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Phillip, look at me, I'm a stamp!
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Portsmouth, UK
I am currently:  
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Impatient, you lot =P
Chapter Three
I had been waiting on the made-up hospital bed for around 45 minutes before a doctor opened the curtain separating me from the outside world and came inside, taking a clip board from the end of my bed and studying it for about five minutes before even looking up and acknowledging I existed.
“Keira?” he asked. I nodded. Don’t forget me. “Keira…” he hesitated, looked down at his notes again and then said, “Thompson?” I nodded again. Don’t forget me. “Okay. Looks like you’re going to be in here for a couple of days I’m afraid.” He saw my face fall, then continued to explain why this was so, which was pointless, I knew why. “You’re sugar levels are far too low. We’re not entirely sure what has caused this, but we have a pretty good idea.” He eyed me suspiciously, “Are you eating okay?”
“Yes,” I replied, perhaps a little too quickly. This did not go unnoticed.
“Hmm. Well, we’re going to have to weigh you. You look very malnourished and underweight. Just by looking at you, I’m surprised you’ve not been admitted to a hospital or anything before.” He waited for me to reply, maybe even to defend myself and tell him I was fine, but I knew there was no point; I was not going anywhere. Not tonight. He realised I wasn’t going to say anything, so he simply said, “We’ll send a nurse in to collect you once we can so we can send you off for weighing.” He left a hospital gown on my bed, clearly expecting me to put it on and left the cubicle, leaving the folder behind.
What does it say about you? Does it mention me? Before I could reach across to the end of my bed to retrieve the folder, a plump nurse with her brown hair scraped back into a bun and a face like a wet weekend flung open the curtain and walked into my cubicle. I diverted my hand towards the hospital gown and picked that up instead, bitterly disappointed of the interruption and my failed attempt at looking at the folder and finding out just how much information they had on there. Failure. I looked up at the nurse and she stared back at me, hands clenched into fists and placed on either side of her waist. “We haven’t got all day,” she informed me. “I do have other patients I need to be seeing to, so chop-chop, get that hospital gown on you.”
I looked at her, willing her to leave. There was no way I was going to get changed in front of a stranger; I wouldn’t even get changed in front of my own mother. Huffing, she took the hint and left. I quickly undressed; folding the three layers of clothing I had worn and put them at the end of my bed. Putting on the hospital gown, I climbed off the side of the bed and straightened out the blankets, making sure everything was the same as when I had entered. I took a moment to feel how the gown fitted. It practically hung off me and I smiled to myself; I felt a sense of achievement. I had seen some of the other patients in these gowns as I had been brought in and none of them were as big on them as this one was. Told you I would do a good job in looking after you. You don’t want to be as fat as them. Thin is beautiful. Thin is beautiful.
I picked up my pile of clothes and opened the curtain to exit my cubicle and walked straight into the nurse, who briefly introduced herself as Donna and ordered me to sit down in the wheelchair in front of her. You don’t have to sit down. There’s nothing wrong with you. I’m fine, I told her. Hospital policy, she told me. She removed the pile of clothes from my clutches and handed it to another nurse, mumbling something I couldn’t make out. With a slight push, she sat me down in the wheelchair. I told her I had to walk. You need the exercise. Fat. She refused to let me stand up and in the end, I had to admit defeat; I was still too tired to fight with anyone. Weak. Pathetic.
Donna wheeled me down the hospital corridors, all of which looked the same and it seemed like something I could easily get lost in. It was so big and it made me feel so small, just like I was a little girl again. A little girl…
He was there. I could hear him, smell him, nearly taste him. I was a bad girl when I cried. Such a good girl when I was quiet. He crossed the room…
I snapped my eyes open and focused on the upcoming double doors in front of us. We stopped in front of them and Donna went to the side of one of the doors and typed in a code to prompt the doors to open for us. She pushed the door and asked another nurse to hold it open whilst she wheeled me in. She then asked me to get out of the wheelchair, making me think it was pointless in the first place, and guided me towards a small room in the corner of the ward we had just entered. Inside was a large set of scales with height measuring equipment attached to it as well as a desk and a computer, with one of those swivelling chairs in front. On the wall was a large, colourful poster. At first glance, it looked as if it was decoration and to make children seem more comfortable. On the second, it raised terror inside me, to the point I could feel it in my throat. It was a BMI chart. I knew my own BMI, but being weighed meant everyone else knew it too. My secret was going to be out. I thought about turning round and running, but I knew they would catch me and bring me straight back. Even if I didn’t think they could, I was frozen to the spot.
“Climb on,” said Donna and pointed to the scales. I couldn’t move, so she said it again. Again, I didn’t move a muscle, which agitated her. “Keira.” She touched my shoulder. I flinched away and slowly stepped towards the scales. “No,” she said quickly. “Backwards, please. We don’t want you to see your weight. It could scrap chances of recovery.”
I felt like telling her I knew my exact weight, my exact BMI, the exact target weight I needed to get to, the exact number of calories I would have to consume per day as well as the exact amount of time I would have to exercise for to burn this off and get thinner. Thinner. So much thinner. Instead, I turned to face away from it and stepped up, allowing her to bring some sort of metal device attached to the ruler to measure me down, gently upon my head. She wrote things down on a clipboard, then looked at the BMI chart on the wall and wrote something else. “Thank you,” she said blankly. I stepped off.
She asked me to sit down on a chair in the corner and opened the door to ask for another member of staff, whom she talked to for about five minutes, all the while glancing at me every few seconds to make sure I had not moved from my place. Even though I tried extremely hard to listen to what they were saying, I could barely make out my own name and weight, which she must have said about three times. Eventually, the other nurse came in with Donna and sat down next to me. Donna left the room. I shied away from the new nurse and she turned the chair round to sit at a forty-five degree angle towards me.
“My name is Rose,” she began, and then took a deep breath before continuing with what she really wanted to say. “We are very concerned about you’re weight. It is far too low and your BMI is way below what it should be. According to your notes, you have not yet been diagnosed with anything, is that correct?” I nodded and she continued, “We have been talking to your mother over the phone about your behaviour at home. She has told us about your self-destructive behaviour, including the food she has found under your bed, the diary with your food intake, calorie intake, weight and BMI at that time.”
I tried to stop listening. My mother had been through my personal belongings. She had been in my room. But Rose carried on. And I knew what she was saying. I zoned in and out of her talking about my mother. How worried she was about me. She told me she was going to send me to a clinic. An eating disorder clinic. They could ‘help’ me there. She was obligated to and she could not let me carry on like this. It was then she diagnosed me. Officially or unofficially, I wasn’t sure, I didn’t want to listen. But she said the two words, which pushed me into a box. A category. Took away any individuality I had built for myself. In two little words. “Anorexia nervosa”.
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