Having decided that everything actually occurring in the world around me right now, I give you a selection from the vault. I wish I wrote shorts for Pixar, I practically dream in their animation/CGI format. Anyway, this is a bit of a story I wrote while being unproductive last year. It was inspired by the knowledge that Matthew Gray Gubler was going in for his third surgery on a knee he positively destroyed while dancing. If you want to see the video of that particular night on the town you can view it on hitRECord.org (browse videos and search Matthew Gray Gubler). If you dare to read this, read it with the same mindset that you would have going into a Pixar or Disney flick. And without further ado!:
Ugh, he thought as he walked through the bland waiting room. “I’m tired of this place. I’m ready to be done with this.”
Handing him a clipboard stacked with admission and consent forms the nurse behind the counter smiled and offered, “Doctor said this should be the last procedure.”
“He said that the last time, too,” he grumbled shuffling away to a chair with the clipboard.
It took him ten minutes to fill out the forms; it would have taken him less time had he not gotten a paper cut on page three. He waited another fifteen minutes before the nurse called him back. Setting down his overnight bag he kicked off his shoes and stepped on the scale.
“Up three pounds. You haven’t been exercising, have you?” the nurse teased.
“Well I tried jogging but one of my crutches got stuck in a gopher hole,” he answered. This had become their routine. He knew she was trying to comfort him before surgery. He’d already had two other surgeries on his knee and each time she teased and joked with him beforehand.
Pulling over a chair she stepped onto the seat and waited for him to straighten his shoulders and stop fidgeting. Gently lowering the height marker to rest on top of his head she noted his height and stepped back down. She checked his temperature and blood pressure making small talk and taking notes. “Okay,” she said closing the manila folder with his file, “Let’s get you ready for the doctor.”
“Woo,” he said following her down the hall to the prep room.
The surgery was routine and lasted just under two hours. He had been moved to a private room, his bag left on the couch to the left of his bed. His anesthesia hadn’t worn off yet but was likely to within the hour. Before the nurse left him to rest she added a dose of pain reliever to the IV.
Three hours later he woke up still groggy from the anesthesia. Wincing, he became aware of the sensation in his knee. The pain was suddenly agonizing. Grinding his teeth, biting back a groan, he slammed his palm repeatedly on the call button mounted in the railing on the side of his bad. Running in the nurse asked, “What? What’s wrong? Are you in pain?”
“Pain! Yes! So much pain! God it feels like lava!”
“Wow that was fast. Okay. Its okay you probably just got too used to that drug, this time we’ll use a different one this time and top it with a sedative,” she explained pulling bottles and syringes our of a drawer in a cabinet to the right of his bed. As she added the drugs into the IV line he bit his lip trying to master the pain, waiting for relief.
She dropped the used syringes into the disposal container on the wall and turned back to monitor him. Checking the flow of fluid through the IV, she placed a hand on his forehead and waited until he began to relax. “Better?” she asked.
“A little,” he said weakly.
“It will probably take another twenty minutes for you to feel the full effects. I’ll come back and check on you then.”
Twelve hours had passed before he awoke again. It was just after two in the morning. He wasn’t in pain this time, but he was thirsty. Swallowing, his mouth dry, he looked at the rolling table near the foot of his bed. There was no water pitcher but there was a lucky bamboo, a stuffed dog and a greeting card. Probably mom and dad, he thought turning to the small table between his bed and the couch; still no water pitcher. Closing his eyes and groaning he rolled back center to look at his feet. Cocking his head he blinked twice and sat up. There on the rolling table by his feet was a small pink water pitcher right beside the lucky bamboo. Rubbing his eyes he though, I swear that wasn’t there a minute ago.
Blinking again he picked up the pitcher and the small matching cup behind it. “Must be the meds,” he mumbled.
Pouring a cup he heard a sound of soft tapping on the cabinet to his right. He turned to see what it was but saw nothing but the cabinet itself. Turning on the small fluorescent light over his bed he looked again; still nothing. Glancing toward the door to see that the nurse was still sitting at her station he slowly slid open the top drawer to see if the sound came from inside the cabinet. Just more meds, he thought closing the drawer again.
The sedation had now worn off enough that going back to sleep seemed impossible so instead he decided to watch TV. Raising the back of the bed to a sitting position, he reached for the remote. From the darkness behind his now raised bed he heard what sounded like a soft “Oof!” Setting down both remote and water glass he rolled quickly to his right and looked just in time to see something small dart under the cabinet. Still convinced the medication was playing tricks on his vision he rolled out of bed onto the floor. Leaning close to the floor, so close his hair dragged across it. Squinting, he strained to see through the darkness under the cabinet.
