19 December 2012
Hospitals never used to scare me. Not even when I was very young. I remember when I was about four, I had to go to hospital and have a tooth taken out. It didn't worry me in the slightest. When I was seven, I broke my arm and had to go to hospital to get it put in a cast. Still it didn't bother me. There was a long gap between then and my next visit.
I was twenty four. It had been seventeen years since I set foot in a hospital. I remember racing through the corridors looking for the right ward. And then when I got there they wouldn't let me in. I had to fill out forms and confirm next of kin. Still I couldn't go in. So I waited. I waited for hours. Sitting on the hard metal chairs, standing leaning on the wall, pacing the narrow waiting room like a caged animal. Trapped. Waiting. Unsure. That was when the fear started. Uncomfortable, aching fear in the pit of my stomach. I grew nervous. Shaky. My hands were unsteady. When I held the note that was left for me, I could barely read it. I tried to stay calm. But I was terrified. Terrified for the life that stood on the brink of next world in the ward behind the wall. I fidgeted for hours. Finally they bought me in. I stood and I stared at the figure in the bed. Small, fragile, broken. All bandages and pale skin and reddish stains where the blood soaked through. And I was so scared, that I left. Walked away from the bed, went back to the waiting room. I sat down and wept. Hospitals are the biggest fear I ever had. All because of that one day. That one disaster. This is how to change a life. Change one thing, and you change it all. Fear spreads like wildfire. And it had spread through me.
Hospitals • Opuss № I