Hospital Part Three

Sometime later (pain has a way of distorting time…it could have been minutes or hours) a portable computer was wheeled in by Nurse Robot.  Without a glance in my direction, she stood at the foot of the bed and played a couple of games of solitaire, all the while fiercely staring at the screen allowing nothing, especially a groaning patient, to break her concentration.  Suddenly, still focused on her monitor, she barked "Pain level?  One to ten!" 

"Who, me?" I quavered.

"One to ten!  Pain!" she ordered.

I wanted to say "a hundred and forty-seven", but afraid of her wrath, I meekly responded, "Ten, please."

After a few more pokes at the keyboard, she uncorked a hypo, squirted a couple of drops into the air per every hospital show we ever watched, then shot it into my IV line.

"What is it?" I managed to ask before it entered my bloodstream..

"Dilaudid", she smirked, and backed her computer out of the room.

        O, Drug of Joy!  An instant explosion shattered my neurons, spread itself through every muscle, nerve and joint, sent me spinning through a gauzy, buzzing universe into a deliciously pain-free swirling confection of sensation.  For the first time in twelve hours, I relaxed and drifted into sleep.

        Exactly six minutes later, a voice called around the curtain.  "Mississ Dicksson?" 

        Dragging myself from the bliss of Morpheus' enfolding arms, I answered, "Hmmblirff?"

        A small dark person in a doctor coat appeared and liltingly introduced himself, "I am Dr. Apu.  A stomach doctor.  How are you feeling?"

        "Fllmmpp."

        He approached the bed, pulled down the sheet and proceeded to poke me in the belly.  I tried not to scream, but failed. 

        "Does this hurt?"

        "Aaaayyyy!!"

        "Can you roll over?" he demanded as he snapped on a rubber glove.  "Excuse me.  I am examining your rectum now" and shoved a latex finger where the sun don't shine.

        "Perhaps you are having some blockage.  We will be doing an ultrasound right away."

        As he slid out of sight, I was carried away on another wave of Dilaudid and shortly thereafter became aware of shadowy figures putting sticky round patches in odd places all over my numb body.  A pulse-oxygen monitor  was clamped to my index finger and an extraordinary hallucination took hold of my bedrugged mind.

        I was sitting at my computer screen, writing an article for Gather, pushing frantically at my mouse (the pulse-ox device) to make corrections, trying to scroll back and forth to re-read what I was writing, frustration building when the mouse failed to respond. Boy, would this one get me Gatherpoints!  Scroll, dammit!  Enter already! Oh, this was such good stuff!  Wait till Birdie and Sandy and Clay read this one!  Definitely my best piece of work so far.

        Then the lights went out, the mouse was taken off my finger, about half the sticky circles were ripped off and I was returned to my bed, Gatherless, computerless, dry of mouth and blank of mind.  To sleep for a good ten minutes more.

To be continued