Happy new year! Or gott nytt år as I usually say. I hope you've all had a merry Christmas. As I'm writing this, I'm a bit over an hour into 2024. So I hope everyone has a nice year.

And as usual I start this year with working on each of my stories. The first one updated was too much bitten off to chew.

A part of me had always wondered what it would be like riding in the back of an ambulance.

But right here, right now. Knowing no one I knew would wait for me at the A&E, I wanted to tell the paramedics to take me back to the dumping ground. I could lie down in the quiet room and Mike could take care of me.

With that one feeling I pushed it away. Telling myself that there wouldn't be a reason for me to bother Mike with this. And if I started whining and crying like a little baby in front of him, only time would show how long it would take me. He'd be so worried and I could care for myself.

And Cam who was on the other side of the world, she had rushed back for a simple appendicitis so what wouldn't she do now? Jump or fly or run across the sea?

Mike had probably called her already…

I snivelled to myself, I would have liked to look out the window to see the lights of Pottiswood pass me by, but my head was pounding and aching and the tiniest bit of light made it a thousand times worse…

"If there's anything I can do for you…" John said, I carefully shook my head and opened my eyes again. He had taken some paper sheets that he held on his lap. "…We're almost at the hospital now. You will be taken to X-ray. To first make sure there are no tumours, strokes or fractures. But they will all be relatively quick and you will then be taken to the emergency room's department…. Whether you'll be spending the night or not. "

"Do you think I'll have to."

"I don't know…"

"I'm not asking if you know." My own voice sounded weak and hoarse and I was speaking slowly. "Do you think I'll have to stay until tomorrow?"

Somehow I just couldn't bear the thought of having to be alone…

"Yes…" John sighed. "It would surprise me if you'll be going home tonight. And they will be doing more tests- you'll have to answer a whole lot of questions and you'll have to have a needle- probably put in your hand if they want to keep it there."

I couldn't help but to let hear a whimper, and it seemed to echo all around. John laid his hand on mine, stroke it slightly with his thumb. I had a feeling that John might be a grandfather- he was certainly old enough!

"Here we are." I could see it through the windows as the ambulance turned into a garage. "You just relax and lean back. But I think there will be some questions for you to answer, I do get it if you want to sleep."

Seeing how I was going to be pulled out of the ambulance I could see how there would be a sort of hack and stop in getting out. And all of me tensed up, my head was already pounding worse than ever.

Then John was sorting out the wheels underneath the stretcher and calmly he and Tara pulled me out and towards some doors to the A&E.

"We'll leave you here now, Tracy." John told me. "But there's still nothing for you to worry about. All staff at this place are very nice people."

I heard him greeting a nurse from the A&E. She came and took the banister of my metal bed, then kept pushing me through the hallway, and talked to me. While my head was so mushy I couldn't hear one single word for a long while.

It didn't matter what John said about the staff her, none of them were Mike and none of them were Cam.

And I didn't even have my phone with me so even if I had decided they would have been the best or I needed to talk to them, I still couldn't.

I couldn't help but think about the last couple of days. Could I really have had a seizure only because of stress and a temperature? I had heard once before that adults having fever seizures was very, very, very rare among anyone who didn't have Epilepsy? Or a brain tumor? Or anything else that the doctors might or might not be able to fix?

Obviously I was here, knowing Mike. There would be no way I could tell him I was fine. He wouldn't believe me anyway.

And maybe that was what I had wanted all along.

Then I couldn't help but remember the time that I had had appendicitis and Cam had come rushing home from New York. What wouldn't she be doing now?

Had Mike already talked to her or maybe he thought it was better if she didn't know about what had happened. Maybe he too would think, that her being so excited on the other side of the world he didn't want to interrupt it. Just like I didn't want to do it.

"Tracy? Tracy… Tracy?" A voice at last reached through my thinking and I suddenly noticed I had been moved to get an x-ray. "Now. We're going to start with some x-ray's. But don't you worry… if you move when the pictures are taken, it will be just like with a regular camera and the photos will be blurry and we'll have to take them over again. And that we don't want, right?"

No I didn't! But I wasn't so sure about what I wanted or not. Did I want this or did I want to be alone? Or did I want Cam and Mike to be here with me? Even if it worried them?

I had almost been on my way to fall as

leep, maybe I even did. I must have because I was suddenly back on the same boat that I had been on last night. This time Mike was there too. Mike, Cam and mum…

Then there was a wave and I couldn't find an anchor and the tide kept coming in and…

With a slight scream my eyes flew open, at first I couldn't even catch my breath at all. Even less so when I remembered what happened and saw I was in a hospital room. The room was dark, I could see light shining from the hallway but that didn't mean anyone was here with me.

And I could feel tears rising in my eyes when I remembered that Cam was so far away… Could both she and Mike forget about me here? Or be too busy with anything else?

Random fact

The day I had my first seizure(s) I came into the hospital with an ambulance. And taken for an X-ray right away. Now, I know this mostly from what my mum's told me because I can hardly remember anything which is why I deleted some parts that I wrote originally.

Random fact