The Disability Chat

Cricket

It was a moment later that something appeared on the paper again. Breathe deeply . . . what? Why? My thoughts flashed back to the few times I'd gotten my lungs punctured because I'd whistled-- hey. Wait a moment. Hadn't I just whistled right there, right before he asked me to breathe?

I cast a suspicious glance over my shoulder at the doctor, then twisted away to see if he had anything sharp in his hands. "Why?"

T.Mor:

"Because I want to listen to your lungs...make sure they're filling with air properly and whatnot." The doctor explained simply, but I think he caught Cricket's suspicious look and stopped for a moment, curiously. "Why, what did you think I was doing?" He asked with one of those...raised eyebrow kinda tones.

Cricket

As soon as I picked every last word off the page, my eyes shot right back to him. There was only a thin veil of hair between him and my continued suspicious gaze. He looked sincere enough. But even so, I didn't like any one stranger guy poking around my back to hear me breathe.

What did I think he was doing? Cutting me open to rip out a lung or something, I thought, as if I could get the message across through my mind rather than take the effort to say anything out loud.

Alright, Cricket, settle down. This isn't Cellblock. I shook my head and turned my back to him again, bracing myself.

T.Mor:

I saw that look. That was the 'I just thought about something horrible' look...and I didn't want to know that he was thinking about horrible things because then I would think about what horrible things he could be thinking of and how horrible they were and whether or not they were the same horrible things that I was thinking of. ...I was already having enough horrible thoughts as it was... uhm.

The doctor guy seemed to give up on getting a real response from him, having just gotten that second look from Cricket. "Right...so if you could just breathe for me now, please?" He asked a second time, putting his stetho...thing up the back of Cricket's shirt again.

Cricket

I took a couple slow breaths. T.Mor was watching me. He had this expression of . . . what was it, worry, something along those lines? I flashed a half-smile I hoped was reassuring.

T.Mor:

Cricket smiled at me all like..."don't worry...it's not really too scary." which I hoped was the case really.

After that the doctor guy said some things to the one with the notepad and then got out this fabricky rectangle with another tube coming from it and a gauge...Which I also didn't understand. "You're going to feel a bit of pressure on your arm, We're just taking your blood pressure." He then went ahead and wrapped the fabric around Cricket's upper arm and started pushing air out of this weird stressball at the end of the tube.

...I didn't understand any of this...

Cricket

This was the strangest thing ever. Why did he need to squeeze my arm with an air-pumping thing, I had no clue. But I let him . . . not with a happy-go-lucky grin on my face, but I let him squeeze my arm with an air-pump thing, thinking that he must be some sort of insane. This made no sense.

T.Mor:

So, apparently that went alright, because after a moment the guy took the fabricky thing off and mumbled some numbers to the other guy taking the notes.

"Alright, so...now if you could go lie on that table there... and I'm just going to check out your stomach and organs and whatnot, make sure everything feels alright in there." he told Cricket...and... I have to admit that... that sounded weird and sketchy...

Cricket

. . . No . . . That, no, I didn't want anything to do with that. What did that have to do with my ears? I hesitated, then shook my head. "Ah . . . 'ow about . . . I pass on that one."

T.Mor:

...I think he chose the right answer there. That... I mean... uhm. ...Yeahhh...

The doctor guy seemed completely stumped. "...We kind of need to know that you don't have diseases or something... a lot of these things we're doing with you right now are just what happens in a normal doctor's appointment. I'm kind of curious as to why you're so afraid of these things. In your file it mentions that you've never actually been to a doctor, but I don't think that that fully explains your...suspicion." He kind of not really ranted, but said in a way that was kinda...fast and calculating.

Cricket

I wasn't about to enlighten this guy on my life story, or my friends', or the million-foot-tall man in a suit. It wasn't his business. I had no clue what to say to him, truthfully. "Then 'ow about . . . I don't get int' it, and you stop touching me." I hated not hearing my own voice. I had to watch his expression just to see if he got the point.

T.Mor:

The guy sighed, then looked at the guy taking notes. They kinda looked at eachother for a moment. "Alright... how does this sound. You sit on the table so I can check your eyes, ears and mouth, and you'll talk to your psychiatrist later about your ...problems with trust. ...Ok?" He asked, pulling out some weird contraption with a light at one end and a little screen for seeing things at the other.

Cricket

. . . Alright. That was a bit better. I glanced at T.Mor, hoping for . . . what, some type of reassurance? It couldn't be that bad. It was only a look. And perhaps if he looked at my ears he might find out what was wrong with them and fix me, or the like, instead of wasting time looking at things I knew were working properly. I'm deaf. I'm not diseased. What about that did these people not understand?

. . . I still particularily disliked other people's faces in my face. Something about it almost always made me want to hide, the 'almost' referring to those I really truly trust enough. Trust, aye? Trust problem, aye?

My hand was at my neck again. Not to talk, but on the scar. I lowered it. Alright. Calm down. He's just doing his job. I could do this, toughen up and bear with it until it's done. I could.

I backed to the table and hopped up. It wouldn't be all that terrible, I mean, honestly, apparently normal people went through things like this all the time with normal doctors. It was alright.

