Hospital Chronicles: Mirthday Writing Essentials

Following is a slightly edited version of three pieces written in October, 2006 while recovering from the hospital stay described herein as my entry into the "worst day of your life" WE Humor Monday "assignment."  Feel free to criticize it on any level you like. [I already know about the abrupt tense jumps, so don't bother pointing them out]. 

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Wednesday 4:00 AM.  I was awakened by a tidal wave of nausea, driven to my knees for two solid hours of toilet-gazing, enduring endless spasms of wretched retching. I spewed up cake from my first birthday party.  I vomited German helmets from World War II.  I threw up my spine.   And just as I thought the worst was over, the floodgates of the Styx opened to release an endless flood of unstoppable diarrhea that kept me riding the porcelain pony for another hour.  It stopped only long enough to allow me to crawl to the phone and call for help.

7:00 AM.  A call to 911 brings an ambulance and a small army of EMT's, half of whom were apparently using me as a practice dummy.  Overheard snatch of conversation:

"I haven't seen you around.  You new?"

"Yep.  First time out. What am I supposed to be doing?"

"I dunno.  Take a pulse or something?"

This while I'm lying face down, wearing nothing but a bright orange sweatshirt hastily grabbed from the closet while shuddering with a chill that froze my marrow.  No underpants.  Just the sweatshirt. And here are a half-dozen androgynous blue-shirted kids having a meet-and-greet over my bare-assed body.

An older dude who was evidently in charge barked a barrage of questions at me, receiving a series of gulping groans in response, then disgustedly swept up a bagful of my meds from the bedside table and told his minions to "load her up".  My sister, who was fluttering around trying to help, managed to drag a pair of panties up my shaking legs (remember what your mother always says about clean underwear in case of an accident) before the group stopped stumbling around long enough to wrangle me onto a gurney.  Out to the street, heaved up into the ambulance, clutching a barf basin to my chest, the blue-shirt bunch sat on each side of me, continuing their conversation without a glance in my suffering direction.  If the driver missed a pothole on the way to the hospital, it was totally unintentional.  I was literally lifted off and dropped back onto that stretcher at least forty times on the two mile drive to the hospital.  With unthinkable stuff trying to exit my body from both ends it was, indeed, a memorable ride.

8:00ish AM.  Pulled out of the ambulance, pushed into the emergency admitting area, left to lie or die there while more pleasantries are exchanged between the EMT crew and the hospital personnel.  Eventually rolled into a room where more questions are hurled (while doing a little more hurling of my own), needles are poked into reluctant veins, blood pressure cuff is squeezing intolerable pain into my arm, and a thermometer is shoved under a bone-dry tongue.  A request for a sip of water was met with a stern, "not until you're diagnosed".

8:30-11:00AM.  Tests.  EKG. Urinalysis (because I found myself suddenly and inexplicably unable to pee, Nurse Ratchet had to use a catheter to extract enough to analyze.  Talk about fun!)  Then came the search for a vein in which to plunge an IV needle.  It should be noted that I am one of those humans who is despised by lab techs the world over.  My veins are deeply buried, they're frail, they roll and they're crooked.  It takes an extremely talented, experienced phlebotomist to stick me with success the first time, even with a tiny pediatric butterfly.  So finding a place to jam one of those IV knitting needles requires the skill of a Supreme Master Vampire.  They didn't have any of those in the emergency room.  Three of them took two shots each before they gave up and said, "Screw it.  Put her in a room and let those guys deal with it."

11:30 AM.     I am wheeled by a silent scrub-wearing side of beef down miles of sick-making shiny green and yellow linoleum, scooted around several corners, backed into an elevator, pulled out and rolled down more corridors. I am eventually shoved through a too-narrow doorway and after crashing into the doorframe a couple of times, am rolled alongside a bed where another stone-faced nurse awaits.  She fusses around, pushing buttons and smoothing scratchy sheets, then reaches under me, grabs the blanket I'm lying on and, with Mr. PrimeRib working the other side, they utter a hearty "one two three" and flip me onto the noisy plastic mattress.

Folded into a W in the hospital bed, sabers of pain slicing through my middle, I was now a Bone of Contention between Nurse Stoneface and Nurse Fatass, one on each side of the bed, firing shots across my bow:   "I have to give her meds! She doesn't have a line!  Why doesn't she have a line?"

"I don't know.  They were supposed to put one in."

"Well, they didn't.  You have to."

"No I don't.  You do it."

I thought it best to intervene on my own behalf.  I moaned an explanation of my lack of IV port, told them they needed to send for a specialist to stick me.  Wavering between relief and annoyance, they grumbled their way out of the room after deciding to call 'someone'.

I waited.  And waited.  And, yep…waited some more while a herd of camels caravaned through my arid mouth, now glued tightly shut.  Finally, 'someone' showed up, shoved a small squeezy ball into my palm, slapped my hand soundly several times, folded one rubber-gloved mitt around mine and plunged an icepick into a vein with the other.  Plastic tube making an upside down U behind my index finger, needle strapped down with layers of sticky tape, I lay there while more bustling went on around me.  A bag of saline solution was hung and inserted into my line (Yay! I had a line!) along with several other hypodermically inserted medications.  "Water?" I croaked.  "No!" came the reprimand.  "Ice chips?" I managed to whisper.  This was apparently a novel idea, but the baby aide allowed as how that was probably okay and, not even an hour later, set a cupful of ice on the sliding tray alongside the bed, almost within my reach!  I managed to grab the call button/microphone/TV control thingie and pushed the red button.  A disembodied voice asked "Can I help you?"  Not knowing to whom I was speaking, I was slightly hesitant to ask for medication…hell, it could have been a DEA agent on the other end… but I was desperate so I asked it I could have something for pain.  "Someone will be right there", the Voice from the Other Side assured.

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 spat, 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 brightly 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 Lydia and Sandy and Jackie 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.

Since this is the limit of my own attention span, I'm sure you had enough of this three paragraphs ago.  I may or may not add my continued adventures with the medical-industrial complex next week.  I must warn you, though, it will be very shitty.