When you get out ... of the hospital

Wednesday night we had Taco Bell for dinner -- I didn't feel like cooking and it was hot and I had to finish up my presentation on Jackie Chan, so we cheaped out and ran for the border. cousin/roommate had the encherito and fiesta nuggets, I had a double-decker and the steak taquitos. At 7:00 that night I started vomiting. This trend continued into Thursday. At 10am the cousin/roommate came home from work and took me to the emergency room where I was to spend the next 7 hours getting pumped full of saline (what? no D5W?) and aurally observing the underside of humanity.

The space next to me had an elderly cancer patient who was looking for a doctor's note to get him into a hospice. He lived on his own and couldn't take care of himself anymore. He was told by the doctor that going in to hospice care basically amounted to giving up trying to live: no more treatment for the cancer, no more physical therapy, nothin'. It would be time to make a will and sign over power of attorney. He wasn't sick enough for the rest home, but he was too sick to live on his own and he wasn't quite ready to give up, but couldn't decide how much he wanted to live. Dude ... that was a vision of the future that I just didn't need.

Two spaces down the ambulance brought in a woman who had fallen against her fireplace and cut a 5" gash into the side of her leg. She was drunk and based on what I heard, that was a constant state for her. She kept shouting that her leg "HURT LIKE HELL" but that she didn't want anymore needles. Mostly she just wanted a cigarette. "I just want a GODDAMN CIGAREEEEEETTTTE!" Her husband showed up later and told her she had nothing to worry about because he was making arrangements for her to stay overnight. When the doctors told him that they had no reason to keep her he raised a fuss. For better or worse, sickness and in health didn't seem to go 'round there no more. He went out arguing with the doctors and she eventually passed out.

This was all mixed with the shouts of "Just kill me!" from down the hall and the moaning guy who may have had the same thing I did, but was making a bigger fuss about it: "Ohhhhhh God, pleeeeease --- [retch] --- ohhhhh Goddddddd." He was irritated that he had to wait over an hour to get in. I had to wait 3 hours. Big baby.

3 litres of IV and 4 nausea pills later, I feel like I'm getting back to myself. The head still feels a little dizzy and food is unappealing, but I'm out of bed and I get to postpone the Jackie Chan show-and-tell until Monday. All ist claar, herr commisar. Tell you what tho', that morphine, never again. That was a funky, funky feeling.