wake up...
wake up... Mr. Seven, it's 4 AM, time for your blood sample.
I rouse slightly, vaguely aware that there is someone near me. I think I hear speech but it makes no sense. I can't speak, my mind is so in a dense fog I can't form the thoughts to translate into words. The large amounts of ammonia in my brain has shut down almost all my mental faculties. My failing liver is the cause, it's not removing the ammonia like a normal one. High ammonia levels shut your thinking processes down and you can't remember one fleeting thought from one moment to the next. You're a zombie, comatose and dead to the world, nothing that happens matters, you only wish the thoughts and the sleep interuptions would cease so you can remain in peaceful bliss, sleeping, not knowing or unable to understand what has become of you.
Death beckons, it's a longing to let go, to just allow the what seems inevitable to occur without fighting it would be welcome. You smell like death, everything around you smells like death, you feel like you're already dead, why hang on? People are moving about you, adjusting things, touching you, moving you, sticking needle after needle in you, washing you, forcing you to eat, to drink, this is not welcome, to you it's an intrusion into your blissful sleep, you just want them to go away so you can die in peace.
Why do they make me live? You've died twice before and they revived you each time, but it's a vague memory and it passes as quickly as it came, why won't these people just let me go? Dammit, just fucking let me die....
Hours later, they wake me again, Mr Seven, we need to weigh you... Again, I can't speak, I'm more alive now but my throat is so dry that I can't move my throat or tongue to form words, not even the simplest ones, the massive doses of diuretics have dried my withered body out so bad that speech is nearly impossible even if I can gather the thoughts needed to form the words.
Weighing means actually getting out of bed and standing. My body is so badly weakened from being bedridden, barely able to move for months, a near impossible task, the sheer thought of standing is a process that takes a couple of minutes for me to absorb, it feels like I'm planning a battle, as the body movements needed to stand are almost beyond my mental capacity. It takes a few minutes to plan every movement of every muscle, improvising as I go. Finally with lots of help I'm seated at the edge of the bed nearly ready to attempt to stand.
I'm freezing cold now, no matter what temperature it is in the room, i'm buried beneath piles of blankets in a futile attempt to stay warm, my body now shivering uncontrollably as I try to reach out for the handrail of the portable scale. I notice my hand shaking violently as though I was a drunk with severe delirium tremors, the handrail seems miles away. I lurch forward and with all my strength attempt to keep my legs under me. I waver and nearly fall but catch myself at the last moment, now breathing hard, my lungs working overtime in short breaths, forced nearly to collapse from the huge quantity of fluid that has built up in my chest.
My body is out of the special protein your liver produces to keep your veins, arteries and tissues somewhat water/fluid proof and they leak profusely, the fluid builds up in your chest cavity surrounding your lungs, forcing them to be constricted and inside your lungs at the same time making breathing a huge and difficult chore. The fluid is also building inside your abdomen, surrounding all your internal organs, making them float, awash in water, constricting your stomach and bowels making all normal bodily functions very difficult and time consuming. I step onto the scale, barely able to hangon for the 10 seconds needed to get a reading. I let go of the railing and fall backwards onto my bed, flopping over on my side, barely able to pull myself to the center and get my head on the pillow.
I lay there, trying to go back to sleep, my mind wandering, dreading when they will return in a couple of hours to aggravate and interupt my blissful sleep again, I vaguely recall a revelation a few hours ago, something about wanting to die, now, what was that about... or maybe it was that if I died I would feel better, anything would feel better, even death. I glance up at the wall clock, it's 6AM now, 2 hours passed between then and now, or was that 4 AM yesterday...
I rouse slightly, vaguely aware that there is someone near me. I think I hear speech but it makes no sense. I can't speak, my mind is so in a dense fog I can't form the thoughts to translate into words. The large amounts of ammonia in my brain has shut down almost all my mental faculties. My failing liver is the cause, it's not removing the ammonia like a normal one. High ammonia levels shut your thinking processes down and you can't remember one fleeting thought from one moment to the next. You're a zombie, comatose and dead to the world, nothing that happens matters, you only wish the thoughts and the sleep interuptions would cease so you can remain in peaceful bliss, sleeping, not knowing or unable to understand what has become of you.
Death beckons, it's a longing to let go, to just allow the what seems inevitable to occur without fighting it would be welcome. You smell like death, everything around you smells like death, you feel like you're already dead, why hang on? People are moving about you, adjusting things, touching you, moving you, sticking needle after needle in you, washing you, forcing you to eat, to drink, this is not welcome, to you it's an intrusion into your blissful sleep, you just want them to go away so you can die in peace.
Why do they make me live? You've died twice before and they revived you each time, but it's a vague memory and it passes as quickly as it came, why won't these people just let me go? Dammit, just fucking let me die....
Hours later, they wake me again, Mr Seven, we need to weigh you... Again, I can't speak, I'm more alive now but my throat is so dry that I can't move my throat or tongue to form words, not even the simplest ones, the massive doses of diuretics have dried my withered body out so bad that speech is nearly impossible even if I can gather the thoughts needed to form the words.
Weighing means actually getting out of bed and standing. My body is so badly weakened from being bedridden, barely able to move for months, a near impossible task, the sheer thought of standing is a process that takes a couple of minutes for me to absorb, it feels like I'm planning a battle, as the body movements needed to stand are almost beyond my mental capacity. It takes a few minutes to plan every movement of every muscle, improvising as I go. Finally with lots of help I'm seated at the edge of the bed nearly ready to attempt to stand.
I'm freezing cold now, no matter what temperature it is in the room, i'm buried beneath piles of blankets in a futile attempt to stay warm, my body now shivering uncontrollably as I try to reach out for the handrail of the portable scale. I notice my hand shaking violently as though I was a drunk with severe delirium tremors, the handrail seems miles away. I lurch forward and with all my strength attempt to keep my legs under me. I waver and nearly fall but catch myself at the last moment, now breathing hard, my lungs working overtime in short breaths, forced nearly to collapse from the huge quantity of fluid that has built up in my chest.
My body is out of the special protein your liver produces to keep your veins, arteries and tissues somewhat water/fluid proof and they leak profusely, the fluid builds up in your chest cavity surrounding your lungs, forcing them to be constricted and inside your lungs at the same time making breathing a huge and difficult chore. The fluid is also building inside your abdomen, surrounding all your internal organs, making them float, awash in water, constricting your stomach and bowels making all normal bodily functions very difficult and time consuming. I step onto the scale, barely able to hangon for the 10 seconds needed to get a reading. I let go of the railing and fall backwards onto my bed, flopping over on my side, barely able to pull myself to the center and get my head on the pillow.
I lay there, trying to go back to sleep, my mind wandering, dreading when they will return in a couple of hours to aggravate and interupt my blissful sleep again, I vaguely recall a revelation a few hours ago, something about wanting to die, now, what was that about... or maybe it was that if I died I would feel better, anything would feel better, even death. I glance up at the wall clock, it's 6AM now, 2 hours passed between then and now, or was that 4 AM yesterday...
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