Chapter 12: I’ve Seen the Light, Again

Sometime after they sedated me, to sleep through the thunderstorm, I woke up to find that Emily was over in her bed. I was too sleepy to try to figure out why.

What the hell is going on? Who is throwing my body all around like this? This exam is the worst exam I have ever had. Where are my goggles?

I wanted to open my eyes to see what was going on, but without the light-blocking goggles, I wasn’t about to do that.

“Hey,” I said to whoever was examining me. “Something is wrong with my eyes, and they have these specially made dark goggles for my eyes that block out almost all of the light. I can’t open my eyes without having them on, or my eyes will hurt. I must have knocked off the pair I had on when I went to sleep. There are supposed to be some others on the table beside my bed.”

Are they deaf?

I asked a bit louder and felt them stop the exam for a second as they replied, “Every child here thinks they are in some private hospital with nurses and doctors here to see to their every whim. I don’t put up with any of that crap on my watch. There aren’t any sunglasses or swim goggles on any table in the room or around your bed.”

“Would you please check with the nurse’s station? They told me if I ever woke up to find that I didn’t have them on I was supposed to ask them for one of the emergency pairs,” I asked very nicely.

“Uh, huh. Yeah. Right kid. Like I have time to play your silly little kid games,” the person doing the exam said with an attitude problem. “You know what? My eyes hurt when I wake up in the middle of the day too. I suppose you need me to ask them to come swing in to make sure you stay stoned all day long, right?”

Why is he a complete dick? What the heck could I have ever done to him?

When he refused to even respond to me anymore, I tried to press the call button on my bed. He pushed my hand away. I pulled the power through it like I had done in my old room without a TV. Before I could say anything to the nurse, he put his hand over my mouth and said he was doing an exam and these old beds must have made it go off on its own. The nurse must have agreed because she said she would ignore the call buttons for my bed until the doctor finished.

I should bite the jerk’s finger.

“Sir, you need to talk to my doctor before you examine my eyes,” I pleaded with him.

Was he about to backhand me?

He just replied, “Will you shut up already? If you quit fighting me, I would have been done and gone already. I don’t have the patience to play nursemaid to some little snot-nosed spoiled little shit.”

I looked over toward Emily’s bed to see if I could see the squiggly lines of the energy in her body, but she was not there right now. If she had been, she could call the nurse and tell her I needed my goggles. I don’t know where she was. If I had slept into the late morning, then she was probably back at testing or physical therapy.

Arthur had told me how to pull energy backward through a switch for a light that would cause it to turn the switch off. I tried hard to do what he said, but couldn’t quite get it to work. As a last-ditch effort to stop this jerk, I pulled the energy back from the overhead and exam light to make them go out. It only made him stop to curse about the useless maintenance staff at the hospital. When he started to reach for my eyes, I did all I could to force them to stay shut.

Damn! It is going to hurt! Why can’t he go away?

The man leaned in to push his arm on my chest and used the fingers on his other hand to pry my eye open. When the room lights hit my eyes, I could hear myself screaming out.

If my voice hadn’t deepened, I am sure it would be high enough to break the glass.

That pain was nothing compared to the super bright white LED penlight he shined in a few seconds later. It felt like I had thousands of white-hot needles searing the inside of my eye at the same time. I have no idea how I remained conscious, given all of the pain I was feeling. He did it to my other eye too. I heard the door slam against the doorstop as someone came rushing into the room to ask what the heck was going on.

“Just another damn spoiled, obstinate little brat is having a hissy fit because I wouldn’t coddle him. Can you believe this little shit told me light hurt his eyes to get me to find him his designer shades so he could pretend he is a teen pop star or something? Like I could ever check his pupil response if he was wearing these things,” he said.

This ass is a lying jerk! He took off my goggles and snagged my other pair too.

He moved over closer to the door to say, “If he doesn’t give up on his little screaming fit in a minute or two, I will write orders to have him sedated to keep from bothering the other patients.”

How come I haven’t gone hoarse yet?

I saw a big group of squiggly lines outside my door. The jerk was telling them the same things the idiot said to whoever came to my room first. At least he was until I saw his squiggly lines get yanked into the hallway.

