Forced To Wear A Cast - Julies View

 Authors Note: This is a retelling of the second half of Force To Wear A Cast from the other characters point of view, Julie. If you have not read Rebecca's story yet you should do so over at https://abbacor.blogspot.com/2019/04/forced-to-wear-cast.html

Rebecca is slowly walking out of the bathroom on her crutches and making her way to the bed. A sock on the floor gets tangled on the end of one of her crutches and causes her to stumble. In trying to catch her self from falling the crutches get crossed over and she falls. There is a wet sounding pop and I see Rebecca’s left shoulder distort then her body gets twisted to the left as she continues to fall and her shoulder hits the floor hard with another pop. The wheelchair it right next to her as she goes down and her head actually manages to bounce off the metal strut of the leg rest and the foot rest. As she comes to rest on the floor I see Rebecca’s eyes roll up into the back of her head so all I can see is the whites and she passes out.

I stand there in shock for a moment not sure what to do. There’s this tiny voice in the back of my head that’s saying ‘What if ...’. Once my brain gets back into gear again I grab my phone to call for emergency help but I stop. I have to make sure Rebecca is okay and quickly get down and make sure that Rebecca is still breathing, which she is, and I decide to get her up off the floor. She is not a large woman, but I find that with the large cast on a good portion of her body that Rebecca is a bit heavier than I expected not to mention hard to maneuver around. It’s a bit of a struggle but I eventually manage to get her up onto the bed while trying to not hurt her any further.

By the time I get Rebecca situated in bed there is already a bruise starting to form on the left side of her jaw where her head hit the wheelchair. I also note that her left wrist appears to be a little bit swollen compared to her right hand. It takes a good half hour from the time when Rebecca fell to when she starts to wake up again. She looks up at me with a moan of pain.

“Shhh, don’t try to talk,” I tell her while placing my hand on her jaw. “You had a nasty fall and you’ve already got a big bruise on the side of your face. I managed to get you up off the floor and in bed.”

“What ...” she whispers.

“You went down so fast I couldn’t do anything, but it was like everything was in slow motion at the same time and I could see it all happening in detail. I watched your left shoulder suddenly get distorted like the bone had popped out of place, then when you twisted as you fell you landed right on your shoulder and it popped back. I’m guessing you at least dislocated your shoulder, if not broke it, and landing on the floor popped it back in again. The sounds of it coming out then going back were nasty.

“You also bounced your head hard on the leg rest of the wheelchair and twisted your neck around. I’m not sure, but I think I might have heard something crack. You looked up at me for just a second then your eyes rolled back so all I saw was white and you passed out.

“I rolled you over onto your back and made sure you were still breathing then I worked you up onto your bed as carefully as I could. Your left wrist also looks a little bit swollen too.”

Rebecca groans and rolls her eyes then she tries to sit up. I hold her down while warning her to not move.

“No, don’t try to move. I’m worried you’re really hurt. That bruise showed up really fast. I think your jaw could be broken and maybe your neck.”

The look she gives me matches the scared whine of fright that creeps out. She tries to bring her left hand up but stops with a squeak of pain when she bends her wrist.

“Called nine-one-one?” she asks.

“Um, not yet. I wanted to make sure you were going to wake up first. You’ve been out for about thirty minutes.”

Rebecca tries to look around and gasps again. I notice that the edge of her cast appears to be a bit higher on her ribs than it was before.

“Oh, hey, what’s this?”

I watch for a moment while Rebecca get a confused look on her face and reaches up with her right hand to feel the top edge of her cast. I can see that it is getting bigger and is now pressing up against the bottom of her breasts and continuing upwards.

“Oh wow, your cast is growing. I never thought I’d get to see that.”

“Nooooo!” Rebecca yells. It looks like it hurts her and a few tears trickle from the corner of her eyes.

“Hurts,” she mumbles a moment later.

“Rebecca, honey, it’ll be alright,” I try to reassure her. “Here, let me get you something.”

Getting up I head out to the living room.

“Her beautiful cast is growing again,” I talk to myself quietly. “She must have really gotten injured in that fall. I wonder how far it’s going to go? Maybe it’ll become a really huge cast.

“I wish I could have a big cast like that. What would it be like to feel a cast growing on me and knowing it won’t come off for months,” I fantasize. “If there were only some way I could get her cast to grow on me.”

I see the last of the second bottle of wine sitting there.

