing. I heard a loud beeping noise that matched my heart. Then I heard the constant ticking of a clock.

I started to smell the stench of antiseptic and a faint scent of something metallic and the smell of plastic; it was everywhere. I felt like it was suffocating me.

Before I could see, I deduced I was in a hospital. Obvious to you, I know, but in my state of half-awake half asleep, it was a lot to ask.

My eyes slowly opened. I turned my hands over quickly and saw my chewed up fingernails and bony knuckles but no huge pink scar. My monitor went off like crazy, but that wasn’t what got my attention. Everything was so... clear. My sight—which wasn’t bad to begin with—seemed to be ten times stronger. It was like I’d been living in fog until now. I noticed a few needles in my arm and an IV running into my body. I could almost feel the fluids in my veins. Jeez, what kind of medicine were they giving me?

The stench of my body after a cold sweat made me gag and wished I could shower. Where was the nurse? I looked around and saw a button on the table. I pushed it and a nurse walked in thirteen minutes later looking at her clipboard. In those thirteen minutes, I studied the imperfections on the painted walls and counted the holes in the ceiling tiles.

“Mrs. Knoes, I—,” a nurse whose name tag read Cindy started then paused after looking up and seeing it was just me in the room. “Oh, you’re awake. I’ll go get your family and the doctor.”

She turned and walked briskly out of the room. The doctor walked in with my family close behind. They entered one by one with wrinkled clothes and messy hair. My mom looked the calmest but also sort of out of place without her scrubs.

I looked at each of them and started to try and find my voice. I took a deep breath and slowly asked, “Mom, what happened?”

My voice sounded different. Better yet, everything sounded different. I could hear every breath everyone took in the silence and when I listened close enough, hear my mom’s heartbeat. I could barely keep from staring at the few gray hairs in her head. My mom didn’t have gray hair! Or at least, I’d never seen any before.

“You… you had a seizure and blacked out,” she replied, her voice seemingly even but somehow I could tell she was just as upset if not more than everyone else.

I looked around at my brother and Dad for confirmation. Nicholas was looking down at his feet and my dad was holding my mom’s hand. I got distracted again by the fact that I could see every color in all three of their eyes as they met my gaze. My dad’s irises had a bit more blue in them than my brother’s did. I shook my head and pulled myself back into the conversation.

“What? A seizure?” I asked.

My mind instantly went back to when I last was awake. How long ago was that?

“A seizure is a symptom of an issue with the brain,” the doctor said, looking at the monitor next to me. “When you’re having a seizure it can range from just going into a trance and not being able to come out of it or, in your case, shaking uncontrollably. Those are what we call ‘grandma seizures’.”

She was small and skinny woman with blonde hair and blue eyes. Again, I had to focus on the words she said and unglue my eyes from the very light birthmark right underneath her right eye.

I knew what seizures were or at least the “grandma” ones. A boy in my middle school used to get them a lot. I was so scared when I saw it the first time. We were all relaxing in science class watching Bill Nye when suddenly he fell out of his chair and started shaking. Most of the class was in shock after realizing he wasn’t pulling a prank, but the teacher managed to run over and make sure he didn’t hurt himself with some sort of training none of us understood. She couldn’t stop it so instead we all watched him shake violently. Supposedly you weren’t supposed to hold them or even really touch them while they were like that. After a few more occurrences, they’d finally diagnosed him with epilepsy claiming that light sensitivity had something to do with it. I didn’t really get it. I was just scared and confused. I couldn’t even get near him because I thought it was contagious or something. It wasn’t later until I learned better.

“Wait, why did I have one? I’m perfectly healthy,” I asked the doctor.

I imagined my body writhing on the floor and shivered. My imagination was even clearer and more vivid.

“Well they can be caused by many things. High fevers, certain types of medicines, diseases and…head trauma,” the doctor explained. I noticed my little brother’s hand clench into a fist.

“But head trauma’s, like, when you have a car accident and your head goes through a windshield. I only had a ball hit me in the face,” I argued staring at the tense muscles in his hand.

“Not necessarily. Now that you’re awake I can ask you some questions--.”

