I’m pacing around my hospital bed.  There isn’t much else I can do beside watch TV and there is only so much TV I can take in a day.  I’ve been in the hospital with the same routine for almost four days.   Actually, it’s been more like six days.  I was unconscious from my accident when they brought me in and there was some time I was in and out due to the shock. 

I’m a graduate student at the Advanced Particle Physics lab at the state university.  I had gone into the lab off hours to check on an experiment that we were running over several days.  From what they told me there was some sort of explosion in a nearby lab that took out part of the building.  I was found in the debris and brought to the hospital by ambulance.  I was unconscious when they admitted me and did initial tests.  From what the doctors told me my condition started shortly after that. 

The TV is on but muted.  I stop pacing and look up at it for a few moments and it’s some game show on.  I used to like watching shows like Jeopardy to test my knowledge but this is the Price Is Right and I have no idea what a can of soup sells for in California.  I’d like to take a longer walk outside my room and around the unit but that isn’t possible so I resume pacing around the bed.  The doctors have confirmed that my condition has stabilized before I regained consciousness but they are unsure what to do and are unable to run many of the tests that they would like.    I stop walking at the end of the bed and look at a Plexiglas wall in front of me.  The material is clear but the view through it is distorted.  There are similar walls that run around the perimeter of my bed and the nurses tell me it is for safety.

The hospital staff has been nice but not particularly chatty with me.  The nurses come in to check on me regularly and ask if I need anything but that’s about it.  I try to engage them about the weather or the news that I see on TV and they will answer but they seem busy and need to move on.  There is one younger nurse who is on duty at night who is a bit friendlier and will talk for a bit.  Sometimes she’ll sit in my room and we can chat when she isn’t busy.  The doctors are the only ones who will talk to me about my condition.  They come in and ask tons of questions and take notes but other than saying I don’t seem to have any other medical issues and appear healthy they don’t offer much toward solutions and only tell me that I’m medically stable.

I stop and stare at the TV remote in front of me and consider channel surfing to take my mind off of my situation.  I decide it’s too much effort and continue pacing and thinking about what I am going to do.  I can’t stay in the hospital forever but I don’t know what the alternatives are.  At least I’m getting some exercise.   I’m wearing a pair of ill-fitting green scrubs that I nurse brought me a few days back.  I’m not sure what happened to my clothes in the accident or if any of my personal belongings survived or came to the hospital with me.  Maybe my phone would be nice but when I asked the nurse she said she didn’t see it and she didn’t know if it even came with me to the hospital.       

I think back to a few days ago when I woke up for the first rime and was coherent.  A doctor came in and told me about the accident and what had happened since I was admitted.  I only had minor scrapes and no broken bones but I was unresponsive and was admitted.  It was in the first few hours that I was there a nurse noticed changes in my appearance from when I was admitted and thought I had gotten smaller.   The doctors didn’t believe her at first but it wasn’t long before they confirmed the nurse’ observation.  No one could understand what or why this was happening but within a day they had to move me to another bed for my protection.  Actually it wasn’t really a bed but one of those clear plastic bins mounted on a rolling platform that they use for a newborn baby.  They had a folded sheet to line the bottom and placed a small pillow in the center to act as bed for me.  When I regained consciousness the first time, I had already stopped shrinking but the sight of a gigantic nurse over me made me faint.  I took some time for me to be fully awake and coherent about my situation.  In the beginning I was scared out of my wits which is when my doctor came to talk and calmed me down a bit.    

A few hours had pass and the doctor came back to see me.  It’s the same doctor I saw the first time, a pretty Japanese woman probably in her early thirties.  I would probably have thought she was short last week but now she towers over me.  She asked me the same battery of questions and attempted to listen to my vitals with a stethoscope.  I’m not sure if she heard anything or is just going through the motions.  She told me at this point there is nothing else they can do and they are working on releasing me.  “Release me?” I think, “I’m frickin’ four inches tall.  What am I supposed to do?”  She mentions something about an emergency contact and I immediately think of my older sister Angela who is my only immediate family.  She lives across the country and I haven’t talked to her in months.  It’s not that we are on bad terms.  It’s just that I have my work at the university and she has her family to deal with.  The last time I saw her I went on a road trip with my ex-girlfriend, Alexis, for Christmas over a year ago.  After the doctor leaves I resume my pacing with even more to worry about.