“Rebecca’s had a lot of the wine tonight. The alcohol should be dulling her senses a good bit, she’s already stumbled and fell because of it. What if I get her to drink the rest of the wine?” I contemplate.

“Maybe, just maybe, I can convince her that she really broke some more bones. Her shoulder really did pop out of place and she has that bruise on her jaw. I bet I could make her think she’s hurt enough to end up with a Minerva cast and a shoulder spica.

“Ooh, and she even acted like her wrist was hurting too. I’m sure I could get her to believe her wrist is broken too and get the cast to extend all the way down to her hand. And if ...?”

I pick up the bottle of wine and look at it.

“What if I get my hand in the way of the cast while it’s growing? What would it do?”

I pour the rest of the wine into a glass and go to the kitchen to find a straw for Rebecca.

“The doctor said something about people who put on casts for fun that grew bigger than they intended and were stuck in them for the full term. How does that work if they aren’t really hurt?”

Finding a straw I stop for a minute.

“They put on a cast with no injury, and the cast grows to immobilize their body according to the fake broken bones they imagine they have? That’s got to be it. Then the cast takes on the proper form to immobilize the imagined breaks and they are forced to wear the cast until the bones would have healed.

“So, if I stick my hand in the way and imagine that I have a broken bone or two, and if I really make myself believe it, then just maybe the cast will also grow up onto me too?”

I shake my head and go back to the bedroom thinking about it. Looking at Rebecca lying on the bed while the cast is working on covering up her breasts, I make a decision.

‘It’s crazy, but I’ve got to try it. I need to get Rebecca drunk enough to help me believe her cast is going to get really huge.’

I turn into the bathroom and find her bottle of prescription pain pills she was given. I drop three of them into my hand and go back out to Rebecca.

‘Three of these pills plus the wine should get her loopy enough I hope.’

Sitting down on the side of the bed I present the pills and wine to her.

“Here, drink this down with a couple of you pain medication pills.”

She obediently takes all three pills and sucks up all of the wine. I continue to watch her cast grow while I keep an eye on how the pills and alcohol are affecting her. Rebecca doesn’t move much and I can see her start to get drowsy. It takes about thirty minutes for the cast to completely cover her chest and work up over the top of both shoulders.

“Get better,” she whispers.

“Hush now. The cast is still growing to protect you. I’ll stay here with you.”

The cast continues to creep up Rebecca’s neck and starts to work around her left shoulder. When it reaches the bottom of her jaw she starts to look slightly worried.

“No. Don’t want-”

I cut her off by gently grabbing and pinching both of her lips between my thumb and finger.

“Quiet,” I command. “The cast is working up under and around your jaw. I’d guess you broke it and the cast is trying to stabilize it. It also looks like it’s growing down around your left shoulder. From what I saw you definitely injured it, and with the cast growing down around there it could be broken too.”

Rebecca quiet’s down again although she looks frightened and a couple of tears squeeze out.

For the most part I stay with Rebecca to comfort her while the cast continues growing. I get up only occasionally as I want to watch the progress the cast makes while it grows.

After another hour the cast has formed the majority of a Minerva cast around her head. It has fully cupped her jaw and chin, coming right up to the bottom of her lower lip and it looks to have forced her mouth completely shut. The cast envelops the entire back of Rebecca’s head and gone up over her ears leaving two small holes directly over the ears so she can still hear. The top of her head is open, and the forehead band is slowly working forwards from both sides. The cast has also fully encased her shoulder, holding the upper arm out to the side and pointing down at around a forty-five degree angle. The cast has gotten down Rebecca’s arm far enough that it is beginning to include her elbow.

After leaving for a moment to have a little potty break and take something I found in the bathroom, I come back and check the cast again.

“You have an almost complete Minerva cast around your head now, there’s just a couple inches left between the two arms on your forehead. I’m guessing it will be done in a few minutes. At least you have small openings over your ears so you can still hear clearly.

“Can you open your mouth?” I ask.

She grunts and I see her upper lip wiggle some, but she can’t open her mouth at all.

“Wow, no movement in your jaw. It must be broken.”

I look down and run my fingers up her forearm to where the edge of the cast is growing, amazed at how the cast is so hard and rigid yet it is still growing and perfectly forming itself around the bend of her elbow.

“How’s the arm doing?”

Rebecca tries to move her arm, but the cast is already far enough that it is forcing her to start pointing her hand forwards and she can only move it about half of her normal range of movement.

“Looks like it’s going on down your arm all the way. I bet you messed up your wrist too.”