“Security, please detain this man and contact the Sherriff to have him arrested. At a minimum, they can hold him for seventy-two hours charged with assault of a child in the second degree. Someone needs to notify Legal immediately,” the man barked out. “Oh. Make sure that you specifically mention to the police and legal that this first confirmed assault on a patient was against David Jones. I expect that multiple patients have likewise been assaulted, possibly sexually, by this man. Make sure to search him to ensure he doesn’t sedate himself.”

A man in the hall moving in front of the jerk to say, “If you blinded this child through your arrogance, felony assault, and molestation charges will be completely ignored by the DA. Torturing a sedated child to the point of permanent blindness isn’t tolerated very well by governments of the world. Terrorists residing at Gitmo were detained for planning or executing actions that killed men, women, and children, not the torture of children to stroke their egos.”

He then shouted out doctor things they say when giving orders to nurses. The squiggly lines of people moved off away from the room quickly. Only one came in that moved right over next to the bed.

“David, if you can bear with us for just a few more seconds, we will give you something to help with the pain,” he told me while he very gently rubbed one my arms I still had tensed up to try to fight the pain. “I have no idea why a second-year resident was permitted to make unsupervised rounds on any of the pediatric floors, much less this particular floor. It states clearly within their hiring paperwork that only forth year residents are permitted to floors with terminally ill, or post comatose patients. Even then, they require a supervising doctor to accompany them. Most of the children on these floors cannot take the rough handling or the emotionless lack of empathy the less experienced residents possess. As you have seen with your terminally ill roommate, we strive to do all that we can to make their remaining time as pleasant as possible in the hope that miracles do exist. Even the most illogical, nonsensical, silly requests we honor if it is within our power to do so without harming the patient physically or mentally. Do you think we would ever permit your female roommate to share a room with a male, much less permit her into your bed, if she hadn’t made her bucket list known to a few of the staff.”

They could have clued me in on Emily’s bucket list so I can help her do all the ones we can do together.

His talking helped me focus away from the stabbing pain in my eyes so much that I didn’t notice that I had been given a shot with something that made my whole body go limp. It took them using multiple different types of pain shots to find the one that finally took that stabbing pain away. It was down to a mild throbbing when a final shot they gave made me not care about if I was in pain anymore or not.

I don’t know if it was just a few minutes, or hours, but I felt I had on a pair of the goggles I got the first time. I vaguely remember some voices asking me things. I may have even responded, but I was not sure. I finally started hearing someone asking me questions I understood now.

“David, can you please try to open your eyes and tell me you can see anything. We have the lights in the room completely off. The only light in the room is from the ambient light coming in from the hallway. It is important that we determine if there was any damage or change to your light sensitivity levels,” the same doctor that had the man arrested was saying.

“I will try,” I told him.

Opening my eyes, I saw that it was pretty dark in the room. The doctor then had me close my eyes again while the goggles were swapped out. This time the light was so bright it made my eyes start to hurt again, even with all of the pain medicines. We did this over and over again until I had a pair of goggles on that made the room just a bit brighter than it would be for them. Once they made sure I had the right level of light blocking the room lights were turned on. It became bright like I was out in the sun, but didn’t make my eyes hurt.

That is much better.

He chuckled a bit as he said, “It appears the resident will be explaining his criminal actions to the magistrate instead in an undisclosed location with men in dark suits. It seems the magistrate over his case happens to be the grandfather of one of the girls practicing on the hill the day you arrived at the hospital. The resident is so cocky that he signed an exceptionally arrogant statement accounting of every step of his examination from the time of his arrival until he being was forcibly removed from your room. The hospital legal department and judges that hear tort lawsuits review his statement. All said that a civil suit against him is cut and dry. Sadly, though, any lawsuits will have to wait until his criminal trial. I can’t believe he did follow one protocol, David. No lawyer will want to touch his case at all. We had no problem finding every one of the patients he examined because he wrote orders to sedate each patient before he sedated them. Him bragging to his buddies about how he volunteered to make rounds to butter up the nurses to get them in bed with him, or at least in a supply closet. We have emails clearly stating that he didn’t seek his supervising doctor’s permission because the resident knew he knew they would deny it. By directly violating hospital policies, the hospital is free from all liability regarding his actions. Our residency program foots the costs of medical malpractice insurance for the residents, as part of their residency benefit package, provided they follow all the hospital policies and only do as directed by their supervising physician. In exchange for this benefit, they must secure third party insurance or a financial agreement which covers all punitive damages which exceed the maximums of the malpractice insurance. The moment he violated his contract, his malpractice insurance policy ended. I don’t know about you David, but I know I wouldn’t want to explain to my father how my trying to bed two nurses has placed all of his father’s hard-earned wealth in jeopardy.”

