Tough Love

Chapter Seventy-Three

Chapter Seventy-Three

Dani

Eli stays with me Sunday night, but he leaves for work at 6am, so I'm left on my own until Dr. Stone pops in to check on me. I have to admit, I am apprehensive about him being in my hospital room without Eli here, but the feeling has to fight through the drugs, meaning it can't surface too much.

Dr. Stone checks my vitals and my IV before pulling up a chair. He says, “I think now is a good time to fill you in on what's going on. Eli says you still don't remember what happened, and that I can't influence your thinking about that. But I do need to fill you in on your condition. Obviously, you're aware that you have broken both arms and your left leg. The leg fracture, was quite severe, so I don't think that will be able to come out of the cast just yet. Your arms may have healed and I'd like to have another set of x-rays done this afternoon to see if we can get rid of those casts. That'll give you much more freedom, but you will need to start some physiotherapy seeing as your muscles haven't been used in a few months. Ok?”

“Yes sir.”

“You were severely beaten, Danica, and you sustained multiple blunt forced traumas to your skull. You were also in surgery for 9 hours because you were shot in the abdomen twice. The damage to your internal organs was very severe and we had to perform a hysterectomy. I am so very sorry about that. I didn't tell Eli that piece of information. I thought it was something too personal to you and that you should inform him yourself, if you so wish. We had to give you a lot of blood and we lost you a number of times...”

I whisper, “I know.”

“You know?”

“Yes sir.”

“Did Eli tell you?”

“No sir. I just know. I can't explain how.”

He nods in understanding and then he continues, “As it stands, your wounds are healing nicely and we should be able to take your head bandage off by the end of the week...”

“Head bandage?”

“Yes. Can't you feel the bandage?”

A truth slips out before I can stop it, “I can't really feel much, to be honest.”

He frowns, “Maybe you're getting too many drugs. I will reduce the dosage and see how that works. You have a bandage on your head, because you had open wounds. We couldn't risk infection setting in, so we needed to keep it covered. I'll remove the bandage in a few days and see how the wounds look. If I feel that another bandage is needed, I will put one back on. Once you're a bit more mobile and we're not so concerned about the memory loss, then you should be able to go home. You will obviously need to be checked regularly, but you won't have to stay here. Do you need to ask me anything?”

“No sir. Not right now.”

“Ok. I'll leave you to rest, but if you do need anything, just buzz for the nurse. I'm sorry to have to give you the bad news about the surgery.”

“It's ok, sir.”

Dr. Stone leaves the room and I sit in a daze. I don't feel anything about the hysterectomy. I resigned myself to the fact that I will never have a family a long time ago. I don't ever want another man near me in that way, so that kind of rules out having children. Although, now that Eli is in my life, I feel like things are starting to change. I'm not suggesting that I'm ready to jump into bed with him, but I do feel like my life is making progress. If Eli is willing to stick around and wait for me, then I might just be able to share my life with this man. I'm not sure how much of me I can give him, but I don't know if I should be sad or relieved about the fact that I can no longer have children.