“Mmm,” Rebecca grunts in agreement.

“Is your right leg okay? Does it hurt any?”

“Uh-uh,” she grunts.

“The cast doesn’t look like it has changed any at all down there at least so I guess there was no more damage to it.”

I watch as the two arms of pink fiberglass join up and finish the band around Rebecca’s forehead, completing the Minerva portion of her cast. It looks like she tries to move her head a little but the cast stops her from even wiggling.

The cast actually picks up a little speed and finishes coming down around Rebecca’s elbow.

‘This is it. If this is going to work I have to try now.’

I stand up and grab Rebecca’s forearm with my left hand, pushing the tips of my fingers up under the edge of the cast. With my right I take Rebecca’s hand and curl the fingers around my forearm so she is grasping me back. I quickly take the roll of paper tape I brought out and wrap a long strip around her fingers and my own arm. I go all the way around twice so she can’t let go and she grunts in confusion.

Almost as soon as I forced my fingers under the cast it stopped growing, like it knew there was a foreign object which did not belong. I start thinking about my imaginary injuries that I want to get a cast for.

‘I tried to catch Rebecca when she fell, but she was too heavy and I fell down under her. Her hard cast smashed down onto my hand and lower arm breaking several bones in my hand and both bones in the forearm. On the way down one of the crutches got tangled up between her body and mine causing my arm to twist badly which cracked the humerus and dislocated my shoulder. The force of the dislocation along with the abnormal twisting of my arm actually fractured the shoulder socket.

‘Because I was trying to catch and protect Rebecca, which sadly failed, I ended up between her and the wheelchair and I hit the back of my head at the base of my skull at a bad angle and broke my neck.’

I keep thinking about all of this for several minutes but nothing is happening. I squeeze harder on Rebecca’s arm and concentrate even more on my imaginary injuries. It takes several more minutes of not letting up before I feel the edge of the cast start to move again. I don’t stop and keep up my internal litany of injuries until the cast has grown to cover my entire hand.

“It worked,” I say with a smile.

“Hmm?” Rebecca grunts.

“I wasn’t sure it would work.” I exclaim then I look Rebecca in the face.

“I’m sorry Rebecca, but I’ve been rather jealous of you these last couple weeks,” I explain.

“I said that my cast in high school was ugly and caused sores. That probably sounded like I hated it. Well, that’s not true. I loved having that cast. The feeling of having my arm immobilized, not being able to bend my wrist, it was great. It would have been even better if the cast had kept my elbow from moving as well, but it was too short and in just a couple of weeks I could bend it a good bit. I also loved the attention I got while I had to wear it and all the signatures from friends and family and even strangers was super. I’ve always wanted to repeat that experience; especially now that casts are considered to be ‘living’ and can self grow and repair them selves so they remain perfect.

“Your cast is perfect,” I gush. “It’s been two weeks and there is no indication of wear or tear to it. By now in the old days you’d have a worn spot under your toes and probably one or two other spots where you lean on it a lot, or the stockinette around the edges somewhere would be starting to fray a tiny bit. But it’s not, and I am so jealous.

“When I saw you fall I was so scared you’d get hurt worse, but at the same time there was this little voice in the back of my head that made me think ‘What if I got hurt falling down with her too?’ It was small and quiet, but it was there.

“Then I saw and heard your shoulder get dislocated and knew you were really hurt. I grabbed my phone and almost dialed for nine-one-one; then I stopped. That little voice was there again. ‘What if?’ I shook it off and like I told you I checked to see if you were breathing then I got you up in bed.

“And I still did not call. I’m sorry. I started to think about how I could have gotten hurt and how I might get a cast out of it. I remembered how you told me that bit about how the detective thought you might be faking it, and the doctor mentioned how they had people who came in with fake injuries and casts they couldn’t take off. And I started to dream of how I could turn this into my own cast too.

“You probably think I’m nuts at this point, and maybe I am. It’s probably the wine in part, but I just had to take the chance. You woke up and I started telling you that you might have been hurt really badly. It was enough that your cast actually started to grow again. When I saw that I couldn’t stop. I gave you the rest of the wine and probably more prescription meds that I should have, but it did calm you down and maybe made you more suggestible. I kept it up so that your cast would continue to get bigger, whether or not you’ve really got broken bones. The cast grew up over the rest of your body and started to expand up your head. And also down your arm.

