Bully Proof

Chapter Three

I woke up to the smell of pancakes. Although my brain got excited, my stomach churned and I immediately reached for the garbage can. There was going to be no pancakes for me.

I gently placed the can on the floor next to me, careful not to spill any of the horrid-smelling contents onto the floor. I gagged a little and tried to stand up, but I was still dizzy and my head hurt like crazy.

"Mom!" I called out for her, needing her help so that I didn't puke again and fall back asleep. I had school today.  I couldn't be late. I couldn't not be there. Claire would kill me.

"Coming, sweetie," my mom marched up the stairs to my room. She sat on the edge of my bed and told me, "We're gonna take you to the doctor today. So, just get dressed and eat a little something before we go, okay? The appointment is in an hour, at 10:00, so I want to leave at a quarter of."

I nodded and shimmied over to the side of the bed that she was sitting on. I fumbled for her shoulder, flailing my arm out to grasp onto something solid so that I didn't fall over while I was getting up.

I almost fell, but Mom just steadied me with a smile. "Be careful, okay?"

She left, and I was left on my own to get dressed for the day. I wanted to text Claire about my current state, but I couldn't remember where I left my phone. I was definitely in for it when I would next see her. There was no doubt about that.

I tried to rush getting ready to go out of the house, but everything was spinning so badly that I had no choice but to slow down and take my time. I eventually got ready without any sort of substances leaving my body, which was a plus.

Walking downstairs was a massive struggle. It was 9: 40 and I was only halfway down, clinging to the railing for dear life. By the time my mom noticed, it was 9:43 and I had only managed to climb down two more steps, with five left to go. Mom helped me down the rest of them.

It was 9:50 by the time we left the driveway. Everything was worse. The car made everything worse. We needed to pull over twice, once so I could almost puke and then once more so I could actually puke. We were fifteen minutes late for the appointment.

Mom just carried me up the elevator and into the office. I felt like I was gonna die. Sure, that could have just been me being over-dramatic, but I had never felt worse in my existence.

I had to wait in the waiting room for 10 minutes before anyone actually saw me, even with us being late. The lady that came to get me didn't even put me in a room; she just took one look at me and called an ambulance.

They took me on one of those stretcher things back down the elevator as we waited for the ambulance to show up. My head was pounding. Thump. Thump. Thump. I had to swallow down my bile. It tasted terrible.

As soon as I heard the sirens, my head exploded and everything went black. I blame it on my head being sensitive at that time.

Anyway, I remember everything being slightly blurry and there was one of those pad things on my arm. You know, the pad thing where the doctor person squeezes something and then the pad gets tighter around your arm? It was that thing. I'm pretty sure it takes your blood pressure. I was in a bed, not the stretcher, and it took me a couple of seconds to realize that it was a hospital bed. I'd never been in one, but judging by all of the beeps (which my head didn't like) and how uncomfortable it was, it was the only thing I could think of it being.

"85 mmHg and 104 degrees. This doesn't look good," I heard a voice I didn't recognize say.

I blinked a few times and my eyes cleared, my vision no longer blurry. There were three doctors in the room, all within very close proximity to me. Thump. Thump. I cringed my eyes shut. The lights were too bright. There were too many noises. I was gonna puke again.

"It looks like most of her skin is inflamed and some of it is peeling," another one commented. Wouldn't I have noticed that? I hadn't been out in the sun recently, so the skin peeling couldn't have been from sunburn.

"Negative for leptospirosis," the first doctor commented.

The third one, the one who hadn't spoken yet, sighed, "I'm calling it. Get me the supplies for toxic shock syndrome. I'll meet everyone in the intensive care unit. We need to be quick, TSS has been known to be fatal within a few hours."

Fatal within a few hours? I'm going to die. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. I didn't even get to tell Mom that I loved her. I'm so sorry.

But hey, at least I would have finally been away from Claire.

The first doctor started to move my bed, so I opened my eyes out of curiosity. The lights and the turns from her wheeling me to the intensive care unit were too much for my  body to handle at that moment, and I quickly fell into unconsciousness.