(no subject)
“This must be the damned unluckiest city in the world to be taken through by ambulance”, I remember thinking as Tram and a nurse clutched me tightly as the ambulance darted and swerved, jockeying with motorbikes for an extra few feet of space. Even the ambulance gets no quarter in this city. As always in moments of total panic, my brain played Ravi Shankar’s Chants of India and let my imagination wander to keep my mind off the present situation. Perhaps strapping the stretcher to the back of two Honda waves would be better, with Tram and Kukhee and the nurse on additional Honda waves, maneuvering back and forth administering drugs, hand holding or other necessary comforts.
Gururbrahmaa Gururvisnuh
Gururdevo Mahesvarah.
Gurussaakshaat Param Brahma.
Tasmai Shri Gurave Namah. OM
Wait. Flashback. What the Hell happened? How did I get here? Two or three weeks ago I had started feeling lightheaded every time I stood up. My urge to smoke vanished, I lost my appetite, I went to the gym all the time. Outside of the dizziness it felt like I was actually taking care of my health for a change. I kept a watchful eye on it, but let it go more or less unchecked. Then, Monday night, while out with some friends, I began to feel strange in an indescribable way. They needed food, and I acquiesced and off we went the three blocks between our current location and the all-night com suon stand on Bui Vien street. Suddenly I lost control of myself completely. I knew what was happening, I just didn’t know why. I wobbled back and forth a few times, much deeper than anyone could be comfortable with, then toppled over. We weren’t moving fast, and the accident was minor at worst. I stood up, I had a few scratches, surveyed the damage to my friend on the back of my bike, he was unharmed. Disconcerted and unnerved, we went the final block and a half and sat down to eat. I wasn’t hungry. Instead, the strange feeling I’d had earlier was back and stronger than before. I needed to get home and sleep.
I paid for my untouched food, got on my bike and made my way home uneventfully. I parked, locked the gate, did everything responsibly, then went upstairs and proceeded to suffer simultaneously from extreme diarrhea and nausea to the extent that I eventually just gave up getting either of them into the toilet and sort of passed out writhing in agony on the floor. Thank God that all Vietnamese bathrooms have a drain on the floor (how many times have I said that…). After six hours of indescribable pain, vomiting and expulsion by other means of anything I’d ingested in the last 23 years, I realized it was more than just a bout of food poisoning and I ought to go to the hospital.
Kukhee came over and called me a taxi. The pain was bad enough that I screamed repeatedly every time I changed position. She chose to walk out of my alley while I took a motorbike taxi to avoid moving too much. I got out onto the street, saw no taxi, and tried to wait. Standing proved to be too much, though, and my vision got fuzzy, and the urge to lie down on the sidewalk was strangely irresistible. The next thing I knew two men were hauling me up off the street into a waiting taxi. I muttered “just wait a second for my girlfriend” before passing out again. A moment later (maybe?) I awoke and we were en route to the hospital. The cab was comfortable.
At the hospital, most things are a blur. Breathing was nearly impossible, and to avoid sharp stabs of agony I was limited to shallow breathing and slow, sporadic speech. My abdomen burned and roared with pain, and it was somehow linked to my shoulders. It was beyond a doubt the worst pain I’d ever suffered in my entire life. After explaining what happened several times, tests were run. My X-rays came back clean, thank god, but the abdominal pain was a mystery. An ultrasound, it was decided, would shed some light on it.
Schplochk, the device moved back and forth over my sore belly. A hurried consultation in hushed tones took place between the technician and my doctor outside the exam room, and I was rushed into a waiting ambulance and carted across town to a better equipped hospital It was my spleen, they told me, it had ruptured. I was losing blood at an alarming pace and they needed to operate immediately.
The worst pain I had ever experienced in my life was quickly eclipsed by the most scared I have ever felt in my life. What was wrong with me? How had my spleen ruptured? Was I going to die? Why won’t anybody say anything to me?
We parked, I was gently lifted out of the ambulance and rushed to a waiting room. A full CT was ordered, head chest and abdomen. It was clear my spleen was the problem. A kind French doctor Frenchly informed me it was broken and needed to come out immediately. He told me I had already lost three litres of blood and I might die if we waited any longer. Oh yeah, and did I have insurance?
Fuck. No, I didn’t. Yes, I’d pay a deposit. Yes I understood that if I died they’d still charge me the full cost of the surgery. A few hours later I awoke in the recovery room. The crisis was averted and I was alive, but the question still bugged me. What on earth happened to rupture my spleen? The accident was probably the ultimate cause of the rupture, but it was so inconsequential that I couldn’t buy that it was that alone. Perhaps a previous infection of the spleen had made it susceptible to trauma? Maybe. The focus up until now had been on keeping me alive. “Why” was further down than “What” on the surgeon's list of mysteries, but it’s still pretty high up on mine.
