Iphegeneia

Author: HyperHenry
@: hyperhenry@get2net.dk
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimers: All Tolkien's! Cheers, mate! :-) Malou and her friends of this world are mine, though.

Summary: A kidney donor is magically thrown into spand and time – and dimension – and ends up at the enchanted eternal Land of the Elves. This isn't as pleasant as it sounds – especially when IV, tubes, drainage bag etc. are yanked out of you. Fortunately Frodo comes to the rescue. Or unfortunately?

Author's note: The description of the whole donating a kidney-thing is pretty precise. Yours truly has undergone the procedure herself. Please, note, however, that it is not a detailed narration of my own experience. For one thing, I never got a post-op depression. Nor did I, at any time, regret my decision. My protagonist is more disposed for depressions and self-pity than I ever was. I added this in the interest of drama.
Some of you may have a different experience in terms of organ transplants than I dod ifd if this is so, suffice it to say that I'm sure that the procedure varies from country to country. Since I am Danish, naturally everything revolving round the kidney case is according to Danish procedure.
One last thing: Malou is heavily suffering from the operation, both mentally and physically. This happens to some, but amazingly few, taking the statistics into consideration. My gory description should NOT discourage anyone from embarking the beautiful experience of donating a kidney to one of your love ones if need be.

Acknowledgements: This one's for you, bro!
______________________________________________________________________


Iphegeneia

She never expected her to regret her decision that much so many times. She never expected herself to damn her brother so profoundly and the world in general along with him. She never expected to turn back time so much and for so long. Yet she had done exactly that. Several times. And felt so imminently bad about it every time afterwards. Of course, on the outside she had appeared every bit as altruistic and heroic as her surroundings chose to see her. Apart from the occasional snarling and cursing at the hospital staff, she was the perfect image of self-sacrifice and angelic intent. Friends would look at her with glorifying pity, family would thank her constantly and the hospital staff would smile happily at her. All for the role of Iphegeneia. She sometimes felt a sour taste in her mouth. And it wasn't due to the IV they had attached her to.

Three days after the operation. Three days since they had slashed her open, ripped out the organ her brother so badly needed and stitched her together again. Three days with pain, drain, headaches, weakness, depression and regret. Three days too many with the nauseating smell of disinfectants, medication and sterilised items. They didn't know. And they were not supposed to know. She didn't want them to know.
For perhaps the umpteenth time she slowly rose her head, shook it gently and chased away the dark thought rummaging in there. She knew what she needed. Gingerly turning her head and almost not flinching as the movement stirred otherwise immobile muscle tone into painful thes hes she finally managed to look at the still form in the bed beside her.

Her brother.
For whom she underwent all this.

Marie Louise Clemens, 'Malou' to her family and most of her friends, forced herself to smile and then chastised herself. She had known damn well what she was agreeing to the second she had offered him a kidney to replace his own two malfunctioning organs. She reminded herself that she was recovering from one of the most beautiful gifts one could bestow on another person. The smile was forced broader. The operation had been a success. Her brother's new kidney was responding well and his system was recipient. Once in a while the machine he was hooked up to would emit strange, ominous sounds and the white impersonal room would be filled with busy nurses and doctors pulling out various pointy and stumpy tools, their favourite being a huge scanning console. But not often. Every time it happened it caused Malou's heart to leap to her throat and remtherthere for quite some time like a painful, nagging abcess about to burst. She herself had been disconnected from her tor tor the next day already as her body was stabilising quickly, being the healthy and strong person she was. After all, she was the donor. All this was much harder on her brother.
His health had already started deteriorating ten years ago when the physicians had diagnosed him with high blood pressure. By then it had already been too late. His body had been subjected to the high blood pressure his entire life and the damage had been done: scar tissue clusters in both kidneys. Kidneys just don't take to high blood pressure. The delicate tissue starts to rupture, the metabolism mends the damage as soon as possible and thereby generates scar tissue. Ten years with being constantly tired; ten years with hope that the scar tissue would not multiply. But of course it did. It always does. Then sudden kidney failure. Rushed into dialysis. Energy restored. At first.
At first.
Then.
Fatigue started creeping in on him again.
And Hope was eaten away, bit by bit.
……………………
Hope restored. By his sister. But at a price. His already weakened body had to go through endless examinations, tests and ultimately an strength draining operation.
She hoped to God that kidney would last him the next 30 years so that he wouldn't have to go through it again with a necro kidney.
Suddenly she felt relaxed and happy. Her self pity vanished as quickly as it had occurred and her martyrdom faltered to a negligible size.