Whoops! I wouldn’t want to be having that conversation with my parents.

“It appears that the hospital didn’t blow up and your TV is still working. We won’t have to move you and Emily back down to the other floor,” my pediatrician said as he walked in a bit later. “I think I would be willing to see if I could get that resident out of jail long enough to have him explain to Emily why she can’t watch TV until we discharge you. She has made it known that she will stop fighting to live if she no longer shared your room until the first of you went home. You know, David, if rooming with you, and sharing your bed on occasion, is what it takes to make her spirits soar like today, I’m not about to rock the boat.”

“As long as you are sure she isn’t going to cause my recovery to take longer by me sharing her room,” I said with a laugh.

I really would complain and make a scene if they tried to take her away from me too.

All joking aside, he did insist on checking me all over for bruises or injuries caused when I fought to have my eyes forced open. I had gotten my feet on one set of bars and hand around another as I tried to push away from the resident.

Is he disappointed that he didn’t find any injuries?

“Now if you have no other reasons for me to stay, I do need to attend to other patients. I came to tell you that you should be getting a visit from the optometry company to provide more custom fit goggles with replacements shortly. The resident had both pairs when arrested, so they were admitted into evidence against him. Those you wore at first are also missing from the nurse’s station,” my pediatrician said before leaving the room.

Arthur seemed to magically appear and swap out the goggles right after the doctor left.

“We do not believe that the events of the last twelve hours were merely a coincidence, David,” Arthur said seriously. “The resident was merely a patsy. We have seen this exact pattern of seemingly unrelated events happen against other multiple lightning strike survivors we were unable to protect in time. They test anyone with hyperlight sensitivity to extremely bright to see if there is a large surge of electricity or unexplained electrical outage in the area at the same time. We have several associates here within the hospital, and one on your floor is watching over you. Since you explained how you pushed unwanted cellular energy into the metal of the bed, which in turn sent the energy into the ground wire, we added specialized sensors that monitor the ground wires for your room. From the moment your first eye was forced open until the heavy narcotics removed your pain, you were releasing off the chart levels of hundreds of different types of energy into the ground wire. We found no energy drawn from humans or that drawn through electrical outlets. The energy came entirely from inside of you. No signs of a blown breaker were found anywhere around the area. We will be watching you a lot more closely. Based on past results with the patients my company treats for hyperlight sensitivity, we believe they will mark you off their list of possible multiple lightning strike victims. If anything unexpected like this happens again, continually call the nurse’s station. Should that fail, trigger the code blue alarm in the bathroom or over by your roommate’s side of the bed. The staff will not ignore that on this floor, even if it is on accident. I do have some good news. It appears the patsy’s father has made arrangements for you and your roommate to have a much higher quality menu for your dining pleasure. He is making an attempted peace offering to cover his ass.”

I bet he is doing whatever it takes to keep from losing everything.

I turned on the TV as Arthur was leaving. The news happened to be on the channel the TV was on when it was turned off. There was a quick little mention of an incident happening today at the hospital about a doctor ejected from the residency program for gross misconduct. Hospital officials and police refused to comment saying it was an ongoing legal matter. The hospital issued a statement explaining how they expect the highest level of professionalism from their staff. All reports, especially those from the child patients regarding the staff’s treatment of them, are never ignored and thoroughly investigated immediately. If any actions indicate possible criminal activity or misconduct, the hospital immediately contacts the authorities, as they did today. The news said they didn’t have the name of anyone directly involved in the incident today. Emily came in just as the story finished.

The orderly was trying to lift her into her bed when she said, “As soon as I have the energy I will be climbing up into his bed.”

