Like a Damaged Nerve

The first thing I heard was….nothing, white noise, maybe. Slowly, it began to sound like I was underwater and my mind immediately jumped to captured. They were dunking me in water to wake me up so they could interrogate me. Maybe that was the male voice I had heard. Maybe they had left me behind because I was too heavy to carry all the way. Then, it was almost like I had come up for air after being under too long. That sudden rush of oxygen and clarity, clearing up any fog and my eyes opening to bright lights, causing a sharp ringing in my ears for a moment.

I was in a hospital, which was the first thing I noticed. At first, I thought I had died and was in heaven with how bright and white everything was. My focus came back very quickly and I looked around the room, seeing it was night outside. My back ached and I noticed a lot of dressing wrapped around my torso. I groaned a little bit as I tried to move my left side. I reached over to the side of the bed, feeling for some sort of nurse call button. I felt one and pressed a few until my bed didn’t move at its press. There were a few moments before a nurse appeared in my room, a soft smile on her face.

“Well, look who’s finally present!” She said cheerily, coming over and checking my IV’s and then looking at my chart for a moment, writing something down.

“Where am I?” I asked, wincing at the croaking in my voice. She came over and poured me a cup of water, helping me drink it very carefully.

“Landstuhl Regional, you’re in Germany.” She said, placing the cup next to me bed and holding the chart to her chest.

“Germany…” I repeated, nodding a little bit, mostly to myself. “How…” I started but she held up her hand, telling me to stop.

“Your group was found by a Canadian Army convoy. They took you on a med-evac and shipping you to us as quickly as possible. Most of them have gone back to the United States now. You’ve been with us for the past month.” She said, slowly sitting on the bed.

“A month….shit, what day is it?” I asked, prompting her to check her chart.

“It’s October 30th, 2014.” She replied, getting up and going over to check my dressings. “You’ve been healing up quite nicely, although the scar won’t be pretty.”

“That’s fine but why was I out for so long?” I asked, looking at her with a slightly panicked expression. “Has anyone contacted my family? Do they think I’m dead?”

“The doctor wanted to in a medically induced coma to preserve vital functions. The bullet just missed your spine and broke a few ribs. We had to go in and remove it but the healing would have been incredibly painful, especially with a drainage tube that we had to insert into your back. It was easier, your CO signed off on it.” She explained, showing me some paperwork.

“When can I go home?” I asked after reading the words on the paper for a while. I knew I would be going soon, I just had to be.

“Well, since you’re functioning…maybe the end of the week? Would you like to call your family? It’s…around early afternoon for them.” She said, checking her chart again. I’m sure it was telling her where I was from.

“Please…” I said, making her nod again and leave the room, coming back with a cell phone. She explained to me that the phone number was registered as United States so there would be no charges to them and left me to it. My fingers hovered over the buttons for a moment before dialing Patrick’s phone, hoping that maybe…just maybe…he was with Kylee and Jon.