Heap of House

For the first time in a month, he doesn't feel spaced out. For the first time in a month, the leg doesn't hurt all that much. For the first time in a month, he wants to get out.

He wants to bounce down the stairs of their building and go for a run. He wants to feel the slick of sweat trickle down his back and to wipe the drops away from his eyes. He wants to feel that blissful ache in his muscles and the feeling of true physical exhaustion. He wants to flop into bed with limbs too heavy to move. He yearns for that drink of cool water to quench his deserved thirst and for the drops that will escape and course their way out of the corner of his mouth, down his chin and onto his sweaty t-shirt.

Instead, he lies awake in his bed and tries to work out how to relieve his urgent need to pee. Cautiously, he raises himself up onto his elbows and then twists his torso to the right. Carefully, he supports the leg and hefts it over and down. He ponders over the decision ahead; the walker or the wheelchair? Which cripple aid would do the job best? He's not supposed to move about too much on his own. He's supposed to wait for Stacy to help him up. He's still too weak and vulnerable for this kind of endeavour but he's damned if he doesn't just want to not have to think about how to get out of bed.

It used to be a real no-brainer.

He pounds the edge of the bed in frustration. He throws his head back and squeezes his eyes shut. How had this happened? The irony of it was not lost on him. Ace diagnostician ends up crippled by mis-diagnosis. It was enough to drive you crazy.

He lets out a tight laugh and turns his concentration once again to Mission Pee. Right then, walker it is. He grabs the damn thing and pulls it nearer with his right hand whilst planting his left in its appropriate position. He flexes his knuckles for a minute watching them turn white as his veins bulge out. In the background, he hears Stacy trying not to crash about in the kitchen. He knows she's trying not to wake him from a precarious sleep but also knows that she is pathologically predisposed to crashing, banging and all matter of other onomatopoeic descriptors of kitchen destruction.

Rocking back and forth in preparation, he takes a deep breath and hoists himself up onto his feet. He sways slightly as the room re-settles on its axis. Puffing out a breath he didn't realise he'd taken; he tentatively shuffles his right leg forward.

Somehow, he finds himself in the doorway to the bathroom and stops for a minute to congratulate himself. It turns out to be a premature celebration when his leg gives out underneath him and he crashes to the ground in spectacular agony.

Flashes and specks burst in front of his eyes and for a moment, it's hard to take in air. The electricity flashing up his leg from knee to groin seems to spike throughout his body finally settling bone-deep inside his damn thigh. From there, the pain thumps under the dressing and threatens to burst through his pyjama pants.

He waits open-mouthed for the room to stop spinning and for the contents of his stomach to re-settle before he dares to think about moving again. As he does so, he hears Stacy pad up the corridor of their apartment.

'Crap' he mutters under his breath and drops his head in resignation and shame.

Stacy rounds the corner and almost falls over the heap of House on the floor outside their room.

'God, Greg! What happened?! Are you okay?' she puts the mug of coffee down on the ground as she crouches down, 'Are you hurt?' he hears the panic in her voice and swallows the more choice words in his vocabulary.

He wants to shout and scream that he is hurt, that it always hurts but he is tired of boring everyone. He's tired of being Greg-the-Patient, of being Greg-the-Cripple.

'Yeah, I just needed to pee…' the words sound pathetic as he says them aloud.

'Why didn't you call me? I was just in the kitchen… you could have shouted…' she replies almost annoyed.

'I just… I just needed to pee. Okay? I just wanted to pee. That's all, just to pee.'

A flash of confusion crosses Stacy's face before she realises just how frustrated he really is.

'Honey, I get it. I get that you're mad, you're bored, you hurt. I really do but you gotta accept that you need help right now. Are you hurt?' She repeats as she rubs a sympathetic hand down the trembling arm barely holding him up, 'Maybe I should run you down to the hospital, get you checked out?'

He can see her mentally amending the schedule to take into account the hours they would now spend back at PPTH.

'No! No… I'm okay, I'll be fine in a minute, really. I just really need to pee.'

He hopes that the emphasis will be enough to remind her that he did actually have a reason for his attempted jail-break. She is jolted back to the here and now and begins the delicate process of helping him up from the floor.

He is a tangle of legs and walker and shame. The feeling creeps up his neck and flushes his cheeks. He thinks back to last month and the 10K runs he ran each week. It seems like such a long time ago and yet it's only been four weeks. Four weeks to adjust to life as a helpless cripple, four weeks of being trapped; trapped in hospital, trapped in their apartment, trapped in his own body.

'Here, let me get your pants' she says all business like.

'Hey, I can do it!' he wonders why that came out as if he were some petulant three year old.

'Okay… just yell you know, if you need me. Greg? Okay?'

'Sure' his huffed response.

The relief he feels as his pee hits the toilet bowl is immeasurable; the physical relief and the ridiculous relief of standing, peeing in his own bathroom. He ponders over the fact that with standards this low, no end of joy awaited his new existence. With a shake, he finishes and reaches to pull his boxers and sweat pants back up over the huge dressing covering the gaping wound on his thigh. He cringes at the thought of how it looks and cringes once more when the healing skin stretches uncomfortably with the movement.

'Greg?' a tentative call from the hallway reveals Stacy's position.

With another sigh, he submits to her help and calls out to say he's all decent and that yes he could do with a hand. Giving up on the damaged leg, he swivels round on the good one to meet Stacy with a small smile. He knows he's got to try not to be a total bastard.

'Stace?'

'Yeah?'

'Thanks okay? Just… I wanted to say thanks, for everything.'

'Greg, you don't have to say it. It's okay. I love you okay?'

'Yeah, I know, I love you too.'