Tunnel Vision
By Geraldine McCarthy
Listen to a reading of this story by Geraldine:
The ambulance grinds to a halt in the hospital car park and the paramedic pulls open the doors. Sunlight blinds me as I lie on the stretcher. I am appalled that the weather can be so beautiful when I feel so close to death.
As I am wheeled into the A&E, I have the sensation of falling, though I am strapped in. The paramedics chat between themselves. They’ve given up on talking to me.
There are lots of people crammed close together on trolleys, but only one nurse. She runs frantically from one patient to another. An old woman shouts that she’s suicidal. The nurse snaps ‘yes’, as if she’s heard it all before.
A young doctor appears, clutching a clipboard. She questions me about foreign travel, whether I’ve been abroad. I understand the question, but words will not form in my mouth. She tries to read the note in my GP’s indecipherable scrawl. Frowning, she gives up and moves onto the next patient.
My eyes close. I’m in a dark tunnel. Lining the walls are black and white photos of my dead aunts and uncles. Are they here to guide me? There is a light and I’m travelling towards it.
Another woman, in plainclothes, materialises. She asks me my occupation. I manage to squeeze out ‘translator’. She seems surprised, but writes it down anyway. Asks if I have medical insurance, but before she can tick the box, I’m gone again.
I wake to the sound of a senior doctor speaking in a loud voice. He orders an ECG and blood tests. The A&E is quieter now. It could be day, or it could be night.
On a ward, with sunlight stinging my eyes, my back aches. The senior doctor stands at a distance from my bed. ‘All tests are clear’, he shouts. ‘I’m ordering a psych evaluation’. The jelly in my muscles turns to water.
The psychiatrist smiles. ‘Would you like to go to a side-room for privacy?’
‘I can’t walk, or even sit up.’
He sits by my side and speaks in a low voice. He has many questions, but a gentle manner. I cannot focus and have to ask him to repeat his questions several times.
The senior doctor sweeps in, with a retinue of juniors, and a nurse. ‘You’re having a toxic reaction to Lyrica,’ he shouts. ‘When you stop taking it, you’ll be fine. We’re discharging you immediately.’
I pull myself up higher in the bed. ‘But I can’t walk. I can do nothing for myself. You can’t discharge me.’
‘You will be looked after in the community,’ he says.
Translation: ‘You’re on your own with this.’
I was once a translator after all.
Geraldine McCarthy lives in West Cork, but also lives in her imagination. She has worked as a teacher, researcher and translator, but now tussles with the condition ME/CFS. Her favourite ways of passing the time are reading, drinking strong coffee with good friends, and staring at the sea. She writes flash fiction and occasionally, short stories and poems. She writes in English and in Irish. Her work has been published in various journals, including Comhar, Splonk, Ó Bhéal, Channel Magazine, Poetry Ireland Review, The Waxed Lemon, HOWL and Ellipsis. Geansaithe Móra, her flash fiction collection, is published by LeabhairCOMHAR. @GearoidinC