January 19, 2011
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Le Hospital. (A Serial.) -Episode 3
Sunday: Big day for New England sports fans. The New England Patriots will confidently stroll into their home field, with their football Jesus: Tom Brady and try to re-create their 45-3 win over their biggest rivals the New York Jets. The buzz on my floor is loud, partly because the pacemakers, ekgs, respirators, feeding tubes and blood pressure machines all have that low hum to it, but also because of the excitement for the game!
I personally don’t care too much. It’s nice to have that New England pride, and of course I’d like to see them do well, but I ain’t dwelling on it. Luigi is wearing his Patriots scrubs, but says he’s wearing his Jets underwear—I love that sass! Mary keeps coming in to check my vitals or give me my antibiotics and reminds me that I have to yell out the score to her.
Now, since I first entered the ER on Friday I was told that I needed and MRI to see if the infection went deeper and got onto my bone and/or my achilles heel…yeah, I know. Three or four times a day I would be reminded that the MRI would be coming. Then I would go to bed and yet again I would be MRI-less. Today I am told that this is it, today’s the day. I scoff and make jokes.
I have more GREAT friends and family come in and make the day go by so fast. Luigi faces the crowd, or as the nurse’s desk refers to it: the frat house and asks who is going to be ordering wings. I thought that was a great idea. No one sprung for their wallets though.
“What flavor do you want?”
“Honey BBQ,” Luigi replies.
“Wuss.”
“I’ll make yours as hot as you want them.”
I blushed.
Man, what a charmer.
My MRI toll rings at 3. They take me down. And as they are laying me down to go into this loud, magnetic machine they squeeze my foot, yeah that foot, the one that is the reason I’m writing right now in scrubs from a hospital bed.
I understand that my foot has to stay still for over a half an hour so they can slowly take pictures with magnets and figure out if I’m going to die. I get that. But we have phones in our pockets. Phones that let us watch TV, YouTube, instant message from any zip code, play music. We have cars that run strictly on electricity. We have bombs that can track its target from halfway across the world. We walked on the fucking moon. We made Justin Bieber a billionaire. You think we could figure out a way to take that picture just a little bit faster.
So they’re SQUEEZING. I am in more pain than I have been the entire time I’ve been here. So the picture taking goes at 4-7 minute intervals where I listen to the Beatles and fight back tears from the pain. Then the technician would check in from the other room in between these sessions.
“How are you holding up?”
“I’m a zombie.”
“Haha, but how are you feeling?”
“I’m a zombie.”
I refused to say anything but that phrase to her for the 35 minutes I was there. Half because I was pissed at how hurt my foot was and half because plainly saying your a zombie over and over to someone is, I think hilarious.
Luigi goes outside of his job description and comes down to pick me up so I can catch the kickoff for the Pats. “How sweet it is to be loved by you!”
The Patriots end up getting embarrassed. The redeeming part is that Rex Ryan is still embarrassed about those foot-fetish videos being released. And of all times, that’s when I reflect. Ryan has that fetish about feet, and I have an infected foot. The world still turns, pleasure and pain and pain and pleasure. It keeps revolving. When I’m back at my room and its just my parents in the room I start to cry because the redness spread further up my leg and I feel hopeless and I’m wondering if I’ll get the pleasure or pain next. All I know is that it will keep revolving.
Stay tuned for the next episode of Le Hospital. (A Serial.)!! What will the MRI reveal?? What celebrity comes to visit me?? And what big news will come my way?? Only one way to find out and that is to STAY TUNED for the next episode of Le Hospital. (A Serial.)!!!!!
