The More I Think, The Deeper I Sink
Chapter 3
It took them two hours to get her to the Intensive Care Unit.
Once they had her back on the gurney and cleaned up the urine, they set the catheter and re-set the IV needle in her left arm. The girl was calm now - tired, obviously, from her fits of retaliation and argument. Suicide normally took a lot out of people.
The Blue Scrubs nurse and the Pink Floral nurse dismissed John and rolled the teenager’s gurney to the elevator that would take them up from the Emergency Room to the ICU, three floors up.
By the time they were passing the second floor the teen had rolled over on her side and vomited thick, yellow liquid all over her gurney and the floor below the rolling bed.
When they hit the third floor the nurses quickly rolled the now unconscious girl through two large metal doors and passed her on to the ICU nurses.
“Have fun.”
●○●○●○●○●○●
She came to her senses late the next day, her father at her side, sleeping in what seemed like a very uncomfortable chair.
There were no beeping sounds; she was not in a small, sterile room. Whenever she bent her left arm, the machine which moderated the IV flow would beep, notifying her nurse that the flow was disturbed. A curtain separated her from all the other patients, but she was in full view of the nurses’ station.
The machine next to her showed her blood pressure, heart rate - the normal things, and the IV bag’s label listed numerous chemicals the girl could hardly even pronounce. The hospital bed adjusted itself, so the teenager wouldn’t get bedsores.
On her bed next to her was a plastic box, and upon seeing more of the yellow vomit inside it, she utilized the container once more. That was when her father woke up.
He didn’t say much, what he did say the girl would quickly forget, and she’d blame it on the chemicals they were bleaching her body with. Oh, there were the normal questions: ‘Why did you do it?’ and ‘Where did you get the pills?’ They were answered in short sentences, spoken in a monotone voice.
She was informed that her mother and her father had been taking shifts. While one was either at work or watching her brother, the other was beside her gurney, wondering how it all ended up like this. Her psychologist had been notified of her attempt, and it was already confirmed that she was going to the mental institution… it was only a matter of when.
Another nurse came to receive her order for lunch: Peanut butter and jelly, a bottle of water; simple, and too much for her nonexistent appetite. She was almost afraid after she would eat the sandwich, they would come to pump her stomach out again. They didn’t come to pump her stomach out, but they came to fill out her mental institution application.
It was a system the hospital had. For all the suicides that came through, all the teenagers and young adults were mentally evaluated by the suicide response team. A nice lady or a nice man would speak privately with the patient. The questions were simple and straight-forward.
“What is your name?”
“Ally Keener.”
“What day is today?”
“Tuesday.”
“Last night did you attempt suicide?”
“Yes.”
“Could you tell me why?”
“To kill the voices in my head.”
“How long have you been hearing voices?”
“Um… a while now… I can’t really tell…”
“Have you been in a depressed mood for longer than two weeks?”
“Yes. This is my second bout of depression.”
“Have you ever hurt any animals before for entertainment or anything of the like?”
“Yes…” and Ally giggled, “a baby skunk... it was fun.”
“Would you cooperate with the hospital’s methods of treatment?”
“Well, I’m kinda already in the hospital…”
The lady gave her a weak smile, and Ally understood.
“Oh… the other hospital. Well… I guess. I would be stubborn at first, but in the end I would cooperate.”
And that was it. The suicidal teenager was a patient before she even knew it.
And to think she use to drive by the mental institution and laugh, saying she would never in a million years end up there.
Never say never.
Once they had her back on the gurney and cleaned up the urine, they set the catheter and re-set the IV needle in her left arm. The girl was calm now - tired, obviously, from her fits of retaliation and argument. Suicide normally took a lot out of people.
The Blue Scrubs nurse and the Pink Floral nurse dismissed John and rolled the teenager’s gurney to the elevator that would take them up from the Emergency Room to the ICU, three floors up.
By the time they were passing the second floor the teen had rolled over on her side and vomited thick, yellow liquid all over her gurney and the floor below the rolling bed.
When they hit the third floor the nurses quickly rolled the now unconscious girl through two large metal doors and passed her on to the ICU nurses.
“Have fun.”
●○●○●○●○●○●
She came to her senses late the next day, her father at her side, sleeping in what seemed like a very uncomfortable chair.
There were no beeping sounds; she was not in a small, sterile room. Whenever she bent her left arm, the machine which moderated the IV flow would beep, notifying her nurse that the flow was disturbed. A curtain separated her from all the other patients, but she was in full view of the nurses’ station.
The machine next to her showed her blood pressure, heart rate - the normal things, and the IV bag’s label listed numerous chemicals the girl could hardly even pronounce. The hospital bed adjusted itself, so the teenager wouldn’t get bedsores.
On her bed next to her was a plastic box, and upon seeing more of the yellow vomit inside it, she utilized the container once more. That was when her father woke up.
He didn’t say much, what he did say the girl would quickly forget, and she’d blame it on the chemicals they were bleaching her body with. Oh, there were the normal questions: ‘Why did you do it?’ and ‘Where did you get the pills?’ They were answered in short sentences, spoken in a monotone voice.
She was informed that her mother and her father had been taking shifts. While one was either at work or watching her brother, the other was beside her gurney, wondering how it all ended up like this. Her psychologist had been notified of her attempt, and it was already confirmed that she was going to the mental institution… it was only a matter of when.
Another nurse came to receive her order for lunch: Peanut butter and jelly, a bottle of water; simple, and too much for her nonexistent appetite. She was almost afraid after she would eat the sandwich, they would come to pump her stomach out again. They didn’t come to pump her stomach out, but they came to fill out her mental institution application.
It was a system the hospital had. For all the suicides that came through, all the teenagers and young adults were mentally evaluated by the suicide response team. A nice lady or a nice man would speak privately with the patient. The questions were simple and straight-forward.
“What is your name?”
“Ally Keener.”
“What day is today?”
“Tuesday.”
“Last night did you attempt suicide?”
“Yes.”
“Could you tell me why?”
“To kill the voices in my head.”
“How long have you been hearing voices?”
“Um… a while now… I can’t really tell…”
“Have you been in a depressed mood for longer than two weeks?”
“Yes. This is my second bout of depression.”
“Have you ever hurt any animals before for entertainment or anything of the like?”
“Yes…” and Ally giggled, “a baby skunk... it was fun.”
“Would you cooperate with the hospital’s methods of treatment?”
“Well, I’m kinda already in the hospital…”
The lady gave her a weak smile, and Ally understood.
“Oh… the other hospital. Well… I guess. I would be stubborn at first, but in the end I would cooperate.”
And that was it. The suicidal teenager was a patient before she even knew it.
And to think she use to drive by the mental institution and laugh, saying she would never in a million years end up there.
Never say never.