He apologized to Emily but said that would get him in a lot of trouble with Human Resources and the Legal department. He needed this job to take care of his own family. Emily was working down the safety bar on my bed before he even turned around to leave the room. She was nudging me with her hip, to be able to get the bedrail back up, before the orderly was out of the room.

She grilled me about what happened this morning. When they came to get her, she was still pretty much asleep, only being awake enough to stagger into the bathroom to pee before they wheeled her away. The elevator doors were opening when she heard my blood-curdling screams and remembered it was the same as when I first came out of the coma and took the patches off my eyes.

No matter how much Emily tried to get back to the room to check on me, she was still too sedated to move from the wheelchair. There were a lot of people rushing to our room anyway. I was still screaming out when the elevator closed. She only had a few tests this morning, but the staff wouldn’t bring her to the room. Her physical therapist worked Emily over to where Emily couldn’t move a muscle. When she had to pee, it was in a bedpan for the lab could check her pee. She went from therapy to have a two-hour long massage.

“I don’t know what they did, but I wished I could find out. I had two quick orgasms before they got anywhere near my butt. Anytime they got near my butt crack, or crotch, I would get off. When I could move again, they dressed me a bathing suit that almost fit me perfectly,” Emily said while unbuttoning my pajama top so she could rub my bare chest. “They took me to the outdoor covered pool. Outdoor, as in outside, David. I’ve never swum anywhere that sunlight could get on my body since the first time I was found to have cancer. Mom was worried it would give me skin cancer. The nurse joked about how pale my body was and told me that if they could have ensured that I was the only patient in the pool area, they would have let me swim naked.”

She was excited about being able to feel the sun on her skin as she sat poolside to catch some rays until they said it was time to come back to the room.

“I don’t know what happened at all. Someone must have come in last night and taken my goggles. All of them, even the spares were gone,” I told her. “That wouldn’t have been a big deal because the eye doctor that had made mine said there were always some in inventory at the hospital. All the nurses had to do was call down to get a pair of the basic super dark swim goggles until some new ones, specifically made to fit my face, could be brought over. I was woken up by someone pushing and shoving me all around as he did a full head to toe exam. I figured I had knocked the other ones off and I politely asked him if he saw them or could give me the spare pair that has always been on the side table or counter near the bed. That jerk called me a rich spoiled brat wanting my designer sunglasses as he made some jab about me sleeping in. I mean, really? Me? Spoiled? Come on.”

“Did you hit the call button,” Emily asked.

With a snort, I said, “Yep. This jerk complained that the beds sucked and kept setting off calls when the guy wasn’t even near the button. Then he told her he would tell her when he finished. She ignored any other ones I tried to do after that. He finally got to my eyes, and I told him that I was hypersensitive to light. Instead of listening to me, he used his body to hold me down so he could force my eyes open and then use this way too bright LED flashlight to shine straight into my eyes. Not a quick pass or two, but held it shining right into my eyes as I screamed in agony. Someone rushed into the room as soon as they heard me screaming, and instead of stopping him, they believed the clown when he said I was throwing a hissy fit instead because I wanted my sunglasses. To top it off he said if I didn’t stop screaming, he was going to have me sedated so the other kids could get some rest.”

I watched Emily’s angelic face turned red in anger, and her beautiful eyes lost their sparkle as she said coldly, “If did that to me I would see that medical review boards crucified him and let my mother sue his butt for anything he has now, and whatever he may ever make.”

Instead of letting her stay all red and angry, I pulled her to me and kissed her on the lips while rubbing her bare butt. I waited for her to calm down and start kissing me back before I broke for air to continue telling her about what happened next.

“I don’t think he will ever make it to a medical review board. The people you saw rushing to my room had security hold him for the sheriff. He wasn’t even a real doctor yet, just a second-year resident trying to hook up with the two nurses by volunteering to do their exams since they were short-staffed. I heard that the hospital lawyers were going to have the district attorney lay on the criminal charges. Other things were said, too, but I don’t remember them very well since they were giving me lots of meds to try to make the pain go away. Other meds were used to force my muscles to relax so they could pry my feet and hands off the bedrails where I had been trying to get away from the pain,” I told her before the head pediatrician came into the room.