As of now it's friday morning, my intestines have just started to think about working again, and I'm bored as Hell. It's only once my dad got here that I've been able to look back on it and process the emotions that came with this whole thing. The uncertainty, the pain and the fear. I'd weep, but it hurts my abdomen too much, so I'm stuck with numbly poking at my scabs and wondering what the hell went wrong.
Gururbrahmaa Gururvisnuh
Gururdevo Mahesvarah.
Gurussaakshaat Param Brahma.
Tasmai Shri Gurave Namah. OM
Wait. Flashback. What the Hell happened? How did I get here? Two or three weeks ago I had started feeling lightheaded every time I stood up. My urge to smoke vanished, I lost my appetite, I went to the gym all the time. Outside of the dizziness it felt like I was actually taking care of my health for a change. I kept a watchful eye on it, but let it go more or less unchecked. Then, Monday night, while out with some friends, I began to feel strange in an indescribable way. They needed food, and I acquiesced and off we went the three blocks between our current location and the all-night com suon stand on Bui Vien street. Suddenly I lost control of myself completely. I knew what was happening, I just didn’t know why. I wobbled back and forth a few times, much deeper than anyone could be comfortable with, then toppled over. We weren’t moving fast, and the accident was minor at worst. I stood up, I had a few scratches, surveyed the damage to my friend on the back of my bike, he was unharmed. Disconcerted and unnerved, we went the final block and a half and sat down to eat. I wasn’t hungry. Instead, the strange feeling I’d had earlier was back and stronger than before. I needed to get home and sleep.
I paid for my untouched food, got on my bike and made my way home uneventfully. I parked, locked the gate, did everything responsibly, then went upstairs and proceeded to suffer simultaneously from extreme diarrhea and nausea to the extent that I eventually just gave up getting either of them into the toilet and sort of passed out writhing in agony on the floor. Thank God that all Vietnamese bathrooms have a drain on the floor (how many times have I said that…). After six hours of indescribable pain, vomiting and expulsion by other means of anything I’d ingested in the last 23 years, I realized it was more than just a bout of food poisoning and I ought to go to the hospital.
Kukhee came over and called me a taxi. The pain was bad enough that I screamed repeatedly every time I changed position. She chose to walk out of my alley while I took a motorbike taxi to avoid moving too much. I got out onto the street, saw no taxi, and tried to wait. Standing proved to be too much, though, and my vision got fuzzy, and the urge to lie down on the sidewalk was strangely irresistible. The next thing I knew two men were hauling me up off the street into a waiting taxi. I muttered “just wait a second for my girlfriend” before passing out again. A moment later (maybe?) I awoke and we were en route to the hospital. The cab was comfortable.
At the hospital, most things are a blur. Breathing was nearly impossible, and to avoid sharp stabs of agony I was limited to shallow breathing and slow, sporadic speech. My abdomen burned and roared with pain, and it was somehow linked to my shoulders. It was beyond a doubt the worst pain I’d ever suffered in my entire life. After explaining what happened several times, tests were run. My X-rays came back clean, thank god, but the abdominal pain was a mystery. An ultrasound, it was decided, would shed some light on it.
Schplochk, the device moved back and forth over my sore belly. A hurried consultation in hushed tones took place between the technician and my doctor outside the exam room, and I was rushed into a waiting ambulance and carted across town to a better equipped hospital It was my spleen, they told me, it had ruptured. I was losing blood at an alarming pace and they needed to operate immediately.
The worst pain I had ever experienced in my life was quickly eclipsed by the most scared I have ever felt in my life. What was wrong with me? How had my spleen ruptured? Was I going to die? Why won’t anybody say anything to me?
We parked, I was gently lifted out of the ambulance and rushed to a waiting room. A full CT was ordered, head chest and abdomen. It was clear my spleen was the problem. A kind French doctor Frenchly informed me it was broken and needed to come out immediately. He told me I had already lost three litres of blood and I might die if we waited any longer. Oh yeah, and did I have insurance?
Fuck. No, I didn’t. Yes, I’d pay a deposit. Yes I understood that if I died they’d still charge me the full cost of the surgery. A few hours later I awoke in the recovery room. The crisis was averted and I was alive, but the question still bugged me. What on earth happened to rupture my spleen? The accident was probably the ultimate cause of the rupture, but it was so inconsequential that I couldn’t buy that it was that alone. Perhaps a previous infection of the spleen had made it susceptible to trauma? Maybe. The focus up until now had been on keeping me alive. “Why” was further down than “What” on the surgeon's list of mysteries, but it’s still pretty high up on mine.
As of now it's friday morning, my intestines have just started to think about working again, and I'm bored as Hell. It's only once my dad got here that I've been able to look back on it and process the emotions that came with this whole thing. The uncertainty, the pain and the fear. I'd weep, but it hurts my abdomen too much, so I'm stuck with numbly poking at my scabs and wondering what the hell went wrong.