She had been warned about these lapses into depression and regret that goes with being cut open and having one's intestines moved aside. The surgents had visited them both in the ward the day before they went under the knife. Predictably, she had been highly annoyed as the surgent's warning had stirred a newborn anxiety in her brother. Was she sure now? She could still change her mind. He wouldn't think less of her if she did.
How many times had they gone through this already? She had been enough worried about the upcoming operation and felt she had very little energy to fight other people's worries as well. Besides. She had signed the papers, hadn't she?
So she had mustered all her willpower, channelled some hatred towards the surgents and acidly replied that it was her bloody decision, and that she knew damn well what was ahead of her.
But of course, she hadn't. She didn't. Not one bit.
Who could have foreseen the terrible mixed feeling of heart searing fear and abyss-like sadness that had rushed through her entire being the second she had woken up and come to after the operation? The unspeakable sense of having lost a part of herself, the horrifying surges of stinging pain and the sickening sound of blood and fluid running through her drainage tube?
She had vomited right there and then….
… and felt oh-so-sorry for herself while insufferable pain had rippled through her severed solar plexus muscles.
A feeling that was swiftly vanishing the minute her brother, pale and limp and with his dark damp curls spread out like Death's angel's wings on the pillow, was wheeled into the ward to join her. The boundless fear for his life and well-being that took over her mind and body then completely did away with any other feeling she had experienced.

This is how she knew how to chase away her lesser feelings, the emotions she dreaded would return, the emotions that she felt ashamed about. Every time she felt herself going down the ugly martyr-regret road, she would turn her head towards her suffering and fighting brother and feel pity and concern towards him instead of herself. It worked every time.
In so many ways, this feeling was much harder on her and weakening her much more than the feeling of self-pity, yet the latter disgusted her so much that she far preferred worrying about him than about herself.
Her friend, Helena, would have scolded her. She was an over-eager psychologist who would insist that Malou's concern for herself was natural and should not be denied. That may well be, the donor thought, after all, her friend was a very good psychologist. But she chose not to savour that feeling.
And she had always been known for her obstinacy and to follow her own path.
After all… it was a question of choices.

*Thinking of the devil*, she idly pondered, when Helena's blonde platinum-dyed head suddenly peered around the door frame.
"Oh, good, you're awake. How's he?" she quickly motioned towards the sleeping sibling. Her tall gangly body swayed on high heels as she moved towards her friend. Helena could always be relied on to be herself: loud, vivid, compassionate, teasing, colourful and vain and somewhat overwrought. Malou smiled fondly at her.
"Doing better, the docs say. He had a spell yesterday, but he got out of it faster than the other times."
"Good," Helena nodded, satisfied, her voice indicating that now her next and foremost concern would be Malou. Malou secretly and inwardly sighed. Helena's concern about her was heart rendering and touching – and sometimes highly annoying. The square-faced girl with the long elegant nose and the huge grey eyes had a tendency to go overboard from time to time.
However, this time, the friend truly had a treat for her.
"Guess what," she whispered conspiratorially, "I talked the nurses into taking you out in a wheelchair."
The donor cocked an eyebrow. "That's been done before," she started but was stopped by an eager Helena.
"I mean 'out' as in out!" she said excitedly.
"Out?"
"Out."
"Out out?"
"Out out." finafinally dawned on Malou. Her friend wanted to take her for a stroll outside in the fresh air. Unlike her brother, who was not allowed to leave the ward due to the immune suppressing medication, Prednisolon, that he was on, she could actually leave the sterile room.
Her brow furrowed.
"Cool… errr – any particular reason?" she eyed her old friend with suspicion. She knew her like the back of her hand. Helena was up to something.
"Yeah…," the girl insisted, "fresh air."

Well, she couldn't much argue with that. Fresh air would definitely be preferable to the stale hospital air that she had grown dislike very, very quickly.
It took a while to arrange the IV, the drainage bag, the epidural, the oxygen tube and the hospital robe to go with the wheelchair, but at least the catheter had been removed the same morning, and with the help of a short giggling nurse with a cornucopia of charming freckles they finally managed to get on their way.

