My eyes feel heavy, I hear people talking. People's voices but have I ever heard them before? The sound of their voice comes out very muffled to me. Who are they? What are they trying to tell me? I try to speak but all the sound I managed to get out of my mouth is

 “huh?” 

Everything got quiet but I could tell they were still there. I now hear beeping. Where am I? I slowly begin to open my eyes letting them adjust to the light. I see 5 people standing in front of me. 3 people in light blue doctor and nurse uniforms 1 male and 2 females. The others 2 in normal clothing, 1 female, 1 male that seems weirdly happy to see me, but I am more concerned about why I am in the hospital.

“What happened to me?” I ask 

One of the doctors who has long blonde hair in a ponytail speaks up 

“You completed surgery?” She said with a puzzled face as if I should have already known that. I notice now the 2 strangers in normal clothes smile fading. Did I do something wrong? What surgery did I have? I have so many unanswered questions but I choose to remain quiet. But I don't seem to be the only confused one after I looked up at everyone's faces. It hurt to move my neck but I acted like it didn't. It seems I am making everyone's in this room life hard enough right now. The male doctor speaks up 

“Do you not remember having scoliosis?” he says while staring directly at me. 

I remember his voice now. It was one of the muffled voices I heard when I first woke up. I still don't know what he was saying and I don't think I ever will. I move my head to look back at him even though it's painful it seems polite. 

“No,” I said hesitantly

“Hailey this isn't funny,” the woman in normal clothing says with a worried look on her face. I feel my face turn red as all the attention is on me. Hailey? Is that my name? I moved my head down but I can still feel the stares of everyone in the room. Silence filled the room. The male doctor moved his eyes towards the 2 people in regular clothes who now both look like they are on the verge of panicking. 

“Can we speak to you guys outside?” he says in a very serious tone.

The 3 of them start walking towards the door and the 2 nurses follow. I let out a sigh realizing I have been holding my breath. I try to listen in on their conversation but all I hear are bits and pieces. “test” “severe” “memory loss” I also hear crying. 

Suddenly the pain is getting worse. I have been trying to ignore it but it feels like how I imagine getting hit by a truck would feel. One of the nurses walks in with a huge syringe full of a pink liquid. She reaches to give it to me as I lift my hand I notice the IVS that are in me. I count 4 of them in my left arm. What are they there for? I don't know but I trust they are there for a reason. I hold the huge syringe in my hand staring at the pink sticky liquid inside. I can tell by the smell of it that this won't be enjoyable.  3...2...1 I counted down in my head trying to take it fast before I could taste it but it was too late. There was too much of it to not taste it. As soon as it touched my tongue I wanted to puke. 

“Can I have water?” I say without hesitation as I'm on the verge of gaging. 

“Sure I'll go get that for you,” she says while on her way out of the room. 

I hope I never have to take that stuff again. I hear the mumbling from the hallway stopped. Meanwhile, I try to make myself as comfortable as I could be but no matter what position or way I turned I still had pain. I hear the door open and I look up fast hoping it was my water as I still had that ratchet taste in my mouth from the medicine. But as I lifted my head I saw the male doctor and 2 people in normal clothing walking back in. 

“Okay Hailey I have talked to your parents we are gonna do some testing for memory loss if that is okay with you?”

Test for memory loss? Wait, my parents? I lock eyes with them and then look back at the doctor. I shake my head yes. 

He proceeds to sit down next to my hospital bed and ask me a bunch of questions that I realized should be easy to answer but are not. 

“How old are you?” “What are your siblings' names?” and what felt like hundreds of questions later I realize I really don't know the answers to them.

The doctor talks to my “parents” about ordering a blood test and a brain-imaging test to help identify the memory problem or to reverse it. 

“Yes” I instantly heard come out of their mouths not even a second before he asked about it. 

“Alright i'll go order and see how fast we can get that for you”  as he stands up and walks out I see the nurse come back in with the water. 

“Sorry it took so long” she says while handing me it

“It's okay” I say even though the taste in my mouth has been killing me. 

I take drinks of the water trying to water it down. 

“Anything else I can get for you?” I hear her say

“No, I should be good, thank you” I replied. 

She then shows my “parents” how to call the front if we need anything. She also shows me a button that releases medicine after being pressed through one of the 4 IVS. I can press it if the pain gets too bad and then walks out of the room. I feel the same drowsiness from when I first woke up. I close my eyes about to fall asleep until I hear the male doctor come back in to update us on the blood and brain imaging tests. I hear the word “Tomorrow”  but I am too exhausted to listen any further and allow myself to rest. 

