CHAPTER 3
I opened my eyes. My head felt like it was at least ten times bigger than it usually was, and it hurt! The world in front of me was fuzzy and I blinked a few times, trying to bring all the shapes into focus. The air was filled with a smell that hit me in the back of the throat and made me gag. Chemicals, disinfectants and . . .
I sat up as fast as I could.I was in a hospital room!I heaved, but nothing came out. The room started spinning and I gripped the sides of the bed to steady myself.
“Take it easy. You’ve just come out of sedation, it’s normal to feel nauseous, I’ll give you something for that,” a woman’s voice said. She was just a brown-and-white blur at this point, but when she came closer my eyes adjusted a little.
I lowered myself back onto the bed.
“I’m Dr. Kgomotso Maluka. Do you know where you are?” she asked.
I nodded. God, my head hurt. “In hospital.”
“Good.” She looked pleased with my answer and opened the file that she was holding. “Do you know your name yet?”
“It’s um, I think it’s Jane Doe.”
“Jane Doe is what we call someone when we don’t know their name,” she said kindly.
I looked around the room. “Didn’t I come in with anything? A bag or something?”
She turned and indicated the chair in the corner. “Just the clothes you were wearing, a watch and a keyring.”
“Was I unconscious?” My throat felt dry as I spoke, and I reached up and touched it.
“You were sedated for some procedures we needed to carry out. Normally, we wouldn’t sedate a patient, but you were very panicked.” She passed me a cup of water. “Small sip.” She gently pushed it towards my lips. The cool water slipped down my throat and the relief was instant.
“Thanks,” I murmured.
“So, what about your name?”
I closed my eyes tightly. If my name was not Jane, then what was it? I tried to think of names I knew.Noah,Ntethelelo,Kgomotso,Jane,Bennett,Cyril. Those were the only names that existed inside my head.
“No, I don’t know. I don’t! No!” The words shot up my sore throat and tumbled out of my cracked lips.
“That’s okay.” She wrote something down in her file and the sound of the pencil against the paper grated against my already shattered nerves, making them feel like they were on fire.
“What are you writing?”
“Just taking some general medical notes.” Her tone was casual and placating, and then she wrote something else, as if noting that I was asking about the notes she was taking. I didn’t like it, and the panic started to rise again. It felt like it was going to spill out of me and cover the walls and the floors and the ceilings of this sterile, white room. My fingers twitched and I felt like I wanted to grab a hold of something, but didn’t know what.
“Why don’t I know my name?” My voice shook.
The doctor reached out and put a hand on my arm. “It’s common to experience some amnesia after a head injury.”
I reached up and touched my head. A big plaster covered my forehead. “What happened?”
“You were in an elevator accident. Do you remember any of that?”
“No. I . . . no!” My heart started to beat faster in my chest and a machine next to me beeped wildly.
“Try to relax. This is probably temporary; your memory should come back soon. The important thing is that we did a CT scan and an X-ray and everything is normal. No brain bleeds, no swelling, no injury. Other than the superficial cut on your forehead, which has been stitched up, some bruising on your arms and legs, and some grazes, you are okay. Your spinal fusion is also intact.”
“My what?”
“When we did your X-ray we saw that some of your vertebrae had been fused, and it revealed that you also had a plate and pins in your shoulder. But there’s nothing to worry about there either.”
“What does that mean?”
