The run-down
Today's been a bit of a struggle - after all was said and done I only got about two hours of sleep last night, and today out of nowhere I started getting chest pain (which is apparently one symptom of pneumonia). The nice thing though is that this afternoon and evening I wasn't any more short of breath than I usually am - huzzah for antibiotics! They had me take a double dose of antibiotics early this morning and then I'll be taking normal doses for the next four days, so I guess that double dose was the equivalent of dropping an atom bomb on the bacteria in my lungs.
It's amazing how nice it feels just to be able to breathe. Breathing is one of those basic things that you take for granted until you have an experience where you have to struggle for breath, and after that just the simple act of being able to breathe normally is enough to make you giddy with delight.
By the time I headed off to the hospital last night, the subways had just stopped running so I had to take the 24-hour buses. When I got on the first bus I found myself pleasantly surprised by the unusually high proportion of hot Asian boys on it (and one hot Asian girl with a shaven head - goddamn, if I'd had makeup on and looked not-like-death I would totally have asked for her phone number). So at least the eye candy was a nice distraction. ;)
Ten or fifteen minutes into the ride a seat became available, so I sat down. The way the public transit buses are here, the first few seats are sideways and face another row of sideways seats a few feet away, and then the rest of the seats face forward. (The sideways seats fold up against the bus wall in case room is needed for a wheelchair.) So I was in one of these seats, and sitting directly across from me were these three boys, maybe mid-twenties, and one of them was a damned fine fella with spiky hair. (Mmm.) A few minutes later, one of the hot boy's two friends said, "If I don't get off this bus within thirty seconds, I am going to piss myself."
Hot Boy: Do NOT piss yourself.
Boy #2: Yeah, dude. If you piss yourself I will never be your friend again.
Boy #3: I mean it. THIRTY SECONDS.
Hot Boy: Come on, we're like three minutes from our stop. Just hold on.
Boy #3: I'll do it. I really will. I WILL PISS MYSELF. Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight...
Now, at about this point I started laughing. I couldn't help it. I tried to hide it behind my hand but the boys were about three feet away from me and the Hot Boy noticed. He looked thoughtful for a moment and then turned to his friend and said, "You know, I dare you to do it."
Boy #2: Dude, don't tell him that!
Hot Boy: No, seriously, piss yourself. Go for it.
Me: *started laughing harder because it was obvious that Hot Boy was fucking with his friend solely for my amusement*
Hot Boy: Really, dude, go for it.
Boy #3: I totally will! I am so drunk and I will piss all over myself, right here.
Me (to Hot Boy): You know this is going to become a post in my blog, right?
Hot Boy: *laughs*
Boy #2: Don't listen to him, we're almost there!
And then we'd reached their stop, so they got off the bus. (The guy was still threatening to piss himself, but it didn't happen while on the bus.) It was just one of those weird, random moments.
At the hospital, they got me into a bed pretty quick. Of course the dividers in the emergency room are just curtains so you can hear everything going on around you, and about ten minutes after I'd been put into a bed and hooked up to various machines, they put a guy into the bed next to mine. He was accompanied by a couple police officers, who explained that he'd had the crap beaten out of him at a bar. I never saw the guy himself, but listening to the thickness of his voice and his disorientation, I couldn't help but feel bad for him. Yet I couldn't help laughing (internally) at the conversations that followed with the nurses, a number of which went along this theme:
Nurse: Okay hon, what's your birthday?
Guy: ...
Nurse: I need to know your birthday.
Guy: Can't... talk. Hurts.
Nurse: You talked just now. What's your birthday?
Guy: ...
No shit, I think it took like two hours and at least ten circular conversations before they managed to drag the guy's birthday out of him. (He didn't have any ID on him, so they couldn't just check his ID.) Although I gathered at that point he was in police custody for some reason - either there was an outstanding warrant on him and they found out once they had him identified, or he was under arrest for something relating to the bar fight. But anyway, the two cops had to stay with him at all times and accompany him to xrays and stuff. I guess there's worse things to be doing than babysitting a bed-bound arrestee in a hospital, but it must have been pretty boring for them.
As usual, though, there's a reason St Michael's is my go-to hospital when I have to go to the emergency room, and that's because they're awesome. Yes, I know it has a reputation for being a grungy street-person hospital, and yes, I've occasionally been stuck in the waiting room with people who obviously hadn't seen the inside of a shower in a good long while. But overall that hospital's emergency room is great; they're efficient, caring, and good at what they do. (*And* they fed me at 4 AM when I started getting shaky and woozy from lack of food.) Despite being a Catholic hospital, they have large rainbow flags on the walls, which never fails to make me smile.
