Memoirs of a Patient Offically Part 1: Trapped in an Oversized Wheelchair
[[Friday (I think) the 4th...of August, between the peak of 'the late drunkard rush' (1am-ish) and 'the prelude to the buttfuckin' crack of dawn' (3:30am-ish)]]
I've been residing at Riverside Methodist Hospital since Monday. On Thursday, today (was today, technically yesterday...or the day formally known as 'today') I finally got to come home, even if I HAD gushed blood all over the pillow; the bed and everything else the day before yesterday (who the fuck knows what day that really was..I know, I don't)...and am, in fact, currently too frightened to move. Even still, I would rather be here then there, I wasn't anyone or anywhere when I was there...I was just there (sort of). These memoirs would not have even been a thought for not this doctor at St. Ann's, Dr. Murray, seemingly way out of place simply because she didn't have hitler shoved up her ass. For as degrading as it is free, St. Ann's is not known for treating their 'sick and/or injured' patients quite like 'human beings'. Rather then being a 'normal' physically motivated ER, its abundantly psycological. Not only are you poor, you're also crazy. St. Ann's is not only a paranoid schitzophrenic in itself, but she's definatly bi-polar.Hereby, she acts out upon severe underlaying emotional and psycological balance issues, likely associated with family history and/or addiction. Doctors with two faces see only an act, featuring...*suspense*...hypocondriacs, scumlings, leeches, liars and trashy junkies! *applause* After previous belittling; uncooperative; noncommunicational and answerless (doctorless even...) attempts to reveal the mysteries of an insubordinate spine, Dr. Murry had cometh to my rescue conjuring the order of an infamous and revelational dieity: The MRI. "You did a number to your spine" says the MRI technician. I can only hope it doesn't require a calculator. But, before I reveal the whole nachos bell grande, a word from our sponsor. This should only take a minute or so, or in 'Boarder Patrol' time, a few dozen Mexicans. This (should be on Discovery Channel) thrilling episode was brought to you in part by the paraplegic-like fury of my legs and other uncooperative functionless functions. You just can't imagine an 'excitement' of that calibur, and all I had to do was wake up. So in all my unholy and morbidly painful terror, I mustered up a (life saving?) call to my rehabilitation spine man. Dr. Stephensen, wise (or lazy)? All I know is his 'wisdom' had directed this particular dilemma to the loving arms of the ER...Back to Dr. Murray, where the MD stands for Mack Daddy, the lady who said I didn't look right. She instantly knew with that one look what the others had secretly scorned me for 'faking', refusing to order a 'pointless' MRI when I repeatedly tried to explain its necessity. After the MRI results were completely deciphered, my long night in the ER became a four day festival of boredom, short periods of unconsciousness, cable TV and the entirety of the strange food/patients. Over the past few, mentally stimulusless, days (Oversized wheelchairin', overhaulin' ass...my ass, nights) I, somehow, hadn't managed to sleep for more then 2 consecutive hours. As painful and malnurished as that was, it beat the hell out of the narcoleptic blink that was the half hour average. Being home, I can only hope to get some peaceful and plentiful sleep while I still can...IF I even can. In four weeks the fate of the remaining accomplices to the 'spinal stenosis' venture will be determined. Like the vertebrae and protruding ruptured disc from hell (the ones that got the axe), every obsticle finds its own peace. Yet around here, peace can feel like having your legs on backwards. The aftermath of which can be summed up in levels of pain by number (1-10), require a shot of local anesthetic, be merticulously secured (yet seepingly dangerous) by industrial strengh tape (yay!) and if you're lucky, strapped to a stretcher. Oddly the phenomenon called 'spinal stenosis' was NOT manifested by the notorious sledding accident. Spinal stenosis is, in my case, hereditary. [Congenital lumbar stenosis is relatively rare and usually presents at an early age, often between 30 and 40. Lumbar Spinal Stenosis is a degenerative narrowing of the spinal canal, nerve root canals and/or intervertebral foramina] I was born with the narrow spinal canal, part of the make-up of your vertebre and all around bastard. Nestled in the region of lumbar, stenosis made home with my already pathetic excuse for a spine. This narrowing of the column, in cahoots with a victim disc of the notorious sledding accident, unleashed its nazi-like and almost paraplegic fury upon the spinal cord and its surrounding nerves. After surviving being carried to the ER by my 'might as well be no-legged' father; dodging dirty looks like they were AK 47 bullets (the nonbelievers); the unexpected arrival of my mother; twenty sickeningly tearful minutes with the MRI and ten hours later, I'm being transferred to Riverside Methodist Hospital for a could be-emergency surgery . Half hour of sleep, no food, no drink and four hours later I'm being prepared for combat. Lying in the OR preparatory purgatory, watching American Chopper and overcome with the anti-uplifting realization that I was the only patient amongst the patients familylessly awaiting the knife and it showed. Just when I hit the pinnacle of pathetic and finally accepted the fact that I was going to get skewered without getting to say goodbye...My Mother, and fashionably slow Father made their pre-op appearance. Before I knew it, I was waking up two hours later with a sore throat (from, what they told me, was a tube going down my throat) and out of a strange dream that involved a cat. After six necessary shots of Dilaudid, I was given permission to return to my room; eat the nasty food; have glorious spurts of narcolepsy and drown face-down in the bathtub called 'boredom', at least for the next two days. It was three, four if you include the horrifying 'first day' which included activities such as NO FOOD and IGNORANCE IS BLISS featuring the 'pointless nurse button'. What the hell!? Soon after the recognition of my lowly existence, the help became helpful; questions metamorphosing into answers with karate chop-like action. Thus becoming one of the most unrealistic and unfathomable few rotations of my usually uncompassionate vicious cycle, well known to its many victims...'life'. This suddenly surgery (not quite an emergency, more like 'when ya get a minute' urgency. Unscheduled, like the day you were conceived, bastard surgery) was like a perfectly orchestrated bitch smack of mercy.
[I am hereby declaring 'a state of unconsciousness' for Me, Myself, the Dog and all the rest of My Personalities]