Morning all and welcome to November. It is actually starting to feel like fall outside. How fabulous. It disturbs something in me to have a warm November. But it certainly doe not feel like summer now. So lets jump into our first November writing prompt and get those brain cells moving. Fifteen minutes on the timer and off we go.
I was not expecting this. I really like it, but I was not expecting it. I am so going to have to break out this story at lunch.
Monday, November 2nd: It was an encouraging sign.
It was an encouraging sign. The patient had been moved into this ward over eight months prior. She had been his nurse since his arrival. She checked the medications and performed all the necessary tasks. At St. Sebastians those sent here received special care. Each nurse on staff was assigned only a limited number of patients so that they could be individually taken care of.
All the patients sent here were sent because they required long term care. It was expensive to have such individualized long-term care and each patient generally had families who cared enough to pay the expense. As such they visited routinely.
All of Emma’s other patients had visitors. Some of the families visiting seemed only to visit to ensure they got what they were paying for, the sentimentality breaking down over time as the patient seemed to be less of the person they were and more just a patient.
This patient had never had anyone pay even a token visit. The lawyer who ensured the fees were paid said that he arranged to be sent here should anything happen to require such care and made funds available for just that purpose. She was given the name James for her patient but even that was given grudgingly. She knew the names were replaced by case numbers and lawyers contact information in the office files as she checked. She was told James as she would need to talk with him as she worked in the hopes that he could hear her.
She was ordered never to write it down and never to mention it to anyone. And she hadn’t. With no family to check on him, he became mostly forgotten in the system. She was the only one who seemed to remember he was there. This too, Emma thought was by design. She had worked with government officials and high status patients before and all of the secrecy around him had the same flavor to it. She also suspected from her ne conversation with the lawyer that someone might want James to die rather than recover. She had been warned to keep any change in status to herself only letting the lawyer know when he was fully awake, should that day ever arrive.
In the time he had been here there were no changes. Emma noticed that for a time there were others checking her reports, but as the no change continued, those check ins became fewer and fewer. It was why today, when she saw his fingers wiggle, she marked it down in a plain pocket notebook, adding the date and time but no other relevant information. The page was inserted into the notebook she usually used to add grocery lists and words she thought might come up on crosswords at a later date. She did a lot of crosswords as they kept the time spent with comatose patients from hanging heavily. She worked on them out loud hoping they might be stimulating, but it was still helping to keep her mind active.
That first day there was a finger wiggle and she thought it was just a muscle spasm when it didn’t occur again. A week later, there was another finger wiggle and a definite shift of the foot. Emma tried not to get excited. She made certain the doors were closed when she spoke to James encouraging him. The monitors showed only slight blips and she made certain the records of them were in a closed file no one could access outside of the system and even then, they would need her pass code.
James came awake slowly, To Emma it seemed as though he was waking up one muscle at a time. As instructed, she kept knowledge of his gradual awakening to herself. As few of her patients ever woke up she felt protective of him. She was helping him to reenter the world and she didn’t want to draw the attention of anyone who planned to assist him with a swift exit.
