There is something magical about sunlight, the way it changes how you see the world, draining the fear and replacing it with hope. As the day creeps into my room the next morning, the sinister shadows are replaced with tables, wires and machines, the frantic voices masked with sounds of routine and hustle. I have … More Chapter Eight: Are you Stupid or What?
“Are you ready Luce?” Mat mirrors my nurse. I nod at them both, excited but nervous to be leaving the familiarity of the gun and knife club. A syringe of clear liquid is connected to a tube at my wrist and a familiar intense, metallic flavour floods the back of my throat. I feel the … More Chapter Seven: Strange New Places
“Good morning Princess Consuela Banana Hammock”, my nurse says, glancing at my white board before flashing me an earnest ‘did I get-that right?’ smile. He presses the button at the side of my bed to lift my head up and passes me a paper cup of water. “I just need to give you your tablets … More Chapter Twenty-Two: What a Place
Get me up on my feet? Surely not. I look around me for some sort of machine that will slowly lift me one degree at a time until I am upright, but can’t seem to find one. “I’d also like to introduce you to this”, Allison holds up a menacing black plastic boot covered in … More Chapter Twenty-One: Get Up, Stand Up
After a short nap in my new bed, I respond to an unfamiliar sensation in my bladder and call the nurse in to help me work out how to empty it. Pushing an elaborate system of buttons at the end of my bed, she successfully disables the alarm that sounds if I try and … More Chapter Twenty: Seatbelts, Alarmed Beds and Sticking
“Welcome to Valejo rehab Lucy. I’ll let you settle in for a moment and then we’ll be back in to remove your catheter and get you into some normal clothes”. Phlooom. My blood pressure cuff expands to reveal a BPM of 140/ 90. Avoiding fashion choices for three months has really been one of the … More Chapter Nineteen: They Tried to Make Me go to Rehab. I said, Yeah, OK.
*Beep* I awake the next morning to the familiarity of the sun spilling it’s light into a green and white hospital room. Habitually, I grope around my pelvis to rest my hand in it’s familiar spot on my fixator, but my hand meets my skin instead of metal and I jerk it away in shock. … More Chapter Eighteen: Enough Lessons for a While
Ten days limp past, punctuated by mum industriously (and bewilderingly) spreading honey on a stubborn back wound, a demanding physical therapy routine of finger wriggles and knee raises, and a steady stream of guests bearing yet more fucking unicorn colouring-in books. The only major change is that the pain in my left foot is now … More Chapter Seventeen: Mind over Matter
I am waiting in my wheelchair at the curb in front of our house. The sun warms the air around me and flickers through the branches of a tree overhead, bathing my face in sunlight and taking it away again at the whim of the breeze. My nostrils fill with the scent of moving air. … More Chapter Sixteen: Julio, you’re the stretch!
I smell disgusting. Mat and Mum say I don’t, but I know they’re lying. Going two months without a shower, while you have healing wounds and leaking sores is not a recipe for great personal hygiene. I smell like butt. I feel like I have a UTI most of the time so I am on … More Chapter Fifteen: The Worst Day
Over the last two weeks at home, mum and I have developed a military routine of changing and emptying my various bags… but this morning, something is different. This morning I wake up feeling like I need to pee, but there is hardly anything in my catheter. I presume this means I am a bit … More Chapter Fourteen: Don’t Worry, Pee Happy
Our days at home fall quickly into a routine. Visitors from England come and go, staying with us in the house, chipping in with the cooking and helping to manoeuvre me in my giant green sling. During the peak we have two friends from England and their baby in our master bedroom, another friend from … More Chapter Thirteen: Do you remember what it looked like before?
