College or Cribs

Chapter 19
Hospital

Chapter Description: Reality has switched back again, and Chris is in an even more difficult situation.

Chapter 19: Hospital

Chris was startled back into consciousness by the crisp rapping on wood of a knock on the door. His eyes snapped open with a start, just in time to be burned by the flick of a light switch. The muscles in his corneas ached and retracted as the fluorescent lights buzzed on without warning. Chri’ss face became a raisin as it crumpled up almost involuntarily. He tried to shield his eyes with his hand, but he had forgotten that his arms and legs were restrained. He received barely a quarter inch of movement followed by a sudden halt for his troubles.

“Good morning, Chris,” an unfamiliar voice with a dark timbre sang as his eyelids refused to open. “How are we feeling today?” It was a woman’s voice, that much was obvious; but nothing else really stuck out. He was obviously in a hospital of some sort, but Chris had so many questions in his head: How did he get here? Why was he strapped down to the bed? Where was his family? Why was he still wearing a diaper? How long had he been like this?

How was he feeling? Pretty damned confused to say the least. He was confused enough that he didn’t think to answer the woman’s question. When his eyes had stopped aching from the rather sudden exposure to light, with no warning he might add, Chris opened his eyes once more. The woman who had walked in, who had said good morning to him, had been a nurse.

She was a black woman, in her 30’s or 40’s by the look of her. She kept her hair up in a bun and wore pink scrubs. She wasn’t skinny, but Chris wouldn’t say overweight either, and if she was, she carried it well. “Pleasantly Plump” might be the best word for it, but Chris had never found someone who actually found that phrase flattering. Chris’s eyes darted around the room where they came to rest upon a whiteboard on the wall facing him. It said “Your Nurse for Today is:” and the name “Gloria” was written on it in red dry erase marker. Above it was a digital clock that read 6:13.

“Well, I bet you would like to get out of that wet incontinence brief, wouldn’t you?” the nurse, Gloria, said. Chris looked down, and saw the rather obvious bulge of a diaper around his waist. It was apparent even under the hospital gown that Chris had awoken in. He averted his eyes, and blushing, nodded his head. He looked up to her and saw that she wasn’t even looking at him. She was busying herself with putting some latex gloves on. It was only then that she turned around to face the young man strapped to the bed.

“Oh, almost forgot,” Gloria corrected herself before turning and speed-walking out the door, her shoes squeaking with each step. Two seconds later, she walked back through the door holding something. It was square cut, and double folded with a line going down the center. It was purple with a light plastic sheen. A diaper, Chris recognized, an adult diaper specifically, or rather an incontinence brief, the politically correct medical term.

Chris’s breathing hastened. This stranger was going to change him?! He had been changed by a stranger, Barbara, just yesterday, but then he had been a baby, at least. Now he was back from being Chris the baby to Christopher Cole IV, pre-med student. His modesty was viciously reasserting itself.

The nurse flung the top of his hospital gown back onto his stomach, revealing the adult diaper, its wetness indicator faded after a long night of use. There were no amusing decorations adorning the landing panel of the diaper, only a pinkish purplish hue, and six little tapes secured the absorbent undergarment to his body instead of the two big ones that he had become accustomed too.

Chris’s eyes widened in horror as Gloria’s hands reached to undo the first tape of the diaper. He felt almost as weary of this as when Sammy had been trying to change his diaper, yesterday; though he could do even less about it than before with his hands securely fastened to the bed. At least this was a medical professional instead of a pre-teen. Truth be told though, really the main reason most people in the hospital don’t mind when a nurse or doctor sees them naked is they are too tired or hurt to care. Chris was neither and this was getting awkward, fast.

“Umm…” Chris blurted out, “is this really necessary?” The nurse froze, looking at Chris as if it were for the first time.

“You talked,” she said. The way she said it made Chris realize that she hadn’t expected him to; perhaps hadn’t expected him to be able to.

“Yes ma’am,” Chris nodded. There was silence as Chris and the nurse just stared at each other.