“I’m not assuming what David may or may not have remembered clearly from this morning. We had to administer large doses of opiates, anti-inflammatories, and optical muscle relaxers to finally get David to a place where he could rest peacefully. Now that all those have worn off, I wanted to ensure that you are clear-headed before I came by to summarize the colossal cockup this morning,” he told us and then waited to be sure he had both of our attentions. “First, I wanted to address your missing eye protection. The nurse who sedated Emily said David had his goggles on when she left, and the orderly noted that he didn’t see you wearing them. It does at least confirm the statement from the resident that none he could see in your room. They were found in his pockets when the police searched him. However, he is still in scalding hot water before having to face the trouble he is in with his father. As you seem to remember from earlier David, he was indeed attempting to gain additional sexual favors from the two nurses. We found out later that both nurses had, how shall I put this, already paid him in full for his merely agreeing to help them out this morning. He entered the ward without hospital permission or supervision by his assigned staff physician. From your previous stays, Emily, you know this floor is exclusively for terminally ill patients where modern medicine has done all it can do. Then we also have those waiting on organ transplants that may or may not get them in time. We have hand-picked staff who will go above and beyond to make every day here as pleasant as we can for each patient on this floor. Even what would seem like a request from a child playing up their stay in the hospital on other wards, we grant whenever possible. It is why you two aren’t only sharing a room, but are being allowed to share a bed in any state of dress, or undress, that you prefer. A trust fund resident, such as the one from this morning, won’t even be given access rights to do hospital rounds on the restricted access pediatric floors until they have had their pediatric practices for a minimum of 10 years.

Emily asked him a lot of questions as to why the nurses let him come on the floor, and if the resident even knew about the restrictions.

“Outstanding questions, Emily. Those exact questions were asked by HR and Legal this very afternoon. Both nurses fell for his smooth social engineering techniques. He persuaded them that not only was he authorized to be here, but he was doing it his free time, without pay. If they did not want his help, then so be it. He would be perfectly happy to play a round of golf instead. They could do the exams themselves,” he told us with his face grim. “Already short-staffed and behind, they failed to question him further and allowed him to proceed. Our IT staff cross-referenced each call button activation to his notes in their charts. In each case, he told the nurses the call button press was related to his doing the exams and problems with the beds. Legal won’t permit me to discuss the pending legal charges again him. What I advise you, as your pediatrician, is that an unknown doctor, especially one lacking any empathy for patient comfort, ever be allowed to give you a breast or pelvic examination, especially not in a hospital room without a nurse or your parent present. Examinations of female genitalia are only to be conducted by your OBGYN or personal physician. Even I wouldn’t take the legal risk of doing such an examination in a hospital room by myself.”

We were interrupted by a well-dressed man knocking on the open room door.

“If I may be permitted a few moments of your time,” the man asked from the door.

The doctor told him he could enter and asked what he wanted.

“Sir, I was referring to your two charges,” he responded. “I have been requested to ensure the accuracy of the data provided to me and personally confirm that there no food allergies or restrictions on meats. Selections of preferred vegetables, with any desired sauces, condiments, and seasonings, shall likewise ensure a higher satisfaction with the dining experience.”

He didn’t give us any real choices except for what vegetables we wanted and how we liked them bed prepared. We both confirmed we didn’t have any known food allergies. With that, the man thanked us and left quickly.

