ER Episode 1

It is still Monday. The Dr. Freeze has just left us, and my girlfriend is supposed to get me to the ER in our local hospital. She has to lift me out of the couch and then support me to the car. I almost put all my weight on her, because I need to. My legs can't carry me anymore. I literally drop myself in to the car and she drives me the 10 minute trip to there. So many things cross my mind... "When will I return home ... will I ever?".

We arrive at the ER entrance of the hospital. She helps me out of the car first and then drives away to park the car at the designated parking. It is at that time that I realize that the former entrance is not there anymore. A sign tells me that we now have to use the main entrance which is about a 100 yards away. 100 yards, in this state. And the car is already gone!

I look at the long wall between where I'm standing and the entrance where I need to go. It feels like one of those horror movie effects, where the camera zooms out and the hallway appears to get longer and longer. I notice that there is a window every few feet in the wall. Below each window there is some kind of gutter which I could lean on. I decide that this will be my route. I start to scour past the wall, holding on to each gutter until I almost reach the end. The windows are running out because I'm reaching the entrance.

I've been in this hospital a lot of times so I know that once I am past the last window, there is literally nothing to hold on to until I have passed the two doors with the draft isolation space between them. To make it worse there is a very small, but present ramp leading up to the entrance, meaning I will need extra strength to 'climb' that. When you're healthy you probably wouldn't even have noticed it.

Stubborn as I am, I decide not to wait for my girlfriend and gather all my mental strength and start walking, letting go of the last window (for a second in my mind I hear dramatic film music starting, like a slow motion action scene). I have no idea how I managed to do it, but without help or holding on I made it up the little ramp, through the first door, through the space and finally the second door. Then I spotted a row of seats right at the door. The first seat was empty and on the second one was an elder man.

With everything that was left in me I made it to the first chair and literally let myself fall on it. It almost made the entire row move. The elder man looked at me as if I was crazy. I considered telling him my situation, but just in time remembered my vocal disability, so decided not to.