I love St. Mike's emergency room staff. They're good people. <3
It's amazing how nice it feels just to be able to breathe. Breathing is one of those basic things that you take for granted until you have an experience where you have to struggle for breath, and after that just the simple act of being able to breathe normally is enough to make you giddy with delight.
By the time I headed off to the hospital last night, the subways had just stopped running so I had to take the 24-hour buses. When I got on the first bus I found myself pleasantly surprised by the unusually high proportion of hot Asian boys on it (and one hot Asian girl with a shaven head - goddamn, if I'd had makeup on and looked not-like-death I would totally have asked for her phone number). So at least the eye candy was a nice distraction. ;)
Ten or fifteen minutes into the ride a seat became available, so I sat down. The way the public transit buses are here, the first few seats are sideways and face another row of sideways seats a few feet away, and then the rest of the seats face forward. (The sideways seats fold up against the bus wall in case room is needed for a wheelchair.) So I was in one of these seats, and sitting directly across from me were these three boys, maybe mid-twenties, and one of them was a damned fine fella with spiky hair. (Mmm.) A few minutes later, one of the hot boy's two friends said, "If I don't get off this bus within thirty seconds, I am going to piss myself."
Hot Boy: Do NOT piss yourself.
Boy #2: Yeah, dude. If you piss yourself I will never be your friend again.
Boy #3: I mean it. THIRTY SECONDS.
Hot Boy: Come on, we're like three minutes from our stop. Just hold on.
Boy #3: I'll do it. I really will. I WILL PISS MYSELF. Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight...
Now, at about this point I started laughing. I couldn't help it. I tried to hide it behind my hand but the boys were about three feet away from me and the Hot Boy noticed. He looked thoughtful for a moment and then turned to his friend and said, "You know, I dare you to do it."
Boy #2: Dude, don't tell him that!
Hot Boy: No, seriously, piss yourself. Go for it.
Me: *started laughing harder because it was obvious that Hot Boy was fucking with his friend solely for my amusement*
Hot Boy: Really, dude, go for it.
Boy #3: I totally will! I am so drunk and I will piss all over myself, right here.
Me (to Hot Boy): You know this is going to become a post in my blog, right?
Hot Boy: *laughs*
Boy #2: Don't listen to him, we're almost there!
And then we'd reached their stop, so they got off the bus. (The guy was still threatening to piss himself, but it didn't happen while on the bus.) It was just one of those weird, random moments.
At the hospital, they got me into a bed pretty quick. Of course the dividers in the emergency room are just curtains so you can hear everything going on around you, and about ten minutes after I'd been put into a bed and hooked up to various machines, they put a guy into the bed next to mine. He was accompanied by a couple police officers, who explained that he'd had the crap beaten out of him at a bar. I never saw the guy himself, but listening to the thickness of his voice and his disorientation, I couldn't help but feel bad for him. Yet I couldn't help laughing (internally) at the conversations that followed with the nurses, a number of which went along this theme:
Nurse: Okay hon, what's your birthday?
Guy: ...
Nurse: I need to know your birthday.
Guy: Can't... talk. Hurts.
Nurse: You talked just now. What's your birthday?
Guy: ...
No shit, I think it took like two hours and at least ten circular conversations before they managed to drag the guy's birthday out of him. (He didn't have any ID on him, so they couldn't just check his ID.) Although I gathered at that point he was in police custody for some reason - either there was an outstanding warrant on him and they found out once they had him identified, or he was under arrest for something relating to the bar fight. But anyway, the two cops had to stay with him at all times and accompany him to xrays and stuff. I guess there's worse things to be doing than babysitting a bed-bound arrestee in a hospital, but it must have been pretty boring for them.
As usual, though, there's a reason St Michael's is my go-to hospital when I have to go to the emergency room, and that's because they're awesome. Yes, I know it has a reputation for being a grungy street-person hospital, and yes, I've occasionally been stuck in the waiting room with people who obviously hadn't seen the inside of a shower in a good long while. But overall that hospital's emergency room is great; they're efficient, caring, and good at what they do. (*And* they fed me at 4 AM when I started getting shaky and woozy from lack of food.) Despite being a Catholic hospital, they have large rainbow flags on the walls, which never fails to make me smile.
I love St. Mike's emergency room staff. They're good people. <3