photo of the year
I responded with the following that I just decided I might as well throw up here and see if it sticks.
my note to Tom
...so ironic that you should bring up soul stealing...long story short, bingo, been there, done that, not fun.By way of explanation. 14 years ago yesterday I allowed a crazed little fat man with pudgy little fingers that can work miracles inside the chests of small babies to have at me with a saw, lots of ice water, spare parts from my right leg and sharp pointy cutty things, clips and clamps, his magic machine and other stuff I was told I didn't want to know about. The gas passer had assured me I'd be as drunk as a hillbilly and wouldn't feel a thing. All I had to do to earn this big treat was prove I could spell my surgeon's name...K-A-L-A-F-I! I'd practiced and practiced cause I wanted to get it right.
The next seven hours were a blur until I woke up in ICU with a big damn plastic tube down my throat and what seemed like a roomful of auntie Ems and farmhands all come to check on Dorothy which in reality was just family wanting to know how I felt. I can remember thinking, "Just how do you think?" I felt like six kinds of burnt donkey.... I begged and hoped I would nod back into my morphine haze which I found over the next few days my tolerance to and desire for shocked & amazed more than a couple of bewildered medicos. Fast forward to the soul snatching.
I spent most of my ICU time not seeing anybody. Five minutes every several hours was it. I had 5 hoses draining my chest and what felt like a garden hose crammed into my poor little urethra. When folks trotted into visit I surrendered any and all dignity I might have once processed. About dark time I first noticed my unofficial visitor and friend. I was never sure just what size he was. He looked like the smoking jester of death the 'Dead featured in album art work. He hovered near the TV waiting for me to invite him over to feast on my soul. I'll admit I almost let him. I remember thinking now I know why my dad cashed in his chips a couple of days after his bypass. With each ticking second it made more and more sense. I begged my nurse to leave the TV set on all night to keep him warm. That first night in ICU I woke up repeatedly to check on him. He rested up on the TV and gave a playful wave when I looked his way.
Tuesday, Dec. 30, was only incrementally any better. I was forced to sit up, eat delicious jello and overly salty broth. I was introduced to the respiratory torturer trained to keep my lungs working right and ward off pneumonia. My little friend watched me from his perch. They wanted me to wear my glasses, but I insisted I could see just fine.
Sometime in the evening I nodded off. Toward midnight I woke to quite a bit of noise in the room to the right of me. I was able to piece together some of what was going on. A young person, not out of high school had been involved in a gang related "incident." The previous evening when it all happened another victim wasn't so lucky and never needed the services of the ICU. My neighbor it seems had taken a turn. I remember very clearly my friend took note. Listening closely he waited for a signal. Aunt and grandmother were brought in for a last visit. A doctor came and explained the particulars, what had happened, what the chances were or actually weren't. I thought, geez, give it a rest, take 'em to another room I don't want to hear this. If you hadn't noticed I'm next door with my own struggle and the play by play and sadness ain't doing me any good.
Rightly or wrongly I feared for my own life. I was 42 with two small children. One of them hadn't even said daddy yet. I was giving it my best shot but due to the trauma to my body, mixed with still unresolved issues involving my father's death after bypass barely three years earlier and facing my own mortality a smidgen before I thought it was fair...I was in an understandably pissy mood. Besides all that, I had the gotdang angel of death blocking my view of Letterman and smacking his lips while he mentally undressed me and sucked up my soul with the straw he'd stolen from my water cup, the rat bastard. I wasn't putting my lips on that again five second rule or not.
Sad to say, I remember thinking he was in a gang. Wasn't all of this even remotely expected? Finally after listening to heart felt and heart wrenching goodbyes and apologies the family left. In the quiet that followed I reminded myself that my situation no matter how terrible it seemed to me...well, I was in a better place than my neighbor. Finally a nurse walked by and closed the sliding door partially dulling the sound some but not enough
In and out of my fog, sometime later the same day/night I awoke to the sounds of monitor alarms, rapid near silent footfalls, the swooshing of scrubs and chatter, commands, responses I knew all too well from those days as an EMT. Things were not going well for my neighbor and that fact hadn't been lost on my friend who seemed to be struggling in his attempt to follow the story of whatever late night yarn was spinning on the TV and salivating in a Pavlovian response to the excitement next door. The poetry slam of urgency halted when a time was called and repeated. Activity ceased in a rapid controlled shut down as one reality melded with another new set of familiar duties. Actions I think we all acknowledge yet seldom thank the providers of.
As an info-mercial for an amazing life changing product now forgotten began, my friend looked to me and whispered or planted the impression of his message in my brain, "well, that's my cue, gotta run, maybe next time" and with his special flourish he slithered through the gap in my door and was gone.
For the rest of the week I kept an eye out for him and kept the TV on so he'd have a warm place that wasn't me. 14 years he hasn't been back. Maybe I need to keep some light sticks close by, just in case, to distract him.
No comments:
Post a Comment