“Can that wait? I kinda wanna relax right now,” I interrupted, sounding more irritated than I’d meant to.

A flicker of annoyance crossed the doctor’s face and I smiled apologetically. “Very well. Just come get me when you’re ready,” the doctor said to my mom.

“Thank you,” my mom replied softly.

The doctor left the room and I let my head fall back on the pillow. A new puff of plastic perfume filled my nose and I held back a gag.

“How are you feeling, honey?” my mom asked putting her ice-cold but soft hand on my forehead.

“Fine,” I answered immediately.

I turned to look at my brother. I really couldn’t tell what he was thinking at this point. He was turned away and his curly brown hair was hanging in his face. I caught myself before I got distracted by all the colors I could see in his hair. “Nick.”

He looked up at me and I caught a glimmer of guilt in his eyes. I motioned for him to come over. He walked over and sat on my bed creating more clouds of antiseptic smell. I looked up at my mom and dad and at the door. Getting my wordless request, my dad mumbled something about coffee and they left.

“Hey buddy, what’s wrong?” I asked. He really annoyed me sometimes (all the time) but I loved him and didn’t like him being upset like this.

“It’s all my fault,” he mumbled, frowning.

Well, I hadn’t expected that.

“No, it’s not.” The statement was pretty weak.

“Yea, but what if you’ve got a brain defect or something now? I’m the one who asked Dad if you could play with us and I got Dad to kick the ball. I didn’t think it would hurt you. It was all just for fun, and now it’s all my fault that you’ve got brain problems,” he whined.

It hurt my ears and tugged at my heart. I quickly gave him a hug before he started bawling or something. His hair tickled my face and the smell of grass and sunshine filled my nose. When he pulled away, I took his hand in mine, not wanting him to be too far away. Usually he’d pull away and claim that he wasn’t a little kid anymore but today it seemed he even realized his true age. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“Listen. None of this is your fault. A soccer ball can’t hurt my head that bad,” I started not knowing how to continue.

I really had no idea how to convince him otherwise. Even if it was sort of his fault, a ten year-old didn’t need that kind of guilt! Seriously, my older sister Elizabeth was so much better at this than me.

“But once, when we were watching a game on TV, the player headed the soccer ball and got a concussion. They had to take him out of the game!”

“Dad barely kicks as hard as those pro-soccer players. I mean, come on,” I replied stretching out the last syllable and poking Nick’s side. It didn’t shake his frown though.

“Why did you sleep so long then?” he countered.

“What do you mean? How long have I been out?” I tried to hide my distress.

“Well today’s Sunday so—”

“Three days,” I whispered weakly.

I remembered that it was Thursday because my Mom always came home early on Thursdays. There went that project.

How could I have been asleep for three days? Had I actually been in a coma? Wait, there was a little brother in the room, no time to panic. I looked over at Nicholas and covered my surprised face with a cough.

“I’m fine now. I won’t do that again,” I stated, squeezing his hand for reassurance.

“Are you sure?” he asked with a skeptical look.

What do I say to that? What if it did happen again? I didn’t want it to, for my family’s and my sake. Nevertheless, I couldn’t promise something I didn’t know. I also couldn’t tell him that either. God, being the big sister was hard work.

“I’m here!” A loud but familiar voice came from the door.

I looked up to see my sister holding on to the doorway gasping. Her blonde hair was in disarray all around her face.

“Liz?”

What was she doing here? Her classes at Brown were not something she could just miss. Especially since I wasn’t, you know, dying or anything.

“Give me a sec,” she said.

I waited seven seconds as she steadied her breathing. During this time, I kind of stared at her. She looked different. Her skin wasn’t as flawless as I remembered it being. I could see bumps on her skin and lots of makeup.

“Wow these hallways are long!” She walked up to the hospital bed and sat down. Her forest green eyes searched my face. “How’s my lil’ sis?”

“Well, surprisingly, I feel pretty good.”

“Oh? Did they give you pain meds?” She cocked an eyebrow.

“I don’t think so. Did you see mom on the way in here?”

