“Do you want to see?” the doctor asks mum, beckoning her around the back of me as I lie with my legs bent up toward my chest. “No, no”, she says, not moving from her chair beside my bed. “I think some things should still be private”. She forces a small cough, and busies herself … More Chapter Ten: Ur(new)anus
It is night-time, and Mat has left me with a wet flannel on my head and a handheld fan pointed at the hole in my neck brace. It’s funny how you can become accustomed to a certain state of normality. Being uncomfortable all the of the time is my default now, my benchmark against which … More Chapter Nine: It’s Possible
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
I open my eyes and watch the fox circling on his clip above my head. Light streams through my window and fills my room with the promise of another day. Another day of being rolled over. Another day of beeping. It’s been two weeks since Kevin and I got hit, and the time seems to … More Chapter Six: Moving Day
A mop of lively dark hair walks into my room wheeling a screen. “OK Lucy,” says the enthusiastic young doctor, “I have the CT scan I promised I would share with you”. Of course I have zero memory of this, but flash him a big grin, excited to be looking at something other than a … More Chapter Four: Beeps, Butts and Britishisms
For the next few days, I wake up every morning, genuinely surprised that the accident wasn’t a dream. It doesn’t disappoint me, or make me sad, it just surprises me. I open my eyes to look at the exact same spot I was studying on the ceiling before dozing off, and think to myself; oh, … More Chapter Three: ICU, The Early Days
Mat is here, and we are in a room full of white and beeping. There is a lady. She has short hair and is making noise. I pick up loose fragments: I have been in the Operating Room for 12 hours… … More Chapter Two: In and Out
‘Female. 31. High-speed motorcycle trauma. Significant blood-loss from groin area. Multiple fractures. Likely Pelvis. Neck. Deformed shoulder’. … More Chapter One: And then it Hit Me
Lucy (Feltham) Leonelli 