Remus was in his carnival break when, in a random wednesday, his kneecap decided to go fucking south.
It’d probably horrify most people, especially since all he was doing was lay down in bed, reading a book. However Remus had a diagnosis of hypermobility and was quite used to unstable joints.
Well, a normal regular person would probably decide on going to the hospital, right? Yes, the problem was that
- Remus wasn’t most people
- Remus figured it would eventually collaborate and go back in place
- Remus was a careless asshole when it came to his physical issues
So, when the third day came and he was, at this point, relying on jumping with his “good” knee and the wall as support, an ambulance was called and Remus found himself in the A&E.
As much as he would like to deny it, he was hopeful. He had been figuring out, slowly, that his problems as a child were, infact, real, he simply was never checked for anything until his shoulder fully dislocated during History, pressing an artery and leaving his hand blue. Even then his diagnosis was only «hypermobility», which, no matter how much he researched, seemed to not cause any pain or issue, unless it was a symptom of something else. He was hopeful. Really fucking hopeful and, pathetically, feeling less insane than he did before. It was bad enough for a A&E visit, it has to mean something.
Feeding into this hope were the sweet paramedics that cared for him. They measured his blood pressure and his heart rate. Both were through the damn roof.
«17 years old and these numbers? You must be in a great amount of pain, sweetie.», one of the paramedics had said, her voice gentle. Their theory ended up being that his pain was really bad (his knee had just been put into place), but he didn’t externalize like other people did, making the body do it itself.
The damn «rate your pain from 1 to 10» also arrived. Remus did NOT know how to do it, but when she suggested an «8» it seemed excessive. It was a little bit worse than his baseline, but not that bad.
Remus was not, however, ignorant. Like any chronically ill teenager, he had ventured into the chronically ill part of the internet. He knew about the too fucking frequent medical gaslight, causing a certain amout of fear.
Knowing himself and his story, he was aware of his annoying and obsessive tendency of simply assuming everything in his head was false and that it was a product of him maniuplating himself. He didn’t need a doctor to help those thoughts.
The fear turned out to be…correct.
As soon as he came through the door, he could see a doctor and a medical student.
«How did you hurt yourself?», was asked, casually, almost bitterly.
«I’m hypermobile…»
«You and 16% of the population», she interrupted.
Five minutes later, he was out of the door to get an X-ray.
Ten minutes later he was back in the damn office.
«Do you do sports?», she asked, sharply.
«No…? I mean I do P.E. twice a week, but outside that, not really.»
«You should be ashamed of yourself.», she continued, «a hypermobile person has to keep active and I can see by your X-ray that you do not have great muscle mass.»
«I can barely walk for 20 minutes without my knees locking. What are you expecting me to do?»
«Excuses, those you will have for everything»
From here? It got worse.
He was only a trans 17 year old guy, there was nothing he could do that would make him be heard.
Was he going nuts? He felt like he was going nuts.
The constant widespread joint pain. The shortness of breath and the tachycardias caused by said pain. The medication that barely touched it. The constant sublocating joints. The occasional joint dislocations. The skin hyperextensibility. The orthostatic intolerance. The nausea. Nothing mattered.
His pain meant nothing to the doctors. At the end of the day, they would go home and not deal with any of this, but Remus? He would go home, lay in bed, exhaustion kicking in, feel his joints on fire, wake up in the middle of the night in pain and do this over and over again, while having to go to school, study and manage his grades.
They would be okay and Remus would never be.