After a minute or so, he settled himself with the assumption that he was really just imagining things. Pushing himself up onto his one good knee he winced as a sharp pain shot through his other knee. Shifting awkwardly he scooted sideways on his good knee until he could put both hands on the rail of the bed and pull himself up from the floor. As his eyes came up to the level of his mattress top he saw something run off the other side. As quickly as he could he dropped below the bed again to see what it was that had been on his bed but once again he only caught a glimpse of hurried movement as the mystery thing ducked behind his bed.
Scrambling, wincing with every bump of his injured knee he tried to see behind the bed and again only caught a fleeting glimpse. As he strained to see which direction it went, he fell onto his bad knee. “Holy crap!” he shouted rolling quickly onto hi back.
“SHH! You wanna get me smacked with a broom? Dude, you should learn to relax more,” said a small voice from under the bed.
“What? Who said that?” he asked, squinting into the dark. “Should I be armed?”
“Whoa, you’re not at work Mattie, don’t go pulling a gun on us.”
“Us?! Wait, Mattie? My Name is Matthew.”
“Well excuse mister hoity-toity,” the voice replied. “You’d think you’d have a little more leeway for your recovery gnome.”
“My what?” he asked now convinced the medication was causing him to hallucinate. As he watched a small figure dressed in tiny scrubs climbed over the wheel of his bed and jumped down into the faint light. His stature was that of a small man but he had the round jolly face of a garden gnome decoration, he even had a beard although it was trimmed short.
“Recovery gnome. My name is Ted. We make rounds and check on our patients in the middle of the night when the nurses aren’t around, or in the case of your nurse, when she’s asleep.”
The tiny man began leafing through papers on an equally tiny clipboard the questions began colliding in his head. Recovery gnomes? My nurse is asleep? Am I stoned?
Attempting to shake sense back into place he started to push himself up from the floor. “I’m just seeing things because of the sedatives and pain killers.”
“Yes of course you are. It’s cool if you need to keep telling yourself that, but you really do need to get back in bed and stop trying to figure us out. Ordinarily we don’t allow people to see us specifically because of the reaction you’re having,” he explained, making notes on his clipboard. “I wouldn’t have introduced myself tonight either but you seemed bent on trying to figure out who is in here with you. Neither of us could afford possible expense of you ripping your stitches. So, are you going to hobble back to bed or am I going to have to wake Mary up?”
Still confused he asked, “What? Mary? She was here when I first checked in this morning.”
Squinting at the clock on the wall he tried in vain to do the math through the haze of medications, “Did she go home and come back?”
“Nope she’s been here all day. She worries about you. It’s probably because she wants to try and fix you up with her daughter,” Ted replied.
“Her daughter is seventeen.”
“She turns eighteen in two months. She thinks you’d be cute together and is positively giddy about the thought that your knee will be completely healed in time for the prom.”
As he was about to argue the list of things wrong with that logic he realized that he was still conversing with a gnome dressed in scrubs. He shook his head again and decided to just give in to the delusion. “And Mary doesn’t know about you? She’s never seen you?”
“If any of the nurses ever see us they shake it off and call it an illusion. Actually some of them have a saying now. They say that if you see the hospital gnomes its time to take a nap. That’s when they snooze at the desk.”
“Okay well good to know. So-” Matthew began but was cut off by the opening of the door.
“Hey Matthew, what are you doing awake?” Mary asked stepping into the room. Picking up his chart she continued, “Did the pain reliever wear off or just the sedative?”
“Well when I first woke up I would have said just the sedative but now the pain is starting to come back.”
“Well it’s been long enough since your last dose. I’ll give you something else and hopefully it will get you through the rest of the night.”
“Thanks. So Mary, I heard a little story about hospital gnomes. Know anything about it?”
“Hospital gnomes? Whoa maybe I shouldn’t use the same meds this time,” she teased eyeing him crookedly. “You just need some more rest.”
As she first dosing the IV line she disposed of the used syringe and pinched his cheek.
“I’ll be back to check on you again in a few hours.”
Laughing to himself and shaking his head he mumbled a thank you as she left. Once the door was closed Ted stepped back into view now on the rolling table at the foot of the bed.
“I said some of the nurses had that saying. Sleep well dude. You may or may not see me again tomorrow night.”
“What are you on a different shift tomorrow?” Matthew joked.
“Nope, but if Mary is really worried about your rest she may dose you with enough meds to knock you out flat tomorrow night,” Ted answered giving a little salute and walked off the back of the table by the leg as Matthew turned off the light above his bed.
.