I woke up to the machine. I am hooked up to beeping again but this time louder than usual. I see out the window it is actually night time now. How long did I sleep? I see a new nurse I have not seen before walk in to fix the defective beeping machine. The beeping stops but she has to check my vitals before I am allowed to go back to sleep. I lost track of how many times I had woken up in the middle of the night mixed with consistent pain, getting vitals, medicine from a syringe and a broken machine all I know is it was a lot of times. You would think you would be able to get a lot of rest at the hospital but that is not the case. I wake up again but this time the sun is shining bright through the window. The nurse brings in a cart covered with materials to do blood testing. The process went fast cleaning the vein, numbing spray, and pinch from the needle. I count how many vials of blood the nurse fills as she places them down, 7. She then hands me a plate with a piece of toast with grape jelly unevenly spread across it. Apparently my parents ordered it for me while I was asleep. I take bites slowly as I was instructed to do when she handed me it because this is the first time I am eating since waking up from being under anesthesia. I never noticed how I havent had an appetite to eat anything up until now. I tried eating it slowly but as soon as I took a bite my appetite came back and I finished it in 3 bites. She took the plate from me and grabbed the cart that has 7 vials of my blood on it and warns me that they also want me to get up for the first time today at 1 pm. Then she starts walking out the door. It is 12:54 pm. I only have 6 minutes to prepare myself for them to come in. The thought of getting up seemed exciting because of how unmotivating it feels laying in this bed all day is. But it also sounded really painful. I try to think how they will get me up but as I am about to try on my own 2 new doctors I have never seen before walk in with big smiles on their faces. They instruct me to grasp onto the handle of my hospital bed to use to lift myself up. As I proceed to do so they try to guide my legs down on the edge of the bed. I sit there for a minute letting my legs dangle down.

“Wow that actually went very well” One of the doctors says 

I then slip one foot one at a time in these dark pink slippers that were placed by my bed that I am assuming were brought by my parents. I also slip on a matching robe that they handed to me. The doctors then went on each side of me to help  lift me up to a standing position. They move over my machine so that my IVS are hooked up too and let me put my weight on it to help balance. As I stand I feel weighted down like I could fall through the floor on the level below me at any moment.  With each small step I took the more gravity I felt.  They lead me to walk out into the hospital hallway the whole time I have a tight grip against the machine dragging it along my side. After 24 small steps I make it past the door and go to the right to do a lap in the hallway. But after making it half way I decided to turn around because with each step it was also getting more painful and I had to walk back to my room. I made it back in my room. I sit back on the edge of the bed. The same spot I sat when I was getting up and slowly let myself lay back down. I was given more medicine from the syringe this time it didn't taste as bad as the last medicine and then they took my vitals. I now have time to rest until 5 Pm because I have to start doing physical therapy. I decided it would be best to use this time to sleep since I didn't get much last night with all the interruptions. I wake up again expecting it to be my physical therapist but as I open my eyes I see the same male doctor from yesterday walk in about the results of my blood test. It is 4:27 PM so I decide I might as well wake up and listen in considering I will be waking up at 5:00 anyways. 

“Hailey is diagnosed with Amnesia” he says as we all stare at him blankly. He continued on but all I am able to focus on are my parents' reactions. The fear in their eyes as the realization hits that I wasnt faking this and actually have a diagnosis. 

“Is there any way it could just come back to her?” my dad asks. 

“There is definitely a way for it to come back to her, you just have to be patient” the doctor replies.

The tension after those words leave his mouth lifts. I can see the relief on my parents' faces. I jump after being caught off guard from a knock on the door. How is it already 5? I see my physical therapists walk in. There are 2 of them who came in with a friendly smile on their face. As they came in the male doctor was giving some last minute information that I wasn't paying attention too and walked out. The two physical therapists did not wait for anybody as they were already preparing to help me get out of bed. I did the same thing I did when I first got up grasping my hands tight on the handle on my hospital bed. As I slowly lifted myself up they guided my legs to dangle off the edge. They help support me by walking me to this green chair that I have never gotten to sit in before. As they sat me down slowly I noticed this chair had much more support for me on my back then laying in the bed did. They told me 3 arm exercises I should start doing on both my left and right arm, each one I had to do 10 times. Then they also had me get up again into the hallway. I actually made it the whole way this time even though each step I still felt heavy. When I got back into my room they allowed me to lay back down and what felt like 7 hours later but really was only an hour later they left. The rest of the days in the hospital repeated these sleepless nights, getting vitals checked , medicine from a syringe, physical therapy, getting blood taken, slowly getting my IVS out, and memory check ups. On the 4th day I had gotten all my IVS taken out leaving 4 band aids on my arm and I had passed physical therapy. I got released from the hospital leaving in a wheelchair that they had given us. The doctor said it would be best to let myself regain my memory by being home. As my parents lead the wheelchair up into a black truck they lay the seat down in an attempt to not make this car ride home as miserable. They slowly lifted me up into the car just how they saw the doctors or nurses do it when I was in the hospital. I lay down in the car and try my best to fall asleep as an attempt to not make it miserable for myself either. But you would never notice how many bumps there are in the road until you are trying to avoid them. I tried to count how many we hit but I lost track after 16. About 45 minutes had passed and we pulled into the driveway of your average house. It's a beige color 3 stories including a basement and 2 garages. As I slowly get myself out of the car with support from my dad I take a step onto the porch and wait for someone to unlock the door. As I walk in I see an old family picture hanging up on the wall, all of us laughing. 

“I remember”.