It’s 6:30 in the morning. The faintest rays of sunlight show the world just waking up outside my window, but my weary, drugged-up body remains completely motionless, almost lifeless. I could be dead, really. Suddenly, I am awoken by the soft footsteps of several shadowed figures that approach my bed. Nurses.
“Oh, don’t mind us, Nicholas,” they whisper apologetically. “We just want to squeeze your arms and stick pointy objects in your mouth. You go back to sleep.” Damned nurses. They just can’t keep their hands off me. Who could blame them, though?
So how did I end up an institutionalized man? Well, it all started last Saturday, when, as I was lying in bed and wondering why my stomach hurt so bad, an extremely vital organ of mine semi-exploded. The pain prompted a phone call. “Mommy, can you come pick me up? I think my tummy just exploded ... Yes, I tried Tums, but they don’t seem to work for severe internal bleeding. Is this grounds for seeing a doctor?”
A couple hours later, my mother and I were in Richmond waiting patiently at Patient First, where, apparently unlike all the other medical establishments around town, they care for the patient first, rather than the, um, zebra. The doctors were, like all self-respecting American doctors, completely firm on the Pants, Piss N’ Blood Policy.
“OK, why are you wearing those?” the nurse chuckled as I finally managed to settle onto the customary butcher paper on the examination table. “The doctor will not speak to anyone wearing pants. Please remove them, and then make some pee-pee in this cup. Then come back and we’ll stab you in the arm, just to make sure there’s blood in it, OK?”
After what seemed like several hours of waiting, the head doctor finally came in to give the diagnosis. “We found protein in the urine,” he said, “which could mean a number of things: Prostate cancer, stomach explosion, mad cow disease and high fever are just a few of the conditions that tend to present this symptom. The bottom line is, we don’t know what the hell’s wrong with you. We recommend you pay a visit to the hospital, preferably the ER, ‘cause you could be dying.”
In a state of panic, my mother and I raced down Midlothian Turnpike and, with the utmost concern for our collective health, turned into the drive-thru at Arby’s. Upon ordering a mouth-watering MarketFresh sandwich — which I realized I had no appetite for anyway, because of the apparent lack of stomach — we rushed into the ER, where the desk attendant informed us of the one to five hour wait.
“But I could be dying,” I pleaded.
“Yeah, that’s what they all say,” she retorted. “Take a seat.”
After sitting through the commercially interrupted cable TV version of “You’ve Got Mail,” my name was finally called. I was briefly interrogated about my condition and then, in what seemed to be a remarkably bold move by the hospital staff, whisked away to the Recovery Ward. After explaining to the nurse that I was actually still in need of treatment, I was then hauled off to my real destination, the Ward of Old People Who Moan N’ Groan Incessantly. I was placed in the second bed on the left, an ideal location between Old Woman “A,” whose moaning, groaning, gagging, wheezing and intermittent shouting led me to believe she was fighting off that mutant virus in “I Am Legend,” and Old Woman “B,” who kept moaning and groaning about the Detroit Lions. I may have been in a great deal of pain, but I was totally digging the setup. I had a reclining bed, a private TV on which to watch football and a nurse tending to my every need. (Example: “Excuse me, Nurse, my mother continues to blab as I try to watch football. Can you take her away, please? Great, thanks.”)
Several blood tests, urine tests and football games later, the doctor finally approached me with the verdict. “We found protein in the urine,” he said. “This leaves us with a clear-cut diagnosis: appendicitis.” According to Doc, my appendix, once the most efficient organ in my body, had ruptured and was now on the verge of explosion.
Here in the Recovery Ward, life after surgery is a lot less stressful than it was before. The biggest issue here concerns “bowel movement,” which is the ultimate medical euphemism for “doo-doo.” The nurses said that once I am able to successfully make my bowels move, I can go home. Until then, though, I am stuck in this godforsaken double room with dozens of tubes sticking out of my arm and stomach as I listen to my roommate Floyd rant about the lack of Tupperware during World War II.
Nick’s column runs weekly Friday. He can be reached at n.eilerson@cavalierdaily.com.
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