"Bianca, Bianca wake up" a muffled female voice said. Bianca opened her eyes, they were heavy and her vision was still a bit blurred. "Bianca, you've just come from surgery, I need you to aknowledge that you can hear and understand me, can you?" Quickly Bianca nodded "y...yes" She managed to squeak out. The fog in here eyes was beginning to clear and she began recounting the chaos that had been prior to going under. Alarmed she reached for her belly. The baby was gone, she had given birth but had no idea how. "What's happened" she asked sharply, annoyed and panicked with her lack of involvement in her own delivery.
The nurse was a woman of probably about 40, she was attractive and was wearing alot of eye make up. "You've had a baby, Bianca." The nurse replied matter of factly. "Where is he?" Bianca asked not at all satisfied with the nurses response. "Dr. Leck will be in to see you shortly" the nurse replied handing Bianca a cup of ice chips "your mouth is probably dry dear, try and suck on these ice chips, take it slowly and we will see how well your stomach tolerates them. It's not unusual to feel nauseated after anesthesia, her is a basin if you feel like you are going to be ill." With that the nurse handed Bianca a grey plastic tub and left the room.
Bianca had never felt more helpless or confused. She shook a few ice chips out of the white steyr foam cup into her mouth, which was extraordinarily dry, and sucked on them. She felt certain that no one in the history of baby birthing had ever been treated this way. Where is my purse, my phone, she thought, where is Tyler, where is Dr. Leck, for God's sake where is my son. Rage boiled up inside of her. This in unacceptable she said to herself aloud shifting the ice chips around in her mouth, she didn't even know if she still had a uterus. Had they performed a hysterectomy? The more the groggy fog lifted the more anger seethed within her. it was True she hadn't given much thought to the way the delivery would transpire but she had never fathomed this. She lifted the blanket and paper hospital gown covering her, a gauze pad laid atop of her incision blood just begining to seep through, carefully she lifted the gauze beneath it laid a 5 inch incision just below her bikini line held together by 12 large metal staples. The work appeared clean and neat, Bianca couldn't believe how much flatter her abdomen already appeared to be. She wiggled her toes, no problems there. Bianca cautiously lifted her legs one at a time, there was definitely pain at the incision site but she did have mobility in her limbs. Shouldn't someone be explaining this to me she thought. She scanned the recovery room, it was a private area, only 2 chairs beside the hospital bed that no one was sitting in, my God, Bianca thought, My father, where is my phone. "Nurse!" Bianca hollared in the direction of the rooms closed door as soon as she felt as if there was enough moisture in her throat to tolerate it. After a few moments of no reply she began scanning the room she was in, it was the same room she had initially been brought in to. There were monitors but they were neatly positioned in the corners of the room and covered as if they had never been used. Bianca looked at her arms, no IV, but bruises where one had been. Her clothes and her purse were nowhere that she could see. She glanced at the trash can, it was empty, not even a trash bag inside. A horrible feeling washed over her, she knew something was terribly wrong here, how was it possible though, she wondered, am I dreaming, is it possible that after surgery there would no longer be any monitors needed no IVs with antibiotics or fluids, she hated herself for never asking any questions she hated Tyler for abandoning her and June for not answering her phone. She began to fumble around her bed looking for a call button or some sort of alarm and found a controller wired to the bed with a nurses hat icon on a red button. She pressed the button over and over but the led light never lit up. She pressed the bed positioning buttons but the bed didn't move, it obviously had no power coming to it. Bianca noticed for the first time that the lights were off. "Does anyone know I'm here!" She screamed, nothing "HELP ME!!" She shrieked, still nothing. Inhaling deeply she flung her legs from the side of the bed. I'll grab a chair, she thought, I'll use it as a walker. Exhaling through the pain she thrust herself from the bed and over to a chair never anticipating the pain in her abdomen when she put weight on her legs. She fell just short of the chair and felt a ghastly tug in her groin, a result of plastic tubing leading to the opposite side of the hospital bed she had taken leave of. Lying on the floor in front of the chair she visually traced the tube from the bed to under her gown, a catheter. No, Bianca thought, knowing getting back to the other side if the bed to fetch the bag was out of the question she had no choice. She was going to have to remove it herself. She had seen this done with her mother and knew there wasn't much to it but she still trembled with fear as she deeply exhaled and yanked the tube with great force. it was wildly uncomfortable but only for a brief moment. Bianca began sobbing, how had this happend, why. She felt so helpless and violated, left in this room for dead, forgotten or discarded, she couldn't be certain which. Her incision was throbbing, she was certain there was no pain medication left in her body. She had to pull herself together, she had to find someone, afterall she had just had a cesarean, people have them everyday she would just need to push through the pain. She reached for the gauze that had been covering her incision, it was lying on the floor beside her and with one hand placed it back over her wound applying pressure to it will she hoisted herself to her feet using the chair for support. "Help!" She screamed again in vain.
The chair slid quite easily across the floor to Bianca's surprise. She felt like her insides were going to fall out if she didn't hold them in with her gauze pad. Slowly and clumsily she made her way to the door. "Help!" She screamed again but with no response. Letting go of the chair she grabbed the door handle and pushed down the doorknob didn't budge, as if it was locked from the outside but whomever had locked it had not fully closed the door, thank you Jesus Bianca cried as she pushed the door open to reveal a empty hallway.
There was a handrail running the length of the hallway, Bianca grabbed it with one hand applying pressure to her incision with the other. Breathe, she told herself, breath through it. "Help!" She shrieked, she wasn't going to be able to scream anymore. It was painful and required more energy than she could afford to expend if she was going to walk. "God help me" she prayed with every excruciating step she took. "God help me, God help me, God help me." She moved down the hallway at a glacial pace, she had no plan other than to walk down the hallway. She would figure out her next move when she reached the end."Get there," she added to her mantra "get there, god help me, get there, god help me..."
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