In the evening, when all good children are in bed, there comes a need for certain individuals to require the aide of medical professionals. Such a need arose last evening. Not my own need but my sister's. You see, out of the three siblings I have and the countless other family members and through all the fights and "getting back togethers," we still come through for each other. Don't get me wrong, there are a thousand things I would rather do than to go to the hospital, but without her there'd be no "me" to write and entertain.
Back some over six years ago I took ill. Fast. As stubborn as most of you are, it is nothing compared to my own stupid hard head. I wouldn't go. I couldn't walk because my body was shutting down faster than a Key West boutique with a Cat 5 hurricane barreling down. I am not making light of the situation, it just is what it is. Upon her insistence I finally gave in to admitting something was devastatingly wrong with me as most healthy people aren't hunched over when they walk and suffering as I was. I wasn't in any great pain but my kidneys and other vital and useful organs had shut down and well...to make a long story short...I was dying. (cue violins and old lady weeping in the backdrop)
My appendix had burst. Was burst for several days and by estimate of the ER doctors looked like it had been for more than four days. Unheard of?!? I have a high threshold for pain so when it did gave way I assumed it was just another of those things and anomalous phantom pains that one can overlook. And I did, until the poisons had attacked almost every organ in my body and weakened me to the point of not being able to walk. They said it had infiltrated my spine and my liver and by that point and I had seconds....not minutes, to live. My baby sister took me to the hospital and when we got there I became a priority to strangers. But I wasn't hurting! lol...I won't trouble you with the ins and outs but let's just say I have a special place in my heart for the not-so-wonderful staff at that medical center. I was refused treatment by the emergency doctor because he had a pebble in his craw about overweight peoples. Add to that fact that I don't share the same religious preferences as he, they needed a chaplain on hand for me so you know this ship was going down fast, and the whole time there I sat on a gurney in my skivvies with a doctor who got into an argument with my kid sister and my boyfriend "du jour" at that time and his own staff. The word animal was thrown about as well as the phrase "take her to the veterinarian or a horse doctor as they have equipment to handle a person her size."
I don't know who decided what but within minutes I was put under and by whose authority I still don't know, but the last thing I heard before passing out was my sister vowing to bring him up on charges and then all was black. I'll never forget that ordeal nor that doctor's name as long as I live. I'll never forget how close I was to death all over a ruptured appendix or how being super strong and not feeling pain like the rest of the sheep doesn't necessarily make you a smart cookie.
So I get the phone call in the afternoon. She was fussing with her kids and pissed she burned herself and was hurting from a fall she had took and all seemed well in her cozy little chaotic world. Nothing out of the ordinary. So I thought. Just settling in for the night with my own daughter and watching tv while she ate dinner-we don't always eat together and this particular day she wanted her leftovers from her dinner date with her father-so it meant I was fending for myself. I was just about to get up to make steak and eggs when the phone rang, and it was "her."
Jamie was frantic and talking about the fall earlier and how the pain wasn't going away and the meds she already took, she's a veteran-I'm a hippie, and how she hated to ask but needed a ride to the hospital. The words "I bounced" made me chuckle and for a brief instance I thought this was a joke on her part like "haha-gotcha!" 'Twere no joke. I didn't eat or make my wonderfully planned dinner for one, I just got dressed and got Lobo together and grabbed a sudoku book and headed to her house. Her kids were at church school for a couple of hours and as she got into my car I knew this was going to be no picnic. Instead of picking up my sister to repay the favor she once did for me, I found myself sitting next to a gruesome "combobulation" of what the offspring of my father's mother and my own hateful mother would be. Before I even pulled out of the drive way she was ordering and complaining and assessing the inevitable and incompetence of the soon to be medical staff that will help her.
My car was uncomfortable, I'll grant her that as most people's cars are uncomfortable to everyone but them selves. Didn't want to go to the hospital because she knew they wouldn't do shit for her and has no intentions of filling any pain prescriptions because the VA would have a shit fit and the kids were all shits that day and her future hubby was at work and all this just toppled in on me. I sat patiently and listened sure that his ears and their kids ears and even the Dr's could sense their impending doom, as if she is miserable so shall we all be! Murphy and I have become friends so on this occasion I called upon him in my time of need to make me smile. He silently whispers "anything that can go wrong will and if you're within 100 miles of it it will most assuredly have the absolute worst possible devastating affect on you-have fun!"
I don't know who Murphy is....none of us do but I like to think of him as a 20th century Pan. He likes to discomfort us and catch us off our guard but I wasn't giving in today! I sat and smiled and whispered my okays back and kept driving all the while the monster next to me, that remotely resembled my lovely sister grimacing, spewed its evil predictions. I didn't get flustered nor did I feed the monster, I just got there and pulled to the curb and went to park and smoke a cigarette. I called my boyfriend to find he was ill too and an old friend called to tell me he was sick and 2 of his three were getting over it but his oldest was just getting her fair share. I didn't flinch. I listened to Guns n Roses and watched the doctors coming on duty and then got out of the car with my own 'let's do this' attitude.
She was in triage when I got in there and I couldn't help but think to myself that when I am sick the whole universe, at least my perspective of it, is fine and well, and that when I am well, like today, everyone else is screwed-blued-and-tattooed on the order of things. Am I that important of a cog in this shit or what?!?
Well, after it all was over, torn ligaments no broken bones and such, and promises were made to dog-sit her prego puppy while she goes to the VA for follow-up and a scheduled eye thingy and what not, I came home with the idea of getting sleep as I knew I would be dayside and that was ok. She called. Something about blisters over her extremities and is it ok to be itching and rashing and what not and I knew she was having a reaction to the meds they did give her, the shot. I offered to take her back to the emergency room and she declined still in a foul mood. Old friend called upon me again for advice and another long lost friend popped up on my computer for a bit then all hell crashed, cable and internet. Spent most the night screwing with it and gave up just after my little one got up to go to school. I was supposed to receive two phone calls and as Murphy would have it, they didn't call. No one woke up the chauffeur/doggy sitter. I awoke at my usual noonish hour in a panic and no one was answering their phones. Guilt set in for the few hours sleep I had gotten while my sister was turning into the blister blob from outer space and my boyfriend was suffering the migraine form Satan and everyone else's problems were going on. I hate guilt, "damn you Murphy!"
It took me two and half hours to debug computer and reboot and then got a hold of her hubby to find she cancelled her appointments, wise choice, and she was sleeping. Boyfriend survived without me and slept like a babe missing his first 4 hrs of work and I had gotten up before everyone else and I'm the nightside of things. Nothing like a good shake of the snowglobe to get the blood pumping in the evening...
Now I am sitting wondering how dare some strange person think they can wreck my life and just quietly go off to their next victim. How dare Murphy to abandon the dance we started. So...I am taking up arms and a crossbow and some wooden stakes and a few golden, silver just won't do in this instance, bullets and heading out for a man(or woman)hunt-who wants to join me?~mobe's love to you all and hope your day is exceptionally wonderful and if not come on over and we'll plan our strategy at Starbuck's...
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