“I knew this was my chance. I watched as it flowed down your arm and around your elbow. When it got to your lower arm I forced my finger tips up under the edge of the cast and grabbed on tight while taping your hand to my forearm. Then I began to imagine that I had been caught in your fall too, and you fell on top of me. I imagined that I had also gotten hurt pretty badly in the fall.

“At first the cast stopped growing at all. I got worried that it wouldn’t include my hand or arm because, well, I’m not a part of you. But I didn’t give up and just concentrated even harder on my own supposed injuries. And it worked. The cast started growing again. It went right on over my fingers. I kept it up until my whole hand was included under the cast on your arm.

“And look at it now. I’ve been talking to you this whole time and it has kept growing. The cast is all the way up to your wrist, over half way up my forearm, and it’s still going.”

I felt Rebecca try to wiggle her hand but the cast held us tight. I pulled the tape off as it wasn’t needed anymore and about ten minutes later the cast had reached up to the bottom of her knuckles which is a couple of inches below my own elbow. And there it stopped. Frowning, I try to first wiggle my fingers then see if I can somehow pull my arm free but nothing happens and my arm remains frozen in place.

‘What’s going on now? Why did it stop?’

I stand there, unable to sit down with my arm held against Rebecca’s arm like it is, and fretfully wait to see what comes next. It takes me a bit before I feel something happening inside the cast around our arms. I finally realize that it feels like there is something working its way in between our arms.

“Is it starting to separate us?” I wonder aloud.

“Mmm,” Rebecca agrees.

“That’s good. I didn’t want to be permanently stuck to you. That would have been awkward in so many ways.”

‘Thank goodness. Can you just imagine trying to explain why we are stuck inside the same cast? That would not go over well at all.’

It takes somewhere around twenty minutes for me to stop feeling Rebecca’s skin against my own arm while the cast bulged out sideways and enclosed our arms in separate casts. After ten more minutes the two casts finally split apart completely so that my cast is free from Rebecca’s. Holding up my arm the cast is neon pink with black stockinette, just like Rebecca’s. Her cast has stopped growing at her knuckles and appears to be finished with all five of her fingers free. However my hand is completely immobilized out past the tips of all five fingers in a paddle-like cast.

“Guess I am going to completely lose the use of all of my fingers. Small price for the way I got my own cast. Now it just needs to keep going, my injuries are pretty bad and need to be immobilized,” I say with a small smile while staring at my cast.

It takes a few minutes of continuing to review the horrible injuries I’ve dreamed up for the cast to start growing again.

“There it goes, that’s it. Keep growing,” I quietly command with satisfaction.

I watch closely as the cast immobilizes my elbow at a ninety degree angle and works its way on up my arm. Looking over at Rebecca I see her watching curiously.

“I guess I can tell you what injuries my poor broken body has suffered from having you fall on top of me,” I tell her to satisfy both her curiosity and my dreams.

“Your cast came down hard on my arm and hand here, breaking several bones in my hand and both bones in the forearm. One of your crutches got tangled up between us and bent my arm out of place as I fell which caused a partial fracture at the mid humerus and dislocated my own shoulder and possibly cracked the bones of the socket too. Because of the bad position of how we fell down and where the wheelchair was at, I hit my head at a bad angle and broke my neck in several of the vertebrate.

“From what I have so far it looks like I’ll have a complete hand immobilizing cast with a shoulder spica cast. I hope I’ll also get a Minerva cast like you have. Once it’s done I’ll probably have to wear the whole cast for however long it take for my imagined neck fractures to heal which will be the longest. I’m guessing any where from three to six months at least.”

As the cast reaches my armpit I start pulling off my nightgown and bra to get them out of the way. It’s awkward without the use of my left hand and with my arm held bent like it is, but I manage it without too much difficulty.

“Once I’m done and have my full cast I’ll call nine-one-one and say that we were knocked out and didn’t wake up until it was all over.”

Slowly the cast grows to cover my left shoulder and works its way on down my body. It also grows a band up over the top of my right shoulder and close to around my neck, but it does not grow up to start forming a Minerva cast.

‘That’s strange. It’s still growing but only down my body. Maybe it’s waiting until my torso is covered to immobilize my broken neck? Or did I not get my neck injury right? I’ll just keep thinking about it being severely broken and the cast should take care of it.’

