Welcome the The Inpatient Society. Set in Crystal Bay, Florida, we are a site that centers around a children's hospital. Whether you're a patient, a doctor, a friend, or just a random passerby, everyone is welcome here!
Post by Sage Matthews on Dec 16, 2014 16:03:42 GMT -5
For Sage, it was unusual to be in a library. She'd never been interested in books, just the ones with sheet music in them. All she cared about was running her fingers along the strings of her guitar or across the ivory keys of her piano. But in here, all of that was taken away. All she could do was sit in her room, the library or the big room where they encouraged patients to make friends and take part in recreational activity. It was like prison, and it was in no way helping her mental state. Sage had never been claustrophobic, but in hospital it was the walls never stopped enclosing on her. It was hell on earth.
Much like herself, she had noticed that many of the patients at the hospital were also suffering from mental illnesses, and while that should be a comfort to her, to know that she wasn't alone, it wasn't. It was like she was just another name in a file thicker than a biology textbook in some cabinet in a snooty doctor's office. But that's what she was to the doctors. She was just another case of depression with a mild phobia of food as a consequence. Life was like a black hole there, and Sage honestly had no idea what day it was or how much time had passed whilst she was there. Her parents wanted to put her in a mental institution, but being nineteen she had some say in the matter and she didn't want that. She wanted to be in a normal hospital that dealt with other illnesses too, physical illnesses. If she was in a mental hospital, she'd constantly be reminded that her life was just full of stigma and criticism.
Although she was in the library, Sage wasn't reading. She had her head on top of one of the Harry Potter books, forehead down with her arms enclosing her like a fence. She wanted to go home, she wanted to go back to work, but it wouldn't happen.
"There's nothing wrong with me." She whispered to herself, sighing a shaky breath as she tried to ignore the person sit down opposite her.
Post by Teagan Hayes on Dec 16, 2014 19:21:44 GMT -5
It started with a tickle in her chest, and not the fun kind that siblings would force upon each other- it was that irritating type that resulted in a dull ache rather than pleasure. Next was a heartbeat a bit too fast, things once simple like bending over to grab a pen that'd fallen sent her heart racing. Dizziness followed after, she'd go to rise from her seat at the end of class and stumble as her vision blurred, mind clogged with a sudden mass of clouds. Then came nausea, and god did she dread it. One minute she was giggling with her friends, and the next she was throwing up on the sidewalk, hands clenching her stomach as the familiar upbeat pulse flushed out all other sounds. All of a sudden, her lungs were incapable of retaining air, and she was constantly out of breath. Walking up stairs or dancing with her niece sent her head reeling, gasping for breaths as her chest thumped with an uncountable rhythm. What sent it all over the edge, though, was when she fell unconscious during a chorus concert. She was mid-solo, just peaking her highest note when everything faded and she smacked against the hardwood floor of the high school's auditorium stage. Having awoken in the hospital surrounded by concerned family members and confused doctors, she found it about time she explained it all. For months she'd had symptoms, but kept them to herself out of fear of, well, this. Doctors were not her thing, she hated their cold fingers, and invasive questions, yet here avoiding it all had lead to something much worse than she could have ever imagined. Her neglect advanced a simple case of ventricular tachycardia into a deadly diagnosis of ventricular fibrillation. Basically, what the heart disease did was cause the pumping chambers in the heart to quiver uselessly instead of pumping blood throughout the body. It resulted in her collapsing, and in worse case scenario frying out the nerves in her heart and killing her.
That being said, her heart had been on a dry spell recently, leaving her free to finally roam her new home. She had the chance to be a normal teen, well, as normal as a girl with a heart condition who'd been residing in and out of hospitals for the last year could be, that is. Desperate to remain as in contact as she could with the outside world, the girl never loosened the grip on her Samsung phone up. The touch screen of the large device was her home, it kept her sane. With it being stocked full with songs, and with the Netflix app, her hospital room was essentially the same as her living room back at home. Though today, it'd died in the wee hours of the morning, and she'd been too lazy to plug it in until she was being carted out of her room and dragged to the library by the oh so lovely nurse Todd. After the Christmas party, she'd become a bit of a recluse, and he was determined on getting her back into the spirit of the holidays. Having been stuck with another IV filled with medications she couldn't pronounce, Teagan had eased out of her ward with the help of the blonde boy. The IV hung on it's portable rack and pierced her arm, her steps slow but sturdy in her favorite pair of black combat boots that she struggled to lace up. Tucked into her shoes were a tight pair of black and white festive leggings, a pale gray sweater over that, and her hair was combed neatly down her back, curling into soft messes of chestnut locks around her shoulders. A smile was held firm on her lips as the nurse chatted with her, their conversation was cut short when his buzzer went off. Dismissing himself, they said their goodbyes and she slipped into the library. Heading straight back to the shelves, she plucked a book titled 'The Enemy' and pranced slowly to a table. She didn't realize someone else was sitting there until they spoke, her head snapping their way as replied to their whisper without thinking.
"Nothing at all? Not even a strand of hair too long that needs clipping?" Harmless teasing, her go to ice breaker.
