Artful Resilience

waking up

As consciousness began to stir within me, I found myself caught in the liminal space between dreams and reality. My attempts to rouse myself from the medically induced coma were met with resistance, as if my body hesitated to relinquish its hold on the depths of unconsciousness.

Beneath the surface of my heavy eyelids, I sensed a faint flicker of awareness, a feeble attempt to break free from the grip of sleep. But the weight pressing down upon my lids made the effort futile, each fluttering movement met with an oppressive resistance.

And then there was the thirst—a primal, insatiable thirst that seemed to consume every fiber of my being. My mouth was a barren wasteland, parched and cracked, devoid of moisture. The mere act of attempting to open my lips sent tendrils of pain coursing through me, a reminder of the relentless torment of dehydration.

As my consciousness flickered in and out like a dying ember, I felt a surge of desperation clawing at the edges of my mind. "Survive" I shouted internally. "Must drink water." My mind insisted.

With trembling fingers, I reached out to the nurse, my silent plea for water lost in the stifling silence of the room. "Does she understand?" I panic.

The nurse's gentle touch brought a fleeting moment of relief as she dabbed my lips with cool water, but it was a mere drop in the vast ocean of my thirst. I tried to communicate my need for more, but the tube lodged in my throat rendered speech impossible, leaving me to struggle in silence.

With each shallow breath, I felt the suffocating presence of the breathing tube, a cruel reminder of my frailty and dependence. And then, mercifully, came the nurse's voice, a beacon of reassurance in the darkness.

"I'm going to remove your breathing tube. Try to relax," she said, her words a soothing balm to my frayed nerves. But as the tube was carefully extracted from my trachea, I was consumed by a wave of excruciating agony, an internal scream echoing through the depths of my consciousness.

My lungs, weakened and weary, struggled to find their rhythm, the terror within threatening to engulf me in its suffocating embrace. And yet, through the haze of pain and fear, I clung to a sliver of hope, a silent prayer that this ordeal would soon come to an end.