I make sure to continue including a critical broken neck at the base of my skull and top of my neck while the cast slowly encompasses my body. I keep checking with my right hand, but the cast fails to grow upwards. It does work on down until I have a full body jacket all the way down to just below my waist then it stops. I feel around it and even look down but don’t see anything happening for a moment. Then my hand encounters a bump on the left side of my waist. Looking over I find a second bump starting to form on the underside of my forearm cast too.

“Oh, looks like I’ll have an abduction bar included in my cast. You don’t have one though. It’ll be almost impossible to hide my cast under clothing with a bar in the way,” I say happily.

‘My cast is going to be that much different from Rebecca’s! I will just have to display this cast to everyone who sees me. I’ll get so many stares and signatures from this, and I won’t need to wear any clothing up top at all because the cast will cover everything!’ I realize gleefully.

The two ends of the abduction bar slowly extend out towards each other, and in about thirty minutes they touch and join together into one solid bar. I feel the top edge of the cast again but it is not moving.

“Come on now, I have a broken neck too you dumb cast. A pretty badly broken one at that. You need to take care that injury too dang it,” I say, worried that nothing is happening.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed I am getting concerned that the cast is not going to include my neck and head like I want. I try to move my left arm or hand and fingers, and nothing gives. I do admire the cast that envelops my arm and hand with it sticking out to the side, pleased with the result of that part my dream.

Dejectedly I figure that I messed up somehow and I’m not going to get my Minerva cast. I take the time to look over Rebecca’s cast, gently rubbing my hand over the fiberglass that contains her. I admire how she is now immobilized from the toes of her right foot, up over her leg and hip, across her entire torso, down over her left shoulder all the way to the palm of her hand, and finally up over her head to fully immobilize her jaw and neck.

While I am looking over my own cast again and trying to wiggle my fingers I notice something black poking up into my line of sight on either side.

“Huh? What are ... Oh. It couldn’t be,” I wonder out loud.

Reaching up I feel the one on the right and down to where it disappears into a large protrusion on the front right side of my cast a little above my breast. I move to the left side and find a similar bump there and run my hand up to the end of the black thing on that side which is still growing. I do my best to feel around over both shoulders behind me and I find two move of the hard things growing up out of my cast, again one to either side.

“No no no. Not this. I didn’t want one of these!” I exclaim in a frightened panic. “Not a Halo Brace!”

I whip my head around as much as I can while trying to grasp the vertical support rods and stop them from growing or pull them off. Nothing works, of course, and the bars keep lengthening until they are nearly as tall as the top of my head. I watch the two in front of me as the connectors for the horizontal support rods begin to take shape and feel the same thing taking place on the two rods in back. I keep trying to stop or remove any thing, the rods or connectors, but nothing works. As they grow they are tightly connected in place. When the connections finish I feel and see the horizontal bars begin to grow out from the front end towards the back.

When the front to back rods stop growing I know what’s next and I give up. I break down sobbing and hang my head down in a final, futile attempt to avoid the next step. I don’t know how long it takes, but at some point I feel Rebecca’s fingers under my chin and she is gently pushing my head up. I look into her eyes hating the pity I see but recognizing the inevitable outcome that she has realized, and I nod.

“You’re right. I did this to myself and I need to just accept it.”

I straighten my head up and sit as tall as I can. The Halo Crown has already formed part way and I can just see out of the top corner of each eye the ends of the ring that is going to go around in front of my head. As soon as I have my head in place the ends start to grow again to finish the job. I feel with my hand and confirm that there is a large bar running up over the top back of my head from one side to the other, and a short extension of the ring is pointing down and behind each ear.

Once the bar above my eyes is finished joining together I try to move my head around. I can turn my head a bit from side to side, and tilt it a bit less, but the ring was close enough to stop me from moving normally. I try to bend my head forwards and get it out from inside the Halo, but it is close enough and far enough down around my head that I simply bump my forehead against the inside surface of the ring. Leaning back, my ears get caught against the rear occipital protrusions and fold forwards getting pinched. I give up and wait for the final part of my folly to show up and punish me.

A minute later I see a silver screw start to form above my left eye towards the outer edge. A look to the right and I find one growing in place there as well. Feeling the back I encounter one in the bottom hole on both the left and right sides and I whimper knowing where they are going. Taking hold of the skull pin over my right eye I cover it up to try and hide it from view, but that only lets me feel the sharp tip form and slowly inch closer and closer to my head which makes me whimper louder. Feeling the sharp tips of the pins begin to make contact with my flesh I can’t contain my fear.

“No. No. Stop. Please,” I quietly begin to repeat over and over.