T.Mor:

I caught Cricket's glance and kinda made one of those..."I'm sure it's not that bad... I mean...look... no knives...!" Faces back at him, because I didn't want him to be worried about what I told him to go do before me.

Then the doctor guy started talking again. "Ok... so just open your mouth really wide and stick your tongue out for me, please." He seemed to be expecting Cricket to freak out again.

Cricket

Honestly? I raised an eyebrow at my paper in my lap. . . . Alright. He's the doctor. I stuck out my tongue in a somewhat exaggeratedly silly expression. Or at least, it felt that way.

T.Mor:

...I kind of lol'd at Cricket's face. I mean... It just...

...Right, anyway. So... the doctor guy used his magic light screen magnifying thingy for a minute on the inside of Cricket's mouth, and then backed up a bit for a moment. "Ok... good... I'm going to hold the light out here and move my hand around and I want you to follow my hand with your eyes without moving your head." He asked next.

...I'd decided that I could be a doctor. ...You just ask people to do silly things and then tell them they're messed up. ... ...I mean...ok, there was probably more to it... but...for Auda... all you would need is those two parts.

Cricket

I looked into the light-- agh. Nevermind. Well, this wasn't that bad. I could see the shadow of his hand through my hair just fine. I did so.

T.Mor:

The guy finished waving his hands around, and Cricket seemed to pass that one too. He shifted to one side of Cricket's head and used the lighted scopey thing to look in Cricket's ear....which is about when he stopped being all casual about stuff.

"So... that was from gunfire..." he muttered, not really looking away from whatever was in the little scope. He seemed to want to continue or something but ended up just staring at whatever was inside Cricket's head.

...Crap... What if they couldn't fix him...? I tried to get rid of that idea immediately. No. They had to fix Cricket.

Cricket

I didn't know what to say to that, either, so I just stayed still and hoped he could fix me. He had to be able to. There's something about living in a silent world that's never the same. It was half-dead. I wanted to hear music again. I wanted to hear voices again.

I almost said something about it, asked him if it was bad, but shut my mouth and kept quiet. Like everything else.

T.Mor:

He seemed to finally rip himself away from that side of Cricket's head, and checked the other, pausing for a good amount of time there too.

He finally put the little scopey thing away. "So... I'm setting you up with an appointment to go see the otolaryntologist either this evening or tomorrow... depending on what goes with that therapy I'd mentioned... And there I expect that he's going to be running a lot more tests to see exactly... ...well... what all we can actually do. Ok?" He tried to do a reassuring grin, only I wasn't sure how effective it was... I mean... that didn't sound good. Whateven WAS a...otolarything? ...sounded like some kind of many legged monster... uhm. But...anyway. That was just...I was concerned.

Cricket

So there was something they could do. So they could fix me. So I might be able to hear again. So I wasn't completely hopeless. Aye? Aye. Bright side, aye. Whatever he was talking about with the tests and such, it could make me better, and it had to. I opened my mouth again to say something, but then only nodded.

T.Mor:

Cricket nodded at that, and I was glad to know that just because the guy had wanted to stare at whatever was in Cricket's ears hadn't made him completely hopeless.

"Good. Now...you sit tight here for a few minutes while I go over and look at your friend, alright...?" He asked, and I realised with a bit of a lurch in my stomach that ...well... I was that friend.

He turned his attention towards me and I just kinda ended up looking at my knees. "And how are you doing?" He asked me, pulling out the stethosau---the heart listening thingy again.

"... ...ok..." I mumbled.

"Good... well, I'm going to listen to your heart now too, alright?" He asked, though...really, I didn't have any choice in the matter. I nodded kind of and felt his hand and the cold metal circle under my shirt. ...I had a turtleneck so he couldn't go down the front of my shirt...he had to go up from the bottom... "Nervous?" He asked moving the thing around slightly...and I wondered how he knew that.

"... ...uhm..." I mumbled.

"Your heartbeat is through the roof, is why I ask."

"...oh. ... ...sorry..."

"It's fine, just relax."

...Like that was going to happen...

Cricket

I . . . well, I sat tight. I hoped T.Mor wasn't too terrified. Then, that was a hypocritical hope of mine. Alright, I hoped he was less nervous than I was, because I probably didn't set too good an example. I mostly kept my head down to face the paper.

T.Mor:

He was going to reach around behind me to listen to my breathing but the back of my chair was kind of in the way. "Can you scoot forward a bit in your chair for me?" He asked after a moment.

I tried. ...It wasn't going to happen easily, because I just...there... there wasn't any control...for... for scooting or anything. "...uhm... not really..."

"...Alright, Cricket if you could get off the table for me, It looks like we're just going to have to set you there for a bit to make stuff easier on ourselves, ok?" He was so... calm. Like... you know, as if there was nothing wrong with the fact that...that I was stuck...sitting. Like...this kind of... uhm... shuffling of sitting was perfectly...normal.

Cricket

I slipped off the sacrificial table and took a couple steps away, to give room. It was moments like these that I had to remind myself that I really wasn't off that bad, though, perhaps it'd be better if I was the one worse-off. I could be the one to possibly never walk again, to have the safety pins in my back. Though, how can anyone weigh something like that? Which one is worse. And why? It wasn't as if I could change anything.