//------------------------------// // Activities of Daily Living // Story: Trust Once Lost // by Greenhorne //------------------------------// Nurse Redheart returned after a while. Maybe half an hour? I still didn't have a clock. She had a drinking straw in her mouth, thankfully it was in a wrapper. She deftly unwrapped it with her hooves, and it finally sank in for me just how crippling my lack of magic was. Losing hoof magic for a pony was the human equivalent of being a double amputee- Relax, breathe. This is temporary. I'll figure out how to use my hooves eventually. I opened my eyes and Redheart was waiting silently for me to finish my breathing exercise. No doubt she knew what I was doing. "Are you feeling better, Green?" She asked after a moment. I nodded. "Do you have any pain in your leg this morning?" She had returned to the script. There was an ache in my leg, and when I moved it, a bit of pain. "No," I responded, shaking my head. "No pain." The last thing I wanted was to take more painkillers, my mind was just starting to clear up. "Did you need to go to the bathroom before breakfast?" The Nurse asked. For a moment I was surprised by the question, just how young was I supposed to be? Then it hit me; with no hoof magic, I wouldn't even be able to clean myself after using the bathroom. My hind legs twitched as I realized I was going to need help with that quite urgently. I nodded again. "Did you need some help?" She asked. "Uh," I squeaked. "Yes, thank you." It wasn't as embarrassing for me as you might imagine, after all, I'd helped hundreds of patients with this sort of thing. I hobbled as quickly as I could without risking tripping over my cast. Which wasn't very fast. I'd have preferred to walk at a more dignified pace, but I wasn't keen on testing the limits of this new body's continence. The bathroom differed from a human bathroom but pretty much in line with what I was expecting. The toilet was a 'squat' style toilet, basically, a trough in the middle of the floor with a raised half dome covering the end which the Nurse had indicated was the front as she guided me to stand over the trough. I had to spread my legs almost uncomfortably wide and Redheart kept a hoof under my barrel for a moment just to make sure I didn't slip and have my hooves go out from under me. Clearly, the toilet was sized for an adult pony rather than a filly my size. I was meaning to wait until she left the room, but when she half turned her back and made a show of pretending not to be watching me I knew she was going to stay. I mentally shrugged. If she was comfortable with that, so was I. I was only holding it out of courtesy at this point, and other concerns were quickly overriding that. After the nurse cleaned me and helped me to wash my hooves (even though I hadn't touched anything) I was feeling much relieved as she walked me back to bed. I made a mental note to keep better track of this body's needs lest there be an embarrassing situation in my future. "You really had to go," She commented, "I bet you feel much better now!" I couldn't help but blush, which was a novel experience for me. I couldn't remember the last time I'd blushed as a human. "Yeah, well, I can't even remember the last time I used the toilet." I snarked. "Oh?" She questioned seriously. "That was a joke." I deadpanned. She cracked a smile, and it was clear her serious expression had been in jest. "All right, hop in bed and I'll give you your morning medications." As I lay back in the bed, grateful that I was off my now throbbing foreleg, the nurse unlocked a drawer and started popping pills out of their packaging into a small paper cup. "What am I taking this morning?" I asked. "You've got three tablets and then I'll give you antibiotics through the IV on your foreleg." "All right, what are the tablets for?" I clarified. Oh to be old again when people would treat me like I could understand what was going on. "Well these two white ones are to help with your pain," She explained, "And this red one is to help you go to the bathroom." They were giving me laxatives? Hmm, that meant I'd probably been on a lot of opiates. "What kind of pain tablets are they?" I asked, suspicious. "Are they opiates?" Opiates were good for what they were designed for, but I needed to keep a clear head and the pain really wasn't that bad. They probably weren't opiates, unless Equestria was a lot more lax with their controlled substances than Earth. "No, they're just Intosolamol." "Never heard of it," I responded. "Are they anti-inflammatories?" Redheart nodded and checked my line of sight to the medication boxes, noting that I might just have been able to make out the writing on them, upside down and laying on a table across the room. She nodded again, to herself this time. I took the pills and lay back in the bed. I felt the chill run up my foreleg as Redheart pushed the room temperature dose of antibiotics into my vein with a syringe. "What are the antibiotics for?" I questioned. "Post-Op prophylaxis?" "You had a urinary tract infection, but we cleared it magically," The nurse answered. "The antibiotics are to make sure it doesn't grow back. The infection is probably why you were delirious when you came in." Oh great, if I was delirious there was no telling what I might have said or done. Literally no telling, since they wouldn't tell me. Redheart had to spoon-feed me my breakfast. Until I managed to get control of my hoof magic, I had about as much bodily autonomy as an infant. Being able to live as a regular whatever-age-I-was filly would be amazing compared to what I had now. That was a good question, actually. "How old am I?" I asked suddenly after finishing the meal. "You couldn't tell us your name, so we don't know." "Roughly though, how old do I look to you?" "We had someone take a look at your teeth and you're most likely eight or nine years old, though you're a bit small for your age." "Thanks." "Are we still pretending that you don't remember anything?" I went to facehoof but Redheart caught my hoof midway. "Please don't hit yourself." She pleaded. "But I wasn't-" I protested, but she cut me off. "You don't have to lie anymore Green, you can trust me," She cut in. "When you think about what happened, does it make you want to hurt yourself?" At that moment the utter stupidity of the situation forced the worst possible involuntary response. I facehoofed, yelped in pain, and had tears spring into my eyes. Curse you body, you've failed me again.