Being flat on my back in a hospital, needles stuffed into what seems to be every available space just is not a pleasant experience.
My way to cope when I am scared out of my wits is to make wisecracks. I know, that sounds silly but I remember sitting there waiting once when I knew a Doctor was going to stick a blade into my EYE and this nurse got me to laughing so hard I forgot about what they were going to do until it was about over.
Another time when I was hauled in with pains in my chest, the idea of dying pouring into and overwhelming my mind, another older nurse picked up on what I was doing and we got to laughing.
"On a scale of one to ten, how frightened are you right now?" She asked me.
"Ten!" I answered without thinking.
She grinned and reached out to put her hand on my stomach through the thin flower covered thing they call a gown.
"Honey, I wish all of our clients got scared like you do. Just relax, I won't leave, I will be right there and I will see to it that you are just fine myself!"
Somehow that helped a lot. She was right there when I woke up, too. By then I was in love with her, I didn't care that she was sixty and 40 pounds overweight.
The nurses stay pretty serious when they have someone that appears to be on death's door, but I felt just fine this time.
Sure, I felt tired, I knew I was bleeding inside like a stuck Hog, and yea, I knew all about it possibly being Cancer.
Scared? Hell, yes! But I really did feel just fine.
That's how I cope, finding everything funny, flirting mercilessly with the nurses, making those double meaning type jokes.
Those nurses responded in kind, let's face it, some humor brightens their day too, it can't be a really pleasant life looking after deathly ill people day after day, having to watch some of them die.
So knowing that they had a wise guy in one of their rooms, they started teasing. They were not only teasing the candy stripers, they were teasing me right back.
Like when I made the remark about all the cute nurses around and they send some hairy guy in to probe my bottom? The two nurses in there grinned at each other and told me they could handle that some more for me if I really wanted them to.
I kinda didn't, of course, they knew that. They both roared at the expression on my face.
Bad enough they were going to shove a garden hose down my nose to see if they could find some blood in my stomach. I admit I hated that, but the easy manner helped some. They got that done, I survived it and I didn't want them to do that to me any more, either.
When I accused them of stealing my blood and selling it they popped right back with, "Gotta support the hospital somehow!"
Then the one gal came in and bent over to do something, hell, she had nearly all of her tits out in space and she knew I was looking and she let me.
She just grinned at my reaction, thought it was cute I guess. Sick as a Dog, maybe serious, but still interested in a nice set of titties?
So the typical terrible time in the hospital wasn't so terrible after all. Hell, I even quit smoking (I think) when it hit me I was a couple of days without and wasn't missing them.
After they discharged me from the hospital, I went on home, back to my really fascinating life. Yea, I got my old tongue in my cheek here. I had the little sack of medicines I had obtained over at Walmart, after standing irritated as hell in line for about two hours.
Since I have drug coverage, I figured it wouldn't be too bad, plus those guys have those "$4.00" per prescription thingies.
Yea, sure. It's "tier one" and "tier two" and this isn't on the list and that isn't on the list and there is that doughnut hole and just fuck it, gimme the stuff.
I handed them my credit card.
They made me go stand and listen as a bored guy told me how to take the stuff and what to not do, hell, they were pills.
Not exactly fucking complicated.
I got home and looked at all of them, then I sat them down on the counter and made me a pot of coffee.
No coffee, they had told me. Screw that.
In the living room, I clicked on the TV, listening to one channel for about 30 seconds before having enough of that and switching over to Fox. 30 seconds of that was enough, too, one click down and cops were chasing some silly SOB all over the place.
Man, he was knocking over mailboxes and posts, he had started out with a pretty darn nice car there.
Guess it wasn't his anyway so it didn't matter.
The cops tried to spin him out, making the back end weave as I yelled, "Step on the gas, not the brakes you stupid......!"
Hell, they tried a half dozen times, I would have gotten him the first time, by golly, put the bumper of my big old 4 X 4 on him and steer into it with the gas to the....
The phone rang.
"Hello?"
"I want to add some Ferrous Gluconate to your medicines." Debra's voice said.
"What's that?" I asked her, still eyeballing the TV.
"Iron. Your red cells are still down a little bit."
"OK."
"Did you write that down?" She asked me.
"Yea." I lied.
"I will call it in for you." She sighed.
"OK. Thanks." I hung up.
Finally the guy was stopped in a shower of sparks, a bunch of cops ran over and jumped on him and they weren't being gentle about that.
"Get on the GROUND!" They were screaming at the top of their lungs, hell, the poor bastard was already on the ground, some giant cop was standing on his head.
I guess cops get pissed off when people run from them.
Funny shit. I reached for my pack of smokes, then I remembered I didn't have any.
Shit!
I went to sleep right there in my chair.