In Between
Serena could feel her heart pounding and muscles tightening in the moments before the sedative took effect. Terrified to find herself in the one situation she had dreaded her entire life, where the lines begin to blur in between actuality and perception.
She struggled to push the harrowing shadow that hovered in the haze above her away but her lifeless limbs lay like dead weights at her sides. Not wholly unconscious but just beyond reality’s grasp, and left retreating into the darkest horrors churning in the recesses of her mind.
As consciousness crept back in and blinding light filtered through her eyelids signalling that she was somewhere else – was this the end?
She flung away warm blankets and struggled to lift herself against the push of the nurse’s thrust, “Everything is ok Serena, you are in recovery and the Doctor will be around to see you later but for the time being you need to rest.”
A Note from the Author:
This piece is inspired in part by my surgical experience when I needed my appendix removed at 18. Any surgery can be scary but I did not experience the same type of fear as Selena feels in the story, that part is fiction. What I do remember is being sedated in a dark, cold operating room that was painted a calming blue colour and waking up sometime later under the bright hues of a yellow recovery room striped with row upon row of blinding fluorescent lighting. The obvious juxtaposition was a jolt to the system. I remember trying to bolt up from the recovery room gurney as the nurse applied equal counterforce to prevent my escape while doing her darndest to talk me back to calm.
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GirlieOnTheEdge’s Six Sentence Stories #247
Prompt Word: blur
Date: 2023-01-29 | Tags: #sixsentencestories
Five Word Weekly (2305) by Greg’s Blog
Prompt Word(s): harrowing
Date: 2023-01-30 | Tags: #gb5ww, #fwwc, #gmgblog
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This story is very relatable. I have had quite a few surgeries and was always very scared of the anesthetic.
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The state of trying to regain consciousness can be puzzling. One just has to wait and trust that everything will be fine. Nice tale.
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The idea of losing control of rational thought scares me, as do surgery and anesthesia. Only knowing i have no choice gets me through it, and waking in recovery can be a shocker. Well done six.
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I can see how some people would be triggered or freaked out by this experience. They do it better now than when you were 18, or at least in my experience. They even have you choose the music that is played during and after the surgery.
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I suppose. I find they run hospitals more like assembly lines now. At least that was my angioplasty experience. One step removed from drive thru surgery! Lol
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Better drive thru than drive by?
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Yeah, I’d say! Lol. Is that the latest euthanasia trend?
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I’ve been there a few times too. But I always recalled why I was there 🤪
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Good post
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Waking up is hard to do, at least for me. It’s been awhile since my last surgery, so I hope more comfort is the standard, these days.
So scary, when all you can DDT o for yourself is lie there…
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Fantastic Six! I’ve never been put under with anesthesia, but I can imagine how disorienting it must be, especially with detailed stories like this to make my imaginings more accurate.
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