Page 62 of Queenslander
She pressed a pillow to her incision the way the nurses instructed her, then eased more weight onto her left foot. She couldn’t feel whether her right foot came off the ground. Still numb, then. Not a good show. The room spun.
Her center of gravity was off. Getting up had been a terrible idea. The nurses were patient. “Good job. Now move your left foot.” She leaned to the right. Her left foot didn’t come off the ground.
She swore. The women in pink scrubs appeared unconcerned.
“Relax. Deep breaths,” one said. Her scrubs had alphabet blocks and teddy bears on them.
“Don’t be tense,” the other warned. Her scrubs had baby bottles and pacifiers.
A wheelchair appeared at her hip. Lowering herself down by the armrests strained her back, which spasmed, making her freeze despite her best intentions. “Ahhh, ahhh, ahh…” She couldn’t be bothered to feel embarrassed.
“You’re doing beautifully! You can do this!” alphabet blocks said. “You’re already doing heaps better than you were yesterday!” Baby bottles pushed the chair into the bathroom.
She couldn’t remember their names or faces—the nurses all blurred together into a laundry list of patterned scrubs. Kind, helpful people she would never see again.
In the other room, Nev said something about a transfusion.
The only bad thing about the blood IV dripping into her arm for four hours was that a nurse had to sit by the bed and watch the numbers on the machines for the first fifteen minutes. Ronnie wouldn’t mind that if she was alone, but she could tell it made Nev uncomfortable.
The nurse stopped Nev from reading the bag. “Can I help you?”
“Whose blood is this?”
The nurse blinked. “We don’t keep track of that.”
“Yes, you do.”
Bleeding into post-partum underwear that felt like a diaper under white hospital blankets, she watched Nev google the sea chantey festival in Christchurch. Nev remained trapped in thevisitor chair across from the nurse because Ronnie wouldn’t let go of her hand.
Images of Christchurch slid across Nev’s dirty laptop screen. Ronnie had forgotten that her bandmates had plans to perform at a sea chantey festival in New Zealand that weekend.
When the doctor on call stopped by on her morning rounds, Nev stepped out into the hall.
“Questions?” the doctor asked.
Ronnie didn’t have the energy to lift her head. “When can I play footy again?”
“After your eight-week check-up, if everything’s healing.”
“When can I ride a horse?”
“Same.”
“What about work?”
“What do you do?”
“Farming and coaching football.”
“You’ll likely be able to return to coaching after a month, but take the full eight weeks off your manual labor job.”
There went footy season. The primary school in Atherton must have noticed by now that she wasn’t coming to work. She could call them today, had to try to remember. Maybe the fact that they hadn’t called her meant that someone had called them already.
When the doctor left the room, Nev returned with Mattie.
She was relieved to see them, a little surprised that they were both still here. She pressed the down arrow on the remote that controlled the incline of the bed. “Did anyone call the school?”
Mattie leaned over the bed to kiss her on the forehead. “Dad did.” Of course.
