Another Patient

She barely woke up and heard a few light beeps on the edge of her new found consciousness before she lost it again. After what seemed like forever to those watching, she finally did open her eyes and look around.

Past her blurring eyelashes was a familiar sickly green curtain that matched the occasional decorative tile on the floor. She couldn’t see that now, the curtain and limited motion of her aching body prevented her from seeing it. But she knew it, it nagged at her.

The curtain seemed to pull itself back and reveal another familiar figure. The name just couldn’t break through the drug fogging her memory, or the pain. Then the panic set it.

It gripped her chest and wouldn’t let her go. In her mind, her training, like a muscle, screamed at her to try to calm but nothing got through. She knew her arm was hurt but she could barely move to see it.

The familiar nurse was now towering above her, hands on her shoulders trying to still her. The soft words unable to compete with the now rapid beeping. Finally, a second person came in to approve another dose of the medicine that took over the panic. The stabbing pain in her arm ebbed away. And so did her consciousness again.

The nurse looked down at her with more pity than she had shown in a long time. It was harder to see a colleague in pain, but there was nothing else that could be done for now.