by Travis Flatt
“I dare you,” the day nurse, Kaylee, says.
For the tenth time, I’ve warned her of the severity of my seizures.
It’s easy to understand how Kaylee, who’s a student, twenty-three at most, cat-eyed, jet black-hair, knuckle-bitingly gorgeous, might provoke a man here on the Monitoring Unit to brag like he’s the King of Epilepsy.
We’re here to seize; it’s our job.
If I could make it happen, like a party trick, I absolutely would. And I’ve tried. These last few days, I’ve held my breath. Conversely, hyperventilated. I asked Kaylee to flicker the lights, which was a ruse. I’m not photosensitive, and strobe lights have zero effect on me. Worth a shot, right?
Honestly, though, I wanted to keep her in the room.
I’m kidding about Kaylee: they need data. Hell, they could even cure me. It’s unlikely–they’ve tried for years, doctors around the country–but they might at least improve my treatment, lessen this med and increase that one, and advance the war against the side effects, the long-term damage.
They’ll release me, though. So long afternoons with Kaylee. Hello, Sunday night American Idol with Mom.
How it works in the monitoring unit: you erupt, they collect their data. Above me, on the ceiling, is this big, black, globe camera thing, which, in the stark white room, brings to mind a Kubrick film or one of his myriad imitators. The room’s mic-ed, too. Whatever I feel, when I eventually feel something, I’ll describe aloud.
It’s been five days. They’ve denied meds. And yet, not a blip on the EEGs. My crush on Kaylee appears to be the cure. Eureka.
I swear, the third or fourth time I warned Kaylee that they’re bad–my seizures–something slipped, cracked in her professional demeanor. A short, coy “We’ll see.”
Of course I’m not proud of it, but it’s sweet of her to flirt. Especially considering the way I smell, all yeasty. She hasn’t had to wipe my ass. Yet. That distinct pleasure fell to the night nurse, John, last evening. Go team.
It’s a premiere monitoring unit–I’ve sampled several–and I’m half the country from my home. Yet the room’s only got a box TV, no streaming services. Seems an odd omission. Tempting to warn on TripAdvisor. The selection of DVDs is dogshit. One assumes they host lots of kids here because it’s full of Pixar and Harry Potter. I pick the third one, Prisoner of Azkaban, the one Cuarón directed. I like the Night Bus.
Typically, when I seize, I feel it coming twenty seconds ahead. They think it’s in my temporal lobe, the place they’re hunting. The place they want to cut. It feels like deja vu, my pre-seizure moments (auras). I relive my previous auras, think, “I’ve aured here before,” sometimes when I haven’t. Or, I might think, “This is a bad place to have a seizure,” or, “This is an safe place to have a seizure,” or, “find a place to sit down,” all a jumbled labyrinth of mental loops and knots.
Then, the spinning, the fluttering, and the little trips to this blind, gray place.
Kaylee and I talk about Harry Potter. I’m man-splaining Cuarón’s longshots from an entirely different movie–Children of Men–when the aura hits. “Oh, it’s starting,” I say.
She’s actually enjoying the movie, so she doesn’t register my warning for a moment, then snaps to: “Okay, oh–press the button.”
I press red button on the thing taped to my bed. It looks like a Jeopardy buzzer. A battalion of nurses and technicians flood the room. Kaylee is pushed aside by older nurses.
My hands and face tingle, which is phase two. As a kid, I bought a toy for Masters of the Universe, the Dolph Lundgren He-Man movie. This toy shot honest-to-God sparks from its mouth. Here, on the hospital bed, I’m shooting sparks from my lips. John, who talks like he’s maybe Caribbean, barks for someone to fetch a syringe of lorazepam.
“It hurts.” (I’m speaking in a slurred voice.)
I start to swim in and out of consciousness, see:
Nurses looking horrified. (I say, “It looks brighter,” meaning: I’m seeing everything, guys.)
Feel:
Sheets turn warm with piss around my crotch, then rapidly cool.
See:
Kaylee, looking the most horrified and holding a fat, blunt syringe she almost fumbles handing off to John.
Feel:
Nothing. I’m resting in my gray place, a place I go sometimes and don’t see what I imagine the blind don’t see. Not so much “gray” as nothing. Sometimes, when I’m here, I ask God, or whomever, to let me come out alive and whole. Intact, not paralyzed, not brain-damaged. That’s what I’m afraid of.
Hear:
John telling me to sleep, Kaylee cursing softly, apologizing for having trouble with the syringe. Ha! Guess I showed her.
Whenever I stay in the hospital, especially for more than a couple of days, there’s this feeling like they’ll never let me go, like they’ve decided to hold me hostage. When the doctor comes to say that evening that I’ll be released in the morning, I don’t believe him.
In the morning, Kaylee prepares me with a no-nonsense discharge tech named Sebastian. My brother, who’s flown in and will be responsible for Weekend at Bernie’s-ing me through the airport and back home, sits quietly in the corner. My head would throb if I wasn’t stoned on pain pills and a massive dose of some new medication, something the doctor warned us–my brother and I–might make me stupider until they adjust the dosage.
“Told you,” I say to Kaylee and wink.
She ignores this; she’s having difficulty helping me into my jeans. Sebastian takes over.
My brother and Sebastian wheel me into the elevator.
On the way down, my brother says, “Were you flirting with that nurse?”
“She liked me,” I say, grinning.
My brother nods, pats my shoulder.
“She liked me,” I insist.
Sebastian looks to my brother, asks if the car’s out front or in the garage?
About the Author
Travis Flatt (he/him) is a teacher and actor living in Cookeville, Tennessee. His stories appear in Gone Lawn, Bending Genres, JMWW, Maudlin House, Flash Frog, HAD, and other places. He enjoys theater, dogs, and theatrical dogs, often with his wife and son. You can learn more about him and his writing at www.travisflatblog.com, or tweet him at @WriterLeeFlatt