Post by Sage Matthews on Dec 17, 2014 14:52:09 GMT -5
Sage slowly lifted up her head, trying to push her fringe from her eyes. Ironically, it did need cutting, but that wasn't why she perked up. The girl hasn't startled her, she heard to footsteps approach and the chair drag along the floor. Averting her gaze to the floor quickly, she let out an impatient breath, unable to decide whether to appreciate the girl's sense of humour because it was much like her own was, or whether she should be pissed off because she didn't have that humour anymore. Envy plagued her.
Beginning to tap the ends of her fingers against the desk, Sage wished she had long nails to make the sound more fulfilling. She'd been forced to cut them down when the doctors decided she was a danger to herself. Tapping her nails on the nearest surface had always been a bad habit of hers, but now the hospital was even changing that. The whole point of her being there was to "find herself again", but they weren't even letting her be herself, let alone figure out who she really was.
"It's rude to butt in on other people's conversations, y'know. Even if I was talking to myself." Sage puffed out her cheeks as she folded her arms in front of her and rested her head on them, like a pillow.
Post by Teagan Hayes on Dec 20, 2014 1:24:24 GMT -5
Silence bundled over the pair, Teagan's page flipping the only sound plaguing the dry quiet around them. She'd settled herself into her chair, not set on moving any time soon. Legs propped up on the seat across from her, she managed to find a comfortable position to hold her IV strung arm as she read. God, this book was good and she was barely four pages in. She was quite the slow reader, really. It infuriated her sister whenever they would read something together and made her father hesitate to share a post because it'd take her five minutes to read a few sentences. She'd skip a word and then start over. She'd find herself unable to pronounce a word, so she'd stare at it until it made sense. She'd sit there and blankly stare at a paragraph before it struck her that she hadn't retained a word she'd read. So it was pretty miraculous that she was now five pages into this book over the short period she had been sitting here.
Too bad she had a horrible attention span and the moment the girl she had tried to joke with had spoken she found the book folded in her hands and eyes on the patient. Pushing the binding of pages aside, she twisted some to face her while she thought of an answer to her statement. Smirking some, Teagan softly nodded and found her lips moving against their will, "You do have a point there." Waving her finger the girl's way as she had laid her head down, she just smiled and added, "But I figured it would also be rude to sit without speaking. I don't win in this situation, do I?" Chuckling lightly, she sighed and dragged her hand through her hair, trying to ease down the wavy locks.
"I'm Teagan, by the way," she figured the girl didn't care and just wanted her to leave, but she insisted on telling her anyways. For whatever reason.
Post by Sage Matthews on Jan 3, 2015 15:00:20 GMT -5
"Nobody wins in this situation." Sage spoke with a tone of laughter in her voice. It was a good day, which was actually a blessing considering it was one of the first times she'd actually made a social interaction with someone, even if it was kind of thrust upon her. Sage looked up at the other patient, running a hand through her fringe to get the hair out of her eyes. She'd needed to get it cut for a while now - maybe Teagan was right. "I'm Sage." She said, a small smile pulling the right corner of her lips upwards. "I didn't mean to be rude earlier, I'm just... just tired."
Post by Teagan Hayes on Jan 26, 2015 16:57:22 GMT -5
"I agree with you there," Teagan let out a soft chuckle, glad that they came to at least some terms on the situation. More often than not, when she'd encounter a situation like this in here, the opposing patient will grunt and stomp off because she tried to lighten the mood. Some of the people locked up within the hospital walls couldn't take a little joke, too enveloped in their own troubles to even try to see the bright side. She didn't nit-pick at them to stay or even chase after them, if anything, she just shrugged it off and felt a small pang of guilt for making them leave. So naturally, she was elated that this girl, Sage, wasn't budging. A gentle smile gracing her lips as she dug a slow hand through the ends of her hair, she took in her words, shaking her head and pouting a bit. "Hey, no- I get it, man. I don't mind if you take a jab at me. As long as you don't bash my ships, or my shows- there's no way to shake me," she replied with a friendly wink. On a more serious note, she set her elbows on the table and tangled her fingers together, concern crossing across as she gently asked, "Tired?" There could be so many reasons as to why; chemo, hard time breathing, nightmares, or simply just a lumpy mattress. Teagan was curious as to what it was keeping her up at night, and if there was any way she could possibly help.
Post by Sage Matthews on Feb 14, 2015 18:06:54 GMT -5
"Tired." Sage confirmed, the corners of her lips edging up slowly and scarcely. It was a word she'd used for years, it was a safe word of sorts. When something was noticeably wrong but she didn't want to or couldn't open up about it, she'd say she was tired. Not necessarily 'sleepy' tired, just the kind of tired that came with depression. Just from Teagan's curiosity, she could tell that the girl wanted her to either explain why she was tired or explain what was wrong with her, and although she'd already been checked into a ward for mental illness, Sage didn't know if she wanted someone else knowing that something was wrong with her. Just the fact that her doctors and her family knew that she couldn't cope with life set her on edge. As far as she was concerned, people were programmed to deal with life, and she wasn't, therefore she was broken and there was shame that followed that. Rationally, she knew there wasn't any need for shame following a diagnosis of depression, or any mental illness for that matter, but the irrational side of her was usually the most persuading.
"Yeah. I couldn't sleep last night, I just kept thinking and thinking and by the time morning came around, I think I got about two hours sleep." She shrugged, looking between Teagan and the wooden table, hands fumbling nervously in her lap.