I am nearly blinded by my fear and refuse to look up at the Halo or pins as they press inwards. A small part of my mind takes note that while I did feel the sharp points touch, I actually did not feel the pins penetrate my skin. I feel the pin under my fingers finish growing in length with about half of its length inserted through the ring. Then the pin begins to turn on its own.

“NO. NO. Stop. Stop. Please. Please. PLEASE,” I proclaim.

My protests to the activity are ineffective and ignored as the pin, and I assume the other three as well, continue to turn and make their way deeper. I feel it as all four pins strike bone and continue to tighten.

“OH GOD! NO! NO NO NO!!! STOP!” I yell and plead with tears freely running down my cheeks.

Nothing is going to stop the pins and they mercilessly turn. In moments there is a horrible sound that seems to echo through my head as the narrow tips penetrate far enough for the broader part of the pins to start rubbing against the bone. After several minutes of turning while I cry out loud the pins stop and hold in place. I reach up and feel the small locking nuts tighten down to keep the pins at their final depth and maintain the pressure they are exerting on my skull. With the tightening finished I subside into somewhat more sedate sobs.

The minor relief is short lived though as I feel like my neck is being stretched upwards which pulls on the freshly applied pins.

“OW! OW! OW!” I cry out in surprise and more pain.

I realize that the vertical rods must be growing and applying a level of traction to my neck on top of completely immobilizing my head. Thirty seconds later and my neck stops being stretched any further and the Halo settles into what is apparently going to be the final configuration. The pain from having my neck stretched in constant traction along with the constant pressure from the four pins pressing into my skull is intense and worse than I had ever imagined it could be.

“Oh shit! That really hurts! The feeling and pressure of having all four pins screwed into my head was so much worse than I thought it would be. And it still hurts! The pins are really tight and putting constant pressure on my head now! Ow!”

Rebecca gently grabs my free hand with hers and gives it a squeeze. I try to look down at her but my head can’t move. I turn my eyes down and see her put her right hand up next to her head in the symbol of ‘call me’.

“Yes, of course. Time to call for help.” I sigh in resignation, “Let me set things up for that real quick.”

I go to look around again but my head still does not move.

“Holy crap. That is so strange.”

I pause for a moment to try and move my head and compare it to trying to move my arm.

“I can’t move my head. Like totally zero movement, but it’s not like how my arm feels,” I explain.

“I can’t move my arm either, not really, but I can feel the cast all around my arm. When I try to move my arm hand or fingers I feel the resistance from the cast stopping me. If I try to move my head there’s nothing. My muscles tense up but nothing moves and I can’t feel anything resisting or pressing against my muscles. I don’t even feel any increase to the constant pressure from these damn pins in my head. This is so weird.”

I manage to stand up with a little effort then I have to turn around and bend at the waist so I can look down at Rebecca on the bed. I grab her casted left arm and pull to slide her around a bit. I have to turn sideways a bit more so I can reach over and grab the cast containing her right leg at the knee and slide her around even further so that her free left leg falls off the side of the bed which apparently startles her.

“HMMMM!” she squeals in protest.

“I have to get you back on the floor again, then I am going to lie down too so that it looks like we suffered a fall and got knocked unconscious.”

There isn’t much Rebecca can do at this point to stop me, and I keep working on getting her immobile body down onto the floor. Thankfully she doesn’t try to fight me, but she isn’t helping much either. All she does is make sure that I don’t pinch or bend her two free limbs for the most part. This means that I accidentally drop her a couple of times which I am sure gives her a painful jarring each time.

Once she is on the floor again I upend the wheelchair and then get myself down on the floor beside Rebecca so that it looks like we both fell. Reaching over and grabbing my phone I make the call to nine-one-one.

øøø                         øøø                         øøø

I manage to convince both the paramedics who arrive, then the doctors and nurses at the hospital, that Rebecca fell and took me down with her. The edge of the bruise visible on her cheek helps, and apparently there is something of a bruise on the back of my head that has shown up as well. They put me through all kinds of x-rays and scans while thy examine me. They do try to cut off the cast and loosen the Halo Brace, but nothing works. The cast repairs itself as expected and they can’t ever get any of the bolts on the Halo to loosen in the slightest. Even trying to loosen one of the pins in my skull is fruitless, although it does cause me a good bit of pain when they try that one.