“Do you know your name?” Gloria asked after much too long.

“Christopher Cole, the fourth.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“Um…a hospital?”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three.”

The nurse looked absolutely flabbergasted. Apparently holding up three fingers and asking Chris to count had been her trump card.

“Um…Gloria,” Chris started to say,

“How did you know my name?” Gloria cut him off, seeming amazed.

“Uh….I read the whiteboard…?” Chris motioned with his head. Gloria seemed on edge but nodded. Apparently she was having a stranger morning than Chris was, or so she thought anyways. She continued to nod to herself and her lips pouted while she considered. Chris felt his bladder ache as the fog cleared from his head. He had wet in the night, but the tank was refilled now.

“So,” Chris said breaking the silence, “can I please go to the bathroom?”

“You need to go?” Gloria asked. Another stupid question. Chris did his best not to roll his eyes. What wasn’t he communicating properly? Chris just nodded his head quickly, trying to convey urgency.

“I’ll have to check with the doctor,” Gloria said before standing up, “can you hold it?” Chris wasn’t happy, but yes, yes he could. He told her as such and the nurse shuffled out of the room, taking the adult diaper with her. Chris grumbled to himself. As far as he could remember, as of yesterday it was no big deal if he pooped his pants, and today he needed a doctor’s note to take a whiz.

Chris looked over to the corner, where the plush pleather chair for visitors was located. Wubby, his teddy bear, was propped up on it, holding a card that had “Feel Better Soon” scrawled on it in crayon. Chris remembered the last thing he had said, late last night to the bear, while he had lain in his comfy crib. ‘I’ve overcome the last hurdle you threw at me. What else you got?’

“Me and my big mouth.” Chris growled. It seems that just when he had about given up, Wubby plunged him into some fantasy reality where he was some overgrown infant, and just when he was getting comfortable there, Wubby dragged him out where he would find himself in some God awful situation.

Chris was beginning to doubt his own theory that he had the power and that Wubby was just a manifestation of his will. A world where infantilism didn’t exist….maybe….just maybe. But even in his most self-loathing state, Chris would never will himself into this mess; not even subconsciously.

The minutes dragged and stretched on. This was made worse by the fact that he really had to pee and there was nothing to occupy his attention other than his aching bladder and wall mounted clock. The nurse could have at least turned on a T.V. or something before she left. It’s not like he could hit the call button either, his hands bound as they were.

Chris began to assess the situation. Clearly he was in a hospital, in a diaper and tied to the bed. They only did that to patients who were a serious risk to others and to themselves. He glanced at the IV still in his wrist. Maybe however he got here, the doctors were concerned that he’d try to remove it. But why the diaper? Catheters were more efficient overall and less likely in the short term to cause or spread infection.

Undressing himself so he could look himself over was out of the question at the moment, but some form of emergency surgery seemed unlikely. Nothing hurt. Period. At least not the kind of pain you’d associate with going under the knife. He wriggled his nose and detected no intruders, so no feeding tube; that likely meant that he had been responsive and conscious enough to give food.

Chris was tempted to just relax his bladder and soak the already used diaper, but some part of him didn’t want to. He feared that he’d be looked down upon for having an “accident”. He wouldn’t be some small child to these people, but incompetent and somehow lesser if he did so. No, he wanted out of this place as soon as possible and the fastest route home likely started with being able to hold his piss in.

Just as Chris was having second thoughts about the whole to pee or not to pee thing, Gloria the nurse walked back in, a man in a white lab coat, presumably a doctor. Chris couldn’t get a good look at the doctor as he was almost literally on the nurse’s heals and her head or her shoulder, or a clipboard or a shadow kept obstructing view of his face as he entered. Chris couldn’t see the face, but he did see the doctor’s pants.

