The Book of Tragic Short Stories Part Three

Medicine for my Pain 

Tasha was rushed to hospital in an ambulance. She had a vicious stomach pain and couldn’t stand up straight.

The ambulance staff were panicking and had to rush her on blues and twos to the hospital. They pulled up at the ambulance entrance and wheeled her into A&E. They handed over some paperwork and put Tasha in a hospital bed and rushed out to their next job.

The A&E was heaving, babies were crying, couples were arguing, and the hospital staff were busy running around trying to help people. The atmosphere was tense, the noise was overwhelming, and Tasha felt nauseous. The pain was throbbing in her stomach, and she felt so tired, she just needed the pain to go away so she could fall asleep. There was a disgusting taste of sick in her mouth. She was taken into a room in a hurry and the professionals went to work on her. They shoved a tube down her throat and pumped out the contents of her stomach. It was horrible, machines were beeping, the doctors had face masks on, and she felt like an alien being probed by scientists at Area 51. Tasha wished she hadn’t made that call, one of those clichés, “I’m going to do it”, calls. If she hadn’t, she might be in peace by now, the pain would have left her, and she would no longer exist. She didn’t believe in heaven and thought that death would be like the final sleep.

The next few days were a blur. The nurses were throwing all kinds of medication down her throat, she was on a drip, and she was on a ward with five other people. Tasha would drift off to sleep for a few hours, until a nurse would wake her up to take her blood pressure and pulse at three in the morning.

“Leave me alone, I just want to sleep, please……” Tasha would snap in a drowsy and almost hallucinogenic state.

“Take a couple of pills Tasha, go on take a couple more, you’ll be feeling worse when the side effects will show.”

Was she imagining the nurses? What was real? Was she dead? Her dreams would be up there with the worst horror stories ever. Half the time she wasn’t sure what was real or a dream. She kept dreaming of him. The reason she was there. Why did he leave? He’d put up with her behaviour before, he’d looked after her before, she couldn’t figure out why he’d just stopped. He stopped everything, cooking, cleaning, gardening but most importantly, he stopped caring. He’d stopped loving her and she felt empty, completely lost like a handkerchief in a tornado, being spun around uncontrollably, without any hope of finding the strength to control the situation.

Tasha thought back to some of their rows, and her accusations about him of being controlling. How dare he make decisions for her, if she wanted to waste thousands of pounds then she would. How dare he cook every meal, how dare he try and look after her, she was an adult and perfectly able to look after herself. Her friends and family always agreed with her, and actively encouraged her to kick Hugh out, they wouldn’t suggest something like that unless they thought it was best for her, would they? Her friends and family knew her best after all. They didn’t live with her and see ‘behind the scenes’ but they they definitely thought she’d be better alone.

The doctors would pop along every morning for their rounds, they hardly paid her any attention, it was, 

“How are you today?”

Whilst an eager to please junior doctor would look incredibly important tapping away at the keyboard. Tasha was seriously losing patience with the process. There wasn’t a lot to say about the ward. It was light blue with various machines and screens adorning the large room. Sometimes some of the beds would have the curtains pulled shut, but most of the time everyone was on show. Tasha had a dark sense of humour and would joke with herself about who would die first. She even had her death list in a top five chart, from first to die to last. 

As for the other patients on her ward, they were mostly elderly, they had a lot of visitors and would snore through the machines beeping throughout the night. It felt like god’s waiting room; the smell felt like the devil’s waiting room. Tasha desperately wanted to leave.

There was one lady on the next bed called June. She was in her seventies; she was horrible and complained about everything. The staff for reasons they soon regretted gave her a bell. If she was uncomfortable or needed anything, she was told to give a little ring of the bell, and they would come and see her. June was probably ringing that bell five times an hour with outrageous demands. She once asked a nurse to hold a tissue whilst she blew her nose. The only saving grace was that she slept a lot, at least fourteen hours a day. Those poor nurses. 

Tasha was in her forties, she was single, after a recent separation with Hugh. They had been together since their early twenties, but like a lot of relationships do, it fizzled out. Hugh had moved out and moved on, he was with Julia now. Tasha had regrets about the breakup but it’s over now. There’s nothing she can do about it, she’s alone. He was the only man who had ever loved her. Tasha only realised how much he had done until he stopped doing it. She thought about getting out on the dating scene, but her confidence and low self esteem held her back. When you start dating in your forties you are usually expected to take on a lot of baggage.