The next day a nurse came in and told that they got a hold of my emergency contact through my university employment records and I would be released later today.  She seems very upbeat but I think it is because she will finally be rid of me.  I start thinking about my sister again.  She’s married with two young kids.  Her husband isn’t a bad guy just a bit boring.  Their daughters are eight and five years old and are typical girls of that age but I shudder at the thought of having to live with them at this size.  They would probably view me as a pet or a toy not their uncle.  I will need to set some ground rules with my sister from the get go and I’m sure things will be OK.   Even though we haven’t been close over the past several years, she always had my back when I needed her and I’m sure this wouldn’t be any different.

By the late afternoon, they told me that my emergency contact had arrived and was filling out paperwork for my release.  I thought from the way the nurse phased it that Angela  was there alone which would be better as I would have time to talk to her and plan how we will handle this before we get to her house.  I tried to mentally prepare myself to deal with what I was about to experience.  Little did I know how unprepared I was for what was about to happen next.

As I readied myself for seeing my sister Angela and the shock of her seeing me, I heard voices approaching my room.  My sister had a low quiet voice but that wasn’t what I heard.  Instead it was louder and a bit more nasal.  As they turned the corner and came in the room I saw something I wasn’t ready for.  It wasn’t my sister who was there to take me home but by ex-girlfriend, Alexis.  I almost fainted as I saw her approach my enclosure over 16 times my size with a big smile on her face.

I had met Alexis during my junior year of undergrad.  We were in a class together that was an elective for both of us.  She was also a junior studying Art History and Business Administration.  We hit it off immediately despite our different backgrounds.  I was from the East Coast and she was from L.A.  I was into the sciences and she was into the arts.  She came from money and I was at school on an academic scholarship otherwise I wouldn’t have been there.  She was really good looking and although I’m not so bad myself, it felt like she was always a little out of my league.  She also was a bit pushy which I think came from her rich parents spoiling her.  She always wanted her way but it never really bothered me until we graduated.  As graduation approached, she wanted us to move back to California together and split a place to live.  She thought I could easily get a job at a research facility.  I, on the other hand, was interested in continuing at the university and working on a graduate degree and eventually a PhD.  I already had been accepted in the graduate program here and had an offer to work for one of my professors.  It was probably the first time I really pushed back on her.  She ended up relenting and getting a job as the assistant manager of an art gallery that I knew her parents had a hand in securing for her.  She didn’t want to continuing living on campus and moved to a one bedroom apartment in the city about 40 minutes from the campus.  She then started to insist that I move in with her but I used the excuse that I needed to be near campus as I was just starting in the graduate program and that we could reconsider it in a year. 

Things went downhill from there.  She wanted me to come over every night and go out in the city but the demands of graduate work and my job didn’t give me that kind of free time.  I also had male friends I wanted to see occasionally but she’d be insulted if I chose them over her for a night out.  She got worse and kept calling and texting me all day.  I think she thought I was seeing someone else but mostly it was my work.  After a few months, I’d had enough.  I wanted to concentrate on my studies and my career and I decided to end it with her.  The breakup didn’t go well and I think she was caught off guard by it.  Maybe it was the first time she didn’t end a relationship and it was a shock to her.  She continued to call and message me several times a day to say we could still be friends and I should come over but eventually I cut her off and blocked her calls. 

It was just then I remembered back when we took a trip to visit my sister at Christmas time last year, I told her about how my parents died in an accident after my freshman year and how my sister lived so far away and was my only immediate family.  Alexis suggested that I use her as my emergency contact since she lived so much closer than my sister and I agreed to change it.  I had forgotten all about that and now that decision had come back to haunt me..