They chatted amiably through the long, sterile-looking corridors with the white walls and grey linoleum floor, down the lift and through more long corridors, and it wasn't until they had actually passed the sliding doors that Malou, in a flash, suddenly understood the purpose of getting out. As soon as she was turned round the corner, something black and incredibly energetic attacked her ferociously, jumping into her lap without preamble and licking her face with a long, pink, wet tongue.
"Sif!" the donor gasped through the licks. Helena had brought Malou's flatcoated retriever.
A surge of pure happiness to the extent of pain rippled through her and gave her strength to disregard the pains the dog gave her by burying her paws in sore places.

And so it came tumbling down on her. Helena, the bitch, knew what she was doing. Malou wept stormingly and vented the frustration, fear and antagonism she had so pent up during the last three days. She was still weeping with a vengeance when Helena discreetly went back to the hospital to buy both of them something to drink.

Later, when the tears and the wet doggie kisses had stilled, Helena wheeled her friend into the somewhat damp garden of Rigshospitalet of Copenhagen, Denmark. The hospital was free of charge for the people who lived in Denmark, its costs being covered by the extensive taxes the Danish citizens had to pay. Perhaps this was why the hospital was called 'Riget' (The Realm) by the Danes – or was it because it reigned in monopoly, unhindered by free market powers? Best not to ponder about that. After all, it bestowed life to people who were in dire need of an organ. For free.

Sif ran happily along next to the creaky transport. Once in a while she would perform a monster leap and land in the sore lap of her thrilled master who would stroke her long, silky soft fur in gratitude.
"Helena, I can't thank you enough…" she started silently. Her remark earned her an affectionate pat on the top of her heavily haired head. She had forgotten to get a decent haircut before they had been hospitalised, and as the hair had already been on the verge of reaching below her shoulders, it was no surprise that it now grew wildly round her head, not unlike a bear's fur.
"Funny, how your hair seems to have grown several inches in a matter of eight days," Helena murmured while she was purring up the thick mat. Malou tried to avoid her ministrations.
"Not unusual, I am told," she commented. "I guess it must be all that shit they fill you with that does it." She looked askance to watch her friend's hair. Helena's strands had always been thin and hay-ish, the average characteristics of pale, Scandinavian hair. However, it had become even more hay-ish since her friend had started bleaching it. She sighed ruefully. So interesting how blonde seemed to be the preferred hair colour almost wherever you went on the face of the Earth. As of now, her friend's fair locks stood in stark contrast to the dark sky that was gathering in the horizon. Malou creased her forehead. Why, that was sudden. She could almost follow the path of the razor sharp edge of the sky as it travelled in warp speed across the formerly cobalt blue sky, greedily eating up the delicious colour as it swept closer and closer. She suddenly shivered.

"Yes, the wind is picking up," Helena said in concern, "here, take my jacket. I will fetch another at the hospital."
Before Malou had had a chance to protest the lively woman had turned and was already walking/jogging back to the hospital block, leaving Sif tied to the wheelchair. Malou gathered the jacket around her. It was cold. Typical Denmark. It had been sunny and warm just a few minutes earlier, yet now it looked as if a storm could hit them any time.

Little did she know how true her words were. Before Helena ever made it back, the storm hit the lone figure in the wheelchair with all Nature's force. Sif howled in confusion and despair as the winds appeared to work very hard on throwing them to the ground. Despite her Danish expletives and outstretched hands, Malou's IV dangled and swayed and finally made it to the ground. The drainage tube was nearly ripped out which should have been evident to anyone from the patient's angry cry of agony. She looked up. What the hell was happening? The weather of Denmark was unpredictable at best, but this was ludicrous.
As the storm grew worse and more disconcerting, Malou took a decision. All her medical bits and pieces were being yanked out. This was intolerable. She would have to make her own way back to the hospital and let them insert all the tubes again.
But how…?

Loosening the lead of her dog, who was still howling like a mad beast, gripping the IV, the epidural, the oxygen and the drain with determination, the donor got up from the wheelchair that immediately went its own way straight across the lawn now that it was freed from its burden. She stood swaying somewhat, but otherwise managed to stay on her feet while her dog rushed forward. Twenty metres ahead the retriever stopped, turned and watched its master impatiently and anxiously. It wanted to get out of the storm, preferably right away, but it could not leave without its owner. Sif whined pitifully.

