Deviation Actions
Literature Text
I sat next to a bed, in a hospital room, which Frank was laying in as he surfed the video feeds. I looked down at my watch again. Only two minutes had passed since the last time and I think my heart rate had spiked a little. I was about to reach for my phone, to let the office know that I was going to be later than I first told them, when the door to the room opened. Dr. Lairs, our M.D.T. assigned doctor, walks into the room. He wasn't looking at us as he came to a stop at the foot of the bed. Once he had completed reading what he wanted, he raised his head and flashed us a smile.
“Good afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Teal,” he greeted us.
“Doctor,” I answered back.
“Dr. Lairs,” Frank said instead.
“So how has your day been going so far?” he asked as he tried to connect with us again. I didn't blame him for trying to make something out of his day and getting to know his patients. But my impatience had soured my mood.
“Ok, I guess,” my husband answered for both of us. “Just anxious about the procedure,” he ended.
“Well I'm here to make sure everything goes smoothly,” Dr. Lairs told us. “Your blood work and hormone levels are great. Your blood pressure and other markers are where we want them to be,” he said as he gestured to the clipboard in his hand. “All that is left is for you to tell me if we are having a boy or a girl,” he said with a smile that I believed to be real.
“A boy,” Frank told him before he looked at me. I returned the smile that he was sporting.
“Then a boy it is,” Dr. Lairs said as he pulled a pen from his jacket and wrote something on the clipboard on three different pages that he swiped across the screen to access. “I'll send the nurse to get you in a minute,” he told Frank. He then looked up at me after he attached the pen to the clipboard. “You can wait here, or downstairs in the movie theater. The whole procedure should be finished in about two hours and you'll be able to take him home then,” he explained. I nodded in response. As I turned to Frank, I saw the doctor turning to leave the room.
“You are not watching Electric Sheep without me,” he said jokingly. I smiled as I leaned in to kiss his nose and then his lips before I felt, more than heard, someone waiting in the room. We both turned and saw a nurse standing at the foot of his bed with a clear glass of aqua blue liquid in their hand.
“Mr. Teal,” he said as he walked to the other side of the bed holding out the glass for Frank to drink. Frank looked at it. “It's peppermint flavored,” he said as a form of encouragement.
“Will this put me to sleep?” Frank asked him.
“No. It's just so we can tell your bladder from your uterus,” he replied.
“Oh,” he said before taking the glass from the nurse to give it a closer look. Not that there was much to look at. “Bottoms up then,” he said before downing it all in one go.
====
I had opted to go to watch a movie instead since I didn't want to just wait for two hours in a stark hospital room. It was more of a VR experience since they couldn't really run a multi-room movie theater in a hospital. The small rooms were nice and you could choose to be fully immersed or to just watch the movie on a five by eight foot screen that was part of a blank wall when it wasn't being used.
I couldn't have watched Electric Sheep even if I wanted. Their video library was only as current as the latest for sale releases. I ended up being drawn to a movie that I watched a lot when I was younger, but hadn't seen in years. Amazingly, the memories it half conjured as I sat there remembering the scenes weren't all bad.
As I rode the elevator to Frank's floor, I looked up to see what time it was. It had been two hours and sixteen minutes since I saw him being wheeled out of the room. The box I was standing in stopped moving, a bell dinged and the doors opened to let me leave. A few minutes later I found the number for his room and walked in to see him having a conversation with Dr. Lairs. I walked to Frank's side and held his hand before I kissed his forehead and looked into his face. He didn't look to be in pain or worst for wear. I then turned to the doctor who I had cut off with my appearance.
===
End Of Entry
===
“Sorry for being late,” I told the both of them while looking at Dr. Lairs.
“It's alright,” the doctor said. “I just got here,” he told me. “So,” he started, showing that he was about to repeat what he just told Frank . “He is on bed rest of the rest of the day. He doesn't actually have to be in bed, but he is to recline or lay down for the rest of the day. Tomorrow he may resume normal activities once they aren't too straining. The embryo hasn't attached itself yet, so we are trying to keep it in the neighborhood of where we placed it,” he explained. “By day three you can do just about everything again,” he ended.
“Just about?” Frank asked.
“Well, heavy uterus bouncing activities are clearly restricted. So no water skiing, jogging, sex, or any other high impact activities until after the pregnancy test,” he tells us.
“Well,” I said before pausing for effect. “We don't ski,” I said as I patted Frank's hand.
“You could have lead with no sex,” Frank told him. “I hate jogging and try to avoid it anyway,” he said.
“Haha,” the doctor laughed. “The pregnancy test is in two weeks,” he ended with a smile. Why did it give him pleasure to tell us we couldn't have sex for two weeks?
Painful Equality - Part 10 “Paul told me not to get you these, but I just had to even if you never wear them,” Kari said as she handed me a box. It was our baby shower, but I still expected most, if not all, of the gifts to be given to Frank. Everyone looked on as I pulled off the ribbon and then the blue and white stripped wrapping paper. I lifted the lid of a box that was about one by two feet to find two tee-shirts folded next to each other that had writing on them. I picked up one and read it out loud.
“I'm not fat, I'm pregnant.” I looked over at Kari.
“That one is for Frank,” she explained. “The other one is yours,” she said with a wide smile still on her face. I handed that one to man sitting next to me and reached for the other tee, half convinced that I already knew what it said.
“I'm not pregnant, I'm fat.” I once again looked in Kari's direction.
Painful Equality - Part 8 Once we were home, things continued as they had before the surgery. The only real difference was that his medications had doubled to now include anti-rejection medication. We both went to work, we both came home tired and on the weekends, when we felt like it, we ate out with or without friends.
What little excitement that crept into our lives came from outside our home. Frank got a promotion, I was almost hit by one of the new anti-gravity trucks that got bumped slightly out of it's lane during our trip through the Hensley building. They had already done tests and deemed it time and safe, to try a delivery among the population. Luckily it made its way back into its lane and only gouged ten feet out of the road.
The check ups are going well. Oh, that reminds me, there was one moment about a week after the surgery when he popped some of his stitches. He was more frantic about the blood than I was. Once we both realized that it was