I let them think that we were both knocked out in the fall and did not awaken again until after both Rebecca’s cast had finished growing and I had been encased in my Halo Spica cast. The fact that my cast is the same colors and materials as Rebecca’s is not missed, but with my insistence that I was unconscious for the whole thing they can only speculate as to how I wound up in it. Rebecca for her part apparently does not tell them the truth for which I am thankful. They don’t come back at any point to tell me that I’m going to be charged with anything, and we wind up in the same room together. The doctors tell us that all of their tests and scans do not show any obvious injuries, however their attempts to remove or reduce either of our casts are ineffective even a day later.

From my guesses and how I managed to get into my own cast, and despite the unexpected addition of the Halo which is now apparently here to stay, I figure that the belief of the patient in the cast is a large part of what keeps them from being removed or altered out of turn. As long as the person believes it is needed, then the cast will remain in place.

A couple of days go by as we are taken care of by the nurses. I wake up the second morning remembering an odd an unsettling dream.

‘Oh geez, that was disturbing. I dreamt that I couldn’t breathe due to my broken neck and was also placed on a permanent respirator with a tube in my neck. Why would I dream of something like that? Do I want that to happen too?’

During the afternoon I start to feel short of breath and have trouble breathing.

“I can’t” * gasp * “take a full breath.” * gasp * I say to a nurse who has come in to do a routine check on us.

“It feels like the cast” * gasp * “is too tight.” * gasp *

The nurse immediately checks and finds that the cast is fine and no tighter than it was the previous day.

“Julie dear, there’s nothing wrong. Your cast is just like it was yesterday and it’s not pressing any tighter on your chest than before. Just slow down and try to take a few deep breaths for me.”

I do as she says and try, but I still can’t seem to get a full breath. She tries to help me for several minutes until a second nurse comes in.

“Is everything okay in here? I noticed you were taking longer than normal.”

“No, it’s not okay. Julie is having trouble breathing. I think she’s experiencing cast syndrome.”

“That’s not good. Are the breathing exercises having any effect?”

“None at all.”

“Right. Keep trying. I’ll get the doctor.”

‘Why can’t I breathe? What is cast syndrome? That sounds familiar for some reason.’

It takes a minute to come to me while I struggle to breathe normally.

‘Oh, right. Cast Syndrome. Several conditions get called that. When someone in a cast that encompasses the chest feels like the cast is getting tighter and they cannot get a proper breath actually falls under Atelectasis. Whatever. I still can’t breathe right!

The first nurse stays with me while the other one leaves in a hurry. While she is gone my breathing continues to get shallower. Several minutes later she returns with one of the doctors.

“How is the patient doing?” the doctor queries.

“No better. I’ve been with her for at least ten minutes, and I think she’s getting worse,” the nurse reports.

The doctor steps up to my other side and gives me a quick examination. Running the fingers of his hand up under the edge of the cast he verifies it has not gotten tighter, but he can feel how shallow my breaths have become. Reaching a decision he pulls out a syringe and jabs the needle into my neck and injects the whole amount.

“I just gave her a shot of Prednisone to try and reduce any inflammation of the airway. Lets see if that will make a difference.”

“And just in case it doesn’t Doctor, should we maybe prepare for intubation?”

“I hope we don’t need to go that far, but this onset was rather fast. I shouldn’t have needed the injection this soon either. Get the materials and machine necessary just in case.”

The nurses both leave while the doctor stays and watches me. The drug does take effect and it starts to make it easier for me to breathe, but only somewhat. While he waits the doctor holds up an inhaler to my mouth and has me take as deep a breath as I can from it several times.

“This is a corticosteroid to help you breathe. It should help.”

The nurses come back several minutes later and I am still gasping for breath, just not as heavily.

 “She appears to be coming out of it. Keep a close eye on her for the next hour and we’ll see how she does. If it gets worse then we’ll need to intubate.”

For about a half hour the one nurse stays in the room with me and tries to get me to do the exercises to help me breathe better. I do my best but I can not seem to get enough air in my lungs. Eventually I start going down hill again.

“Please” * gasp * “help me.” * gasp * “It’s getting” * gasp * “worse.” I say while my eyes get bigger in fright.

The nurse rushes over and hits a big red button on the wall then comes back over and starts pulling the packages apart that they brought in earlier. The doctor and other nurse arrive in moments and together they all do their part to shove a tube down my throat so I can breathe.