“It seems your evening meal will be arriving shortly,” the pediatrician said with a smile, “Let me bring you up to speed on what all happened this morning, Emily. Our hospital doesn’t have the money to pay residents the higher salaries of the hospitals charging the maximum possible rates insurance companies are willing to pay. We have found that many of our best doctors come from very humble beginnings and we wouldn’t have any of them if not for the hospital paying the malpractice insurance as a perk to bring them here. In exchange, we hold them to the very highest standards. They must agree to sign an agreement that specifically spells out the requirements for participating in the program, one of which requires a secured bond of no less than one million dollars. The bond is used to cover the legal costs incurred by the hospital if the resident violates the agreement and their actions result in malpractice litigation. That, however, only protects the hospital. A malpractice lawsuit in David’s name, as a patient within the hospital, was filed against the arrogant resident’s father’s estate by Legal. Unlike his son, it appears the resident’s father has a shred of decency, honor, and intelligence. He is incredibly embarrassed at the irresponsible behavior of his son, and the harm this has done to his family’s reputation. As a show of goodwill, with no strings attached, he negotiated with Legal to come up with some way to apologize which wouldn’t be seen by anyone as conflict of interest, some form of a settlement agreement, or impact the ongoing lawsuit. He had his heart the right place when we asked if he would be permitted to shower David with gifts to help him cope with the boredom that is recovery. After his lawyers and legal argued it out against similar cases, they determined that him doing so and you accepting could be interpreted as an out of court settlement. What they did agree up was that it would be acceptable to provide you with a higher level of dining than is normally provided by the hospital kitchens. His lawyers initially restricted the deal to David only, but quickly changed it to include roommates and any guests joining either of you for a meal. By expanding it to others lessens the appearance of a conflict of interest. My advice here would be to eat whatever you like while not abusing this attempted goodwill offering by asking for more than you can consume.”

I am good with this being a way to beg us not to sue this guy into bankruptcy because he never spanked his rotten child.

Once completed, he helped Emily get back into her bed for the meal. He expected that we would need all of the space each of our tables that slide over the bed.

“Not that we are expecting any unexpected visitors, but for appearances, it is that you are in David’s bed, and not the other way around. Legal believes that it gives the impression that Emily was there voluntarily, for covering the hospital’s butt,” he told us.

That is dang stupid to me! Why would it matter? I don’t get these people.

He saw my anger and said, “David, I hope you never have to meet the type of people that would make this an issue, but they exist. Their whole lives are focused on going around judging everyone by their definitions of the morals they believe everyone should have. It doesn’t matter if they apply those morals to their own lives. They get off on causing the biggest stinks they can think about something that it none of the damn business.”

“I hate those high and mighty judgmental morons,” Emily snarled. “There were two kids that lived across the street from me. Both were homeschooled because they both had IQs in the one hundred thirty range, aced the SATs and ACTs at ten, but the school system wouldn’t let them skip grades. They already knew the materials for two grades ahead of their peers based on their age. Each day their mother had obligations at their church, so she left the two of them home alone once they were old enough to be there for a couple of hours without supervision. One of the busybody women in the neighborhood didn’t feel that an eleven-year-old boy and twelve-year-old girl were mature enough to be unsupervised, so she took it on herself to keep an eye on them. On days when she could not see them through their large picture window in front, she would let her dog go off into their back yard to see if she could see them from that side of their house. I caught bits of what happened, though. It seems that one day she found the boy had his pants and underwear down around his ankles with his sister on the floor in front of him. The woman could only see the back of the girl’s head and that the boy was bare from the waist to his ankles. Seeing the girl’s hand appear to be touching the boy’s penis and the girl’s head moving, she assumed the girl was sucking her brother’s penis. On another day, the boy had his pants down with his sister holding his erect penis as she pulled back his foreskin. Form the woman’s angle it again appeared the girl was sucking him off, again. Supposedly, this happened a few more times before the kids stopped doing that anymore. Mom said the woman was even more determined and insisted that the kids needed supervision, even if it had been weeks since she had seen them doing anything but school work. About a month later she was walking her dog when she saw that the girl, who always had to wear dresses, had her panties on the floor with her legs spread wide. Her brother was seen sitting to the side with his fingers opening her up and even pushing a finger in and out of her vagina a few times. They did it each day after their mom left. After the third time, the woman took pictures with her phone each day she saw them like that. When she saw the girl with her legs spread, the boy’s hands up near her vulva and his head moving around, she took a video. Two weeks later the woman took the pictures and video the kid’s church ranting that the two children we committing incest daily while their mother way away. She then took the videos to the police to have the children forced to go to regular school and have social services take the kids. She spouted out all about their sinful ways and eventually ended up getting the kids sent to different foster care homes. Their parents were both arrested, causing their father to lose his perfect job. I was back in the hospital when it all got resolved. Mom told me that their parents were fully aware of what was going on and had the woman asked.”