His pants were a familiar black with purple pin stripes, clashing entirely with the black and white wingtip shoes. “Well, Nurse Gloria,” a hauntingly familiar if muddled British accent crashed into Chris’s ear drums, “what seems to be going on here?” Chris was no longer believing in coincidences. There couldn’t possibly be someone who dressed that ridiculously other than the old man at the mall. What had his name been again? He had been magic, Chris remembered that much. He was some kind of a-

“Wizard!” Chris yelped.

“I beg your pardon?” the doctor asked, stepping forward in front of the nurse. Chris was wrong. Dead wrong. Apparently there were at least two people who shopped at the same absurd clothing store. The man standing before him was at least half a foot shorter than the gangly old carnie out at the mall, clean shaven, and more importantly, Indian.

“I said I have to whiz…hard.” Chris bit his lip.

“Ah, well, I can sympathize,” the doctor said, looking Chris in the eye before going back to whatever chart he had been eyeballing. “But can you hold it for a few minutes while I ask you some questions?” Chris groaned inwardly. He really did have to pee, now that he was thinking about it. But right now, he felt he was in no position to make demands.

“Shoot,” Chris said after a long sigh.

“Do you know what day it is?”

Chris did some math in his head. Assuming, time was moving normally for him regardless if people thought he was a baby or not…hmm…He came home from college Friday night, woke up as a giant baby that Saturday, was completely normal on Sunday, and had Sherry walk in on him in the adult diaper (much to his chagrin) that Monday morning. He had been a baby again all day Tuesday, and the little “playdate” with Angela was yesterday- Wednedsday- so by default, that would make today –

“Thursday?”

“Very good,” the doctor nodded. “And are you aware of how long you’ve been here?”

“Since Tuesday?”

“Correct,” the doctor confirmed. “Now, do you know why you are here?”. Chris caught site of Wubby, sitting in the guest chair. The doctor and nurse were half blocking his view so that he could only see half of Wubby. Wubby’s blue eye glittered in the sunlight.

Images flashed in Chris’s head. Before the transformation had happened, he had been in his room, alone, looking desperately for any evidence that his fetish existed. There had been none. Zero. Not even a trace. Even the so called “sexologists” and researchers that identified it as autonepiophilia, or paraphilic infantilism, didn’t seem to exist anymore, or at least their research didn’t. Chris had felt at an all-time low; just like he had felt before he had realized that there were others, that here were people like him. He had taken all of this in in silence and something in him had just…snapped.

“Oh….yeah…” Chris whispered.

“I beg your pardon?” the doctor asked.

“I had a…” Chris gulped, his mouth suddenly becoming dry and scratchy. “I had a nervous breakdown.” This wasn’t a question. It was fact. He had been wailing and bawling his eyes out. He had chucked his computer chair across his own wall and probably and had been howling like a maniac. If Roxanne hadn’t burst in the room in a panic, it may have escalated. He wasn’t in “fight or flight” mode so much as he was in “destroy everything else or destroy self” mode. When at the height of his mania, time had frozen and the infantile reality had reasserted itself. And just as how his family seemed to know nothing of his time as a big baby, and believed he had been doing the sorts of things he would normally do as a young adult, his family was equally unaware when he was treated as a baby that he was ever anything but.

So when time froze in the midst of his panic attack, a nervous breakdown over a piece of his life disappearing had been downgraded to a wet bed and a leaky diaper. Even with all the strangeness, the time as a baby had been somewhat cathartic at the very least; therapeutic even. But just as life went on without him when he was a baby, and vice versa, he supposed his family could not have ignored the giant tantrum he had been throwing right before.

The terrible to mediocre Adam Sandler movie with the magic remote control came to mind. While Sandler had been “fast forwarding” through life, his body was left on auto-pilot. The same principle clearly applied here. While Chris had been in “baby mode”, his adult-self had gone on doing the same things he had done right before the switch. This wasn’t so bad before the first change, since all he had been planning on doing was waking up, whiling away a few hours and then going on a date with Sherry; and apparently that’s what everyone had remembered him doing. But right before the second change he was in the middle of losing his mind…and apparently that’s what everyone had remembered too, now that he was an adult again.