When the tube goes in my mouth and hits the back of my throat I choke on it for a moment which makes me gasp for air again. Apparently that forced my airway to open up enough to allow the tube to slide down deep inside. A blue bag is hooked up to the other end of the tube and the nurse holding it begins to force air into my lungs by pumping it while the second nurse and doctor quickly get the respirator turned on and working.

As soon as the machine is ready they disconnect the hand bag and plug the blue plastic hose from the device into the tube in my throat. Turing the respirator on it begins to give me assisted breaths about every thirty seconds. The rhythm is mechanical and at first does not match my own, but as it continues at a regular pace I begin to adjust and work with it which greatly reduces my stress and gives me more air. Once I start working with it they reduce the frequency to about one assisted breath every two minutes.

“There, that’s better. Alright Julie, We’ll keep you on the machine over night like this and check up on you frequently. If all goes well then we should be able to take you off it again in the morning.”

‘Oh joy. Now I get to have a tube down my throat so I can’t even make a sound just to help me breathe. It’s like I injured my spinal cord with my broken neck and I can’t breathe on my own without a machine. I suppose I did wonder what it would be like to be on a machine to breathe for me. But, just like the Halo, I didn’t actually want it. Did I?’

The waste items get cleaned up and the tube is taped down securely with two long strands of medical tape. The first one goes from the bottom of one cheek, up around the tube from top to bottom, and back to the top of same cheek. The second strand gets attached the same way to the opposite cheek. The tape is efficient in keeping the tube from moving around, although having something like that in my mouth is uncomfortable and I move my tongue around it to try and make it a little better.

Unfortunately I don’t seem to get any better. While the machine does help me get more air when it pushes every couple of minutes, I continue to struggle in between those times. The rate is not enough and I slowly start to show signs of continued distress with my lips slowly turning blue and my skin going pale.

The nurses slowly increase the assisted rate up as the day goes on but it is not enough. A nurse who checks on me later in the evening realizes I am in a losing battle and switches the respirator on to fully mechanical breathing so the machine takes over completely then goes to get the doctor.

After a talk that I don’t hear they decide to leave me on full mechanical respiration for a couple of days. When they try unplugging the hose in the morning two days later from the tube in my throat, I actually can’t start breathing on my own again for almost a minute before I begin to take in air through the tube. It’s still really weak and shallow and no where near enough so they hook the hose back up and let the machine do it for me. They try one more time later that same afternoon. On that attempt I fail to start breathing on my own all together and they have to hook me back up again to stop me from suffocating. Another, and the last, attempt is made a day later with no better results. I am unable to take in air on my own and am fully dependant on mechanical intervention and control of my breathing.

With the tube filling my mouth and throat so I can breathe, they have to shove a feeding tube up my nose and down into my stomach to feed me. I don’t even get water to drink, the closest that I’m allowed is a wet sponge to moisten my lips and the inside of my mouth so they don’t dry out. Feeding happens on a regular schedule when the nurses hang up a bag of formula and let it drain down through the tube in my nose then they flush it out with water. I don’t taste anything and the best I get is feeling the tube turn cold in my throat from the flush of water.

Being dependant on a machine to breathe also means that I can’t get out of bed anymore without a major production being made of it, and I have to endure a bedpan or adult undergarment for bathroom relief. With the liquid diet and amount of water they are pushing through me I start having accidents because I have to go so often and can’t hold it. I end up asking by writing it down for them to just put a catheter in. It gets approved and at least I don’t have to worry anymore about holding it or having a wet diaper all the time.

About two weeks later they take me out and down to a surgery room. I’m hooked up to a different machine that includes a gas that puts me to sleep. When I wake back up I’m back in my room. The blue hose and machine is still there, but it’s down lower now. The tube is no longer in my mouth and down the back of my throat. They cut a hole in the front of my neck and stuck a tube in through there to give me air. The incision hurts some, and apparently the new tube goes in below my voice box as I still can’t make any sounds. Feeling with my good hand there are bandages taped down all around the tube in my neck so I can’t really tell just what they did. Grabbing the tube and wiggling it a little feels wrong and is more than a little disconcerting.

Rebecca disappeared at some point before they do the tracheotomy I think, and I’m alone in the room after that. Time goes by slowly and I get used to a fairly regular and boring routine. I don’t exactly lose track of time, but it becomes less important to me with not being able to do hardly anything for myself anymore. I think it is around two months later that I get told that since I have become fairly stable, even with my higher care needs, that they are going to transfer me out of the hospital to a long-term care facility. Apparently it’s the same place that Rebecca is at and I will once again get to be her roommate.