Tasha was an Estate Agent, most of her salary was based on sales. Whilst being in hospital she was only receiving her basic pay which was paltry. She had a car loan, and a maxed-out credit card bill she needed to pay. Her stress was just piling up on her shoulders, she felt like she was drowning under the pressure. Her boss had sent a card and a bunch of flowers; she’d of preferred the money.

 The card said, “Hi Tasha, get well soon, we’re all thinking about you. Looking forward to seeing you back in the office, don’t worry about your workload, we have someone covering it.

From Dave and the team.”

Due to her paranoid state, she read into it that she was no longer needed at work. It wasn’t exactly a heart felt message of support, more likely a rushed response to having a card thrust under his nose.

The orderlies would take Tasha to various scans and X-rays to see if she had any other issues with her kidneys or liver. She was never updated, but she was told that no news is good news. Days turned into weeks and Tasha was suffering. She was bored, the days were long, and the food was bloody awful. She had nothing to look forward to. Her family visited her to begin with, similar to when Hugh left, but that eventually stopped and instead she received the odd phone call. Tasha would make excuses for them and say they were busy with their own lives, but their advice was like chucking a hand grenade into a room and locking the door from the outside. They weren’t really there to support the downfall, it was an out of sight, out of mind scenario.

The longer Tasha was in hospital, stuck in a bed, under medication and sleep deprived, the more she felt dreadful. It felt as though her leg muscles were fading away day after day. It hurt getting out of bed, it was agonising walking to the bathroom and then adjusting herself in bed was painful, it felt as though someone was sticking a pin in a voodoo doll. 

Her tiredness felt like torture, everything the hospital did made her feel worse, not better. Tasha was a prisoner in Stalag NHS. She thought about making a break for it, climbing out of the window onto the fire escape and legging it to freedom. Then she remembered that she had nothing to run towards. No partner, no pets, no close friends. A tiny depressive flat all to herself. She had grandiose plans to redecorate her home with new wallpaper, curtains and expensive furniture, but she never got round to it. It was all too much hard work. Tasha didn’t like to get stuck in herself; she would rather direct others to do the sweaty heavy work.

A nurse told Tasha that a psychiatrist was in the ward to see her. They wanted to check on her progress and see how she was. She reluctantly agreed and found herself in an office with a middle-aged man. He seemed serious but friendly. They were sat in a white sterile room with two chairs and a bed. He started the conversation with the usual pleasantries and asked her how she was. Tasha told him that she wanted to leave the hospital and go home, she wanted her own bed. She was desperate for her warm duvet. Even though there wasn’t much there she still preferred it to the hospital.

The psychiatrist told Tasha that they could only let her leave when they were certain that she would be okay. The discussion became a little heated and Tasha lost her temper, she shouted, “what is wrong, why won’t you let me leave? I’m not sick, you’re the virus!”

The psychiatrist told Tasha, “We can’t just let you go. You were found close to death on your kitchen floor, you were unconscious lying in a pool of sick. You drank a lot of bleach. You tried to kill yourself.”

Tasha had worked hard to blank this event out of her head. To hear it from a stranger brought back the trauma and pain she’d felt. The psychiatrist gave her a minute to let it sink in. Tasha began to cry; she knew that her situation hadn’t improved, and it was likely she would try something else to make the pain go away. It again crossed her mind about her call for help, she couldn’t work out if she was happy, she made it, or she regretted it.

The psychiatrist said to Tasha in an empathetic way, “convince me that this will never happen again?”

Tasha couldn’t, she was told that before she was released a care package would have to be agreed and that she would have a community nurse. She couldn’t help thinking about how this would all effect her life and her career. She had hoped her boss would understand, but she had doubts about his sincerity and whether he would support her. Tasha’s colleagues were nowhere to be seen, the women were happy to chuck advice at her and tell her about stories they’ve heard or experienced, but when it came to time and effort, they were nowhere to be found.

Tasha was wheeled back to her bed by the old porter, as she got closer, she could see a bunch of flowers on her bedside table but no card. The flowers were beautiful and were her favourite type, lilies. As a nurse walked past, Tasha asked her who brought the flowers. The nurse said she didn’t know his name, but he went to get a coffee at the café downstairs. There was usually a queue there as it was a popular place.

Suddenly as she was getting comfortable in her chair, she heard a voice she recognised, it said, “Hello Tasha, how are you? I’ve only just heard the news; I received a message from your brother”. She turned around and there was a man stood next to her bed holding two cups of coffee and a large slice of chocolate cake, it was her ex, Hugh, he looked worried. He said, “Tasha, I think we need to talk”.

The End.