Suddenly I snapped back to the present and Alexis is towering over my enclosure smiling down at me.  I looked up at her face and waved saying “Hi.   It’s been a while.” trying to soften the moment.  She smiled down at me and said a bit louder than I would have liked “You are sooo little.  I mean they told me you shrunk but it’s different actually seeing you.”  I want to yell at the nurse to save me from my crazy ex-girlfriend but she has already moved away busying herself with what was needed for my discharge.  “You are sooo frickin’ adorable.” Alexis continued.  “Yeah, I guess so.” I replied hoping to diffuse the situation, “So my sister is supposed to be here but they must have called you by mistake.”  She looked down at me and I saw her hand reach in toward me with shiny rings on her fingers and a French manicure.  “It’s not a mistake.  I’m your emergency contact.  I said I’d be here for you in an emergency and I am.  Come here cutie.”  I tried to back up but there was nowhere to go and fingers enveloped me into her fist raising me out of the enclosure and up to her face.  “We are going to have so much fun together.” She said with a smile that shook me to the core. 

The nurse returned with copies of the paperwork Alexis had signed before she had come in the room, saw me in Alexis’ hand and said “Normally we escort patients out in a wheelchair as they are not allowed to walk out on their own but in this case…”  I tried to yell out to the nurse that this was all a mistake but Alexis tightened her grip and took my breath away.  “Don’t fuss with a wheelchair” Alexis told the nurse, “I have an empty side pocket in my purse that is just his size.”  She unzipped the pocket on her purse that was probably for sunglasses and stuffed me in zippering it shut.  I hear the nurse say “I guess that will work.  All his paperwork in this envelope including the doctor’s contact information if you have questions.”       Unfortunately the nurse who was there was the one that probably cared least about me and was tired of all the special arrangements during my stay.  She rarely would engage me in a conversation and I’m sure she was ready for me to leave.

I felt the bag sway as Alexis walked through the hospital hallways out to the parking lot and to her car.  I thought to myself “How could they let her just walk out of there with me.  I was one of a kind, the only man to ever shrink like this yet they released me to my ex-girlfriend and let her stuff me in her handbag.  I could hear the music play on her car radio and her singing along as she went home with her purse on the floor of the passenger side of the car.  I tried to work the zipper but I didn’t have enough strength to open it.  When she entered her apartment, she set her purse down on a glass coffee table and unzipped the pocket I was in.  “You can come out cutie unless you are too shy.” She said in a sing song voice.  I climbed out and saw her sitting back on her couch watching me.  “Welcome back to my apartment” she said as I stood up and looked around.  I saw the large manila envelope nearby and decided to direct the conversation.  “So what is in the envelope?” 

“Let’s see” she answered me and she reached for the envelope and pulled out a pile of papers and looked at them.  “This one seems to be instructions from your doctor if you are ill or start to shrink again.  Well if you get any smaller I might have to wear you on my charm bracelet.”  She laughed at her own joke.  She turned the pages and looked at the next set.  “This one is an NDA” she continued, “That means I can’t talk to the press or tell anyone about the accident or how you got small.  Seems your employer is more worried about bad press than you.”  She flipped to the next set and said “This one says that I agree to hold them blameless and not to sue over what happened to you.  Seems like they were also worried about their bottom line too.  No wonder they couldn’t wait to turn you over to me.” 

I was a bit incensed that she signed documents giving away by rights.  “You don’t have the right to sign those documents for me.” I told her.  She smiled back and said “Wait, there’s more here.  This one says that as your emergency contact they had me assigned to be your legal guardian and power of attorney because of your incapacitated state.  Wow, I guess that means I practically own you now.  Well maybe not own you but make all the decision for you now on.”  She put the papers back in the envelope and closed it before dropping it onto the coffee table.  The blast of the envelope hitting the table almost knocked me over.  She looked down at me and said, “Well, I guess I CAN sign all these silly papers for you after all.”