"Yeah, yeah," the owner mumbled, irritated. She gritted her teeth and started walking on unsteady legs that felt paralysed after the operation, bracing herself against the pain. Visibility was already zilch, though she did recognise the dark, agile shape of her faithful dog running back to her. Rain was coming down now, hard on her exposed skin. Her vision started to swim. Oh, no. No fainting, please. She had never fainted in her life, and she wasn't about to start now…
And then she fell over.

*

It took her a while to realise to she hadn't actually fainted. It took her even longer to realise that she was no longer in the garden of the hospital. But it took her only a nano second to react to the excruciating pain that waved through her body. She hissed soundlessly, having no lung capacity left to emit anything else but hot air.
A warm tongue swept over her strained face and sily coat caressed her naked shoulder softly. Sif was there. The dog's affections helped her concentrate and control her rising panic sensation. What the hell had happened? What was this pain about? The storm. There had been a storm. She huffed and blinked away angry tears and try to take in her condition and surroundings.
Well, the storm had obviously stopped as quickly as it had formed. However, instead of the flat lawn she had been wheeled around in, there were tall trees, stretching hungrily towards a brilliantly blue sky to suckle any possible sun beam, a soft and slightly damp forest ground covered with various herbs, bushes and baby trees. She huffed again, small, hasty gulps as if she had been holding her breath. Her lungs were working overtime, a sign that her brain needed more oxygen than the air around her could provide. Her extremeties felt very cold, a sign that the capillaries were retracting. She knew enough about first aid to recognise the signs: she was going into shock.
*Shit! Not good. Not good!*

She would have to keep a cool head, assess the damage and see if she could recover somewhat from whatever had hit her. She tried to look down her body, but the pain from her solar plexus was intolerable. Instead she forced her shaking hands to roam her body. She knew it well enough. She had done this often the last three days whenever she felt uncomfortable and scared that something was amiss.
Drainage bag – check. The pouch lay beside her, still filled with excess blood and fluid from the wound. IV – nope. The slim tube was still in her hand, but the bag and its holder had been disconnected. Gritting her teeth her right hand reached over and yanked the now useless needle out of the back of her bony hand. She pressed her fingers into the tiny needle hole to stop the trickle of blood that immediately started to run down her hand. Epidural – nope. Like the IV, the tube was t, bu, but the little box that was set up to pump Morphine and a local anaesthetic into her on regular basis was gone. That explained the breath taking pain. Now…. the wound. Her hand eerily stopped shaking as she felt her way to the large wound across her belly right beneath her ribcage. Her fingers carefully probed the area and factually determined that the bandage was loose, but the stitches were good. Nor was the area swollen, so she might count out internal bleeding. For now.

So – it was 'only' the pain.
Good. She could handle the pain.

Another pang rippled through her pale body in mockery of her brave inward statement, and she half expected herself to whimper pitifully.
But she didn't.
Her immense surprise managed to still her agony for a second.
At the hospital this was when she would normally start feeling sorry for herself. Why wasn't she now? And the answer hit her like a bucket of ice water as quickly as the question had appeared in her mind: her subconsciousness knew that she was no longer at the hospital, Toto – but somewhere far, far away where no nurses or doctors could come to her rescue.
It hardened her. The self-pity had disappeared.
The panic, however, had not. *Shit! Shit! Shit!*

She craned her head, moaned with exertion and scanned the area. She was surrounded by trees, but on her left there appeared to be a ditch and a peep hole between some giant roots that were decoratively bent in each opposite direction as to form a hole just for her convenience. Quite close.
Status. She checked her own pulse. It was quick, but stable. Good. She blinked repeatedly. No visionary disturbance. Good. She reminded herself of the pain. Still there, but the panic surge appeared to have reduced it to a tolerable level.
Now, if she could only get to that ditch?

Half crawling, half stumbling, she succeeded in reaching her destination. It had been a matter of ten metres, but she was huffing and puffing like an obese woman who was moving outside her house for the first time in her life. *How ridiculous*, she thought in disgust. Had all the hours of pre-op physical exercises really been for nothing? Well, they had warned her about that as well. Putting on the kettle would make her pant, they had said. However, they had said nothing about crawling the short distance of ten metres over the ground in a forest, she thought with a smirk.

Sif whined softly by her side. It comforted her. Thank God for Helena, who had brought the dog with her to Riget. The mental note of her friend stirred the hope that she might find her on the other side of the ditch. Leaning on one elbow, she popped herself sufficiently upwards to peek over the ditch edge and through the roots.
Good Lord.

She was in Never Never Land.

TBC