The thought that he had perhaps really had been going crazy, and just couldn’t settle in his mind. The last two days had been too vivid, too coherent, too real to just be his imagination.

Why the transitions though? Why onto one high followed by a new low? What was the connec-

“Are you alright, Mr. Cole?” the doctor broke Chris from his own reverie. Oh yeah, people noticed when he was quiet now and expected him to talk. How quickly he had almost forgotten.

“I’m fine, Doctor…?”

“Gupta,” the Doctor finished.

“Doctor Gupta,” Chris pleaded, “may we please continue this conversation, after I’ve used the bathroom?”

“Yes, yes,” Dr. Gupta nodded, “that’s fine. You do seem quite cognizant right now.” He turned to Gloria. “Nurse, if you’d please unfasten Mr. Cole and give him some things to clean up with.”

The nurse walked to Chris’s bedside, and undid the restraints. “There are some wet wipes by the toilet,” she instructed, “once you’ve cleaned up, just leave the brief on the floor, and I’ll get it on my way out.”

Chris nodded briefly as he ran sat up and shuffled, toward the bathroom.

“Careful!” Doctor Gupta cried in alarm. “Don’t forget your I.V. bag!”

So, Chris was denied complete privacy due to a bag on a pole connected to his wrist. The bathroom was too small for him to maneuver with the pole holding the I.V. bag, so he had to settle for the door open only a crack. He unceremoniously ripped off the tabs holding the brief together and was pissing into the toilet bowl before the brief managed to land on the floor with a sodden plop. Oh, there was something quite gratifying about holding your bladder and then emptying it somewhere other than your pants. He looked down at himself, and realized that his pubes had been shaved. The stubble was just beginning to grow back.

Once the stream stopped, Chris grabbed a couple of adult incontinence wipes and cleaned himself up. Wiping himself lacked the intimacy and feeling of vulnerability that having someone else do it gave him. Still, he at least kept something of his dignity.

When he was ready, he took a deep breath and then trudged back in the hospital room proper, Doctor Gupta and Nurse Gloria still waiting for him. He sat down in the bed, positioning his hospital gown so that everything would be covered down there.

“So…” Chris began, letting the word hang in the open air.

“So…” Dr. Gupta returned.

“Psych ward?”

“Correct.”

“What happened?”

The doctor took a deep breath and then exhaled. “You were brought here when your family dialed 911. You were incoherent and flailing on the floor. You did not respond to speech. The paramedics had to sedate you to keep you calm. You’ve more or less been in what is termed a fugue state since this morning.”

Chris nodded. That was about where he had left off before his trip into baby land. “The restraints?”

“When you were admitted, you resisted any and all attempts to draw blood, or insert a needle into your skin. We thought it might be an allergic reaction, or drugs. That and you were thrashing about unless you were chemically or physically restrained. We didn’t know what was in your system, so we opted for physical restraints, at least at first. Though we did give you more sedatives so that you wouldn’t thrash too hard.”

“The diaper?” Chris asked. “Why not just a catheter?”

“You began defecating on yourself,” the doctor replied curtly. An awkward pause followed.

“Feeding tube?”

“Not necessary, actually,” Doctor Gupta explained. “You took solid foods quite well, provided they were spoon fed in small pieces to you.” Chris shuddered at that mental image. That had to have been awkward. A nurse feeding him as a vegetable conjured a much different mental picture than a mommy feeding a him as a baby. Now came the hard questions.

“You know my dad?” Chris looked down in shame.

“I do,” Doctor Gupta confirmed. “He’s the head of the Emergency Room, though we don’t cross paths overly much.”

“Does he know about this?”

“About you being awake and responsive? Not yet.” Doctor Gupta told Chris. “But he is off today, and I promised to call your family if anything changed. The fact that we’re having this conversation is most definitely a change.” Before Chris could ask his next question, Doctor Gupta answered it for him. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they were here within the hour.”

“Good,” Chris said in resignation. That’d give him just enough time to think up some excuse.