“Again.”
Doctor Marsh made a face as she and a neuropathy specialist assessed the results of my most recent medical test, listening for sounds and looking at a graph of electrical signals. I lay on the examination table and wished they’d get this the hell over with.
An electrical current traveled through multiple needles that were inserted into my legs. These needles were hooked up to several electrical lines that were connected to a machine. I cringed, although I couldn’t feel the slight pain the nurses warned me that I might experience. My muscles were supposed to contract, but so far, they’d failed to respond to the current.
The procedure was called an electromyography, or an EMG test. It was meant to measure my nerve-to-muscle signal transmission, and see if there were any neuromuscular abnormalities in the area that had been caused by my accident.
I thought this test was pretty fucking pointless, because the answer was obviously yes— therewereabnormalities— but the doctors had insisted.
“Ava, can you try lifting your left leg again?” Doctor Marsh asked.
I didn’t know why she bothered. She knew I couldn’t. When it failed to move, as fucking expected, she gave a grim nod and stated, “I thought so. The muscle tissue isn’t receiving any information from the nerves in the spine whatsoever.”
Well no fucking shit, Sherlock.Did she expect me to tap-dance out of here or what?
The EMG test took an hour, which felt like an eternity. Doctor Marsh promised me that the results of the test would help them determine the extent of the nerve damage, and hopefully give them a path ahead to start treating it, although she wouldn’t give me a straight answer on what she had in mind.
I wasn’t convinced these asshats really knew what was going on with me, and if they did, I severely doubted they knew how to make it better.
I wished Mama and Daddy were still here. They’d been forced to return home after the first couple of weeks, but they’d been able to advocate for my care when I just didn’t have the energy to. I missed them so much that it ached worse than my injuries. If there was anything worse than doing this, it was doing this alone, without my loved ones.
Charlie, Oberi and Ez were the only family I had in this place, and I didn’t want to ask more of them than what they already generously provided. Because of that, I felt like I had to shoulder the brunt of my recovery by myself. By this time, it was the beginning of February, and although I was only halfway through my stay here, I’d never been more ready to leave.
I slept all day after the EMG test, before a couple of nurses woke me up the next morning and dragged my ass down to another room for physical therapy. Most of it involved stretching, improving my arm strength, and learning how to use a wheelchair. I was rough and in a hurry, so I banged the wheelchair on stuff a lot and kept knocking things over.
“Patience is a virtue, dear,” the therapist kindly said.
“Patience is for people who don’t have somewhere to be,” I responded, before I rammed into a rubber ball that went bouncing across the room and knocked over an entire rack of equipment.
“Sorry,” I mumbled as the therapist headed over to pick it all up. I went to help, andslowlyreached out to pick up one of the exercise bands. The back brace I was wearing got in the way.
I looked around for an alternative, and saw there was an exercise pole leaning against the wall. I reached for it, trying to grab it so I could hook the exercise band on the end of it and help clean up the mess I’d made.
Before I could, the therapist picked up the exercise band for me, along with the rest of the things I’d spilled, and put them away.
I felt so helpless. I’d been problem solving, looking for a way to adapt, and someone else did the task for me.
It really would’ve made me feel better if she had just let me pick it up.
I was so used tojust doingthings. Before, I didn’t have to think when I wanted a drink of water, or desired to move across the room to grab something. I just got up and did it, and the task was done in seconds… seamlessly.
Now I had to adapt to a brand-new way. Everything in my life was completely different. Small, tiny tasks that I’d done since I was a toddler were suddenly brand new.
I had to re-learn life. And honestly, life was enough of a bitch without her pegging me in the ass like this.
I had a smile on my face after physical therapy was over, because the rest of my day was supposed to be free and clear. I was looking forward to turning on the small TV in my room and letting the noise lull me to sleep, but the grin slid off my face as I saw another nurse waiting for me at the door to the physical therapy room.
“You need another MRI,” the nurse said, with a near apologetic tone. “Doctor’s orders.”
I slumped in my chair. The constant tests were wearing on my mental health. The minute they got me out of the intensive care unit they’d wheel me into the psych ward, if this kept up.
By the time the MRI got done, it was only noon, yet I felt like I’d been without rest for days on end. Even so, I couldn’t sleep. I remained awake in my hospital bed, staring at the walls.
Modern science wasn’t the only thing the doctors had tried— they’d had angelic and Anichi healers come in to try and help me multiple times a week, to no avail. Magic or medicine, it seemed like nothing could reverse this.
I didn’t trust other magical healers to perform magic that I knew I could cast better myself. In secret, I’d been casting Anichi magic on my body for weeks now, attempting to heal my spine, to no avail. No matter how much Spirit magic I used, I couldn’t gain feeling back in my legs.
I tried once again, taking off my back brace and hovering my hand over my middle. A soft white glow appeared around the edges of my fingers, though I ceased to feel the magic’s warmth penetrate my body. The scars I’d gained from my surgery had more or less healed over, but nothing, it seemed, could heal my spine.