“Honey, I was running so fast I could barely see in front of me,” she said, “Nick? I didn’t see you there. Can I get a hug?”

She held out her hands and I noticed a scar from when she was little. I stared at it, remembering that it seemed to heal over many years ago.

Nicolas lightly hugged my sister but his sad mood was still plastered on his face and in the air.

“Hmm,” she paused, “Why don’t you come with me to get some water?” Liz looked up at me winking and I nodded. She’d take care of this and she’d definitely know what to say ten times better than I ever would.

I fell back on my pillow and a fresh puff of plastic perfume filled my nose, masking the smell of anything else. Ugh. I needed to get out of here. The walls were a dreary white and everything seemed so in my face. Or maybe that was just me. My senses were definitely sharper or something. Maybe I was on some weird medicine. Before I could think about it for too long, my mom was in the room again. She answered my questions and furrowed her brow as I explained how I felt.

My mom sat down in the seat next to my bed. “Well sometimes that can happen when you have a seizure. It’ll wear off,” she stated looking around.

Somehow, I could tell she was lying. Maybe it was the way she didn’t look me in the eye. It bugged me. I could handle the truth.

“Oh,” I mumbled, “Mom?”

“Yes?” Her eyes snapped back to me.

“Do you know what’s wrong with me?”

She sighed and looked down at her shoes. The worry lines I saw before seemed to get even more etched into her face.

“To be honest honey, I really am not sure. You don’t have a concussion as far as we can see and there’s really no explanation as to why you slept that long. The doctors really can’t make anything of it except to say that you went into a coma. Let’s just hope it’s a one-time thing,” she said straightening the dingy white bed covers.

I could see that she wasn’t satisfied with that answer. My mom wanted everything explained out to the very last detail.

“So can we go home?” I asked, “This place is really depressing. I don’t even know how you work here.”

“Not yet,” she said getting up, “They’re going to get a CAT scan and ask you some questions. Then, we can leave.”

“Great,” I muttered sarcastically. The idea of laying down on a cold table while being slowly pulled into a tiny space wasn’t exactly inviting.

“Hopefully, that will clear everything up so we can figure this out.” She frowned, looking towards the closed door.

“Yeah, but I feel okay…” I faded off and the monitor, the ticking clock and murmurs from outside filled the silence. I looked over at the monitor. “Wait, why do I need all this?” I said gesturing to the IV and the monitor.

“You were out for three days. Because your normal body functions stopped working, they wanted to be prepared,” my mom explained weakly.

“You mean like if I went into an even longer coma.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

I could see the worry in her eyes which made me upset. My mom was a strong woman. For her to openly show emotion, something had to be very wrong. I couldn’t stand to see her like this. I was fine.

“Well, I’m okay now, and obviously very awake,” I joked. “I’ll try not to fall asleep.”

She chuckled and patted my leg. “I love you.”

“Love you too Mom,” I said back cheerfully.

“Right. I’m going to go get the doctor,” she walked towards the door but then turned to look back at me. “Just try to focus on how you’re feeling. You need to answer her questions thoroughly.”

“Okay, Mom,” I said. She left and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

All of this was so weird. It was like I was on one of those medical mystery shows or something. None of this really seemed possible for someone who was sick enough to have a seizure. Why didn’t I have a headache or feel weak now? I just felt like someone pumped adrenaline into my brain in some weird controlled form. And that dream, what was that? A guy shoving a deadly needle into his arm? Maybe the sickness around here was getting to my psyche or something.

As I waited for the doctor, I thought about all the things that happened before the seizure. I really felt fine then, just like I did now. Nothing was different, really. How could this have happened? Was I really that weak that a small bonk to the head would send me into a coma? I thought about my wish. I wanted an interesting life but for some reason the world thought that when I said interesting, I meant bad interesting. I mean seriously, who was actually bored enough to think a seizure would be better? This was strange, confusing and frankly annoying. I just wanted to go home and people to stop looking at me like I was sick. Even in a hospital hooked up to all this junk, I actually felt strong. Stronger than I’d ever felt in my life. That’s what really confused me.