December 4, 2007

It was late at night --perhaps even early in the morning, I had lost track of all time and place -- and I lay on the gurney trying not to twitch, not to breathe, not to move in case the new movement jolted my leg and caused a fresh wave of pain. The pale yellow walls were painted with decorative murals depicting cheerful little bunnies and deer and other woodland creatures as they flitted through the forest. Overhead a truck exploded as the muted tv replayed yet another episode in a never-ending Mythbusters marathon. In front of me, past the remains of my twisted feet, were racks of medical supplies, stationed next to the doorway leading to the emergency room's main medical station. Brushing lightly against my right arm and my I.V. drip of blessed, blessed morphine, was a closed curtain made of white netting and faded, generic pastel-swooshed 1980s-inspired fabric.

From behind the curtain, a faceless voice moaned.

J and I, waiting for the next in the night's procession medical folk, looked at each other. Another moan, this one more of a groan/whimper.

"Dammit! Dammit, this fucking hurts," a deep male voiced from inside the void. "Anybody? I gotta have me some pain meds."

J and I looked at each other again. Were we supposed to do something? Another groan issued. "Goddammit. GodDAMmit!"

Nurses and doctors hustled and bustled in and out of the room, grabbing supplies from the racks. No one looked in the Moaner's direction.

The Moaner moaned.

In fact, it began to sound like a symphony of the damned in there, behind the circa-1985 institutional drapery. Moans and groans, shouts and yells, our friend the Moaner was in rare form. He was a virtuoso, a regular Mahler of the moan, a Bartok of the bellow. He started slow, working the lower octave range, but soon begane to punctuate his overture with louder outcries and pleas for drugs, liberally peppering the score with profanities and invectives. Jesus was referenced regularly, as were some of His lesser relations. Most adjectives were NOT complimentary.

I looked at J again. What the hell was going on in there? Was my roommate dying? Had he lost a body part? A finger? A limb? MY GOD, was my roommate HEADLESS? Was he a HEADLESS, LIMBLESS SHELL? In my pain-exhausted and narcotic-infused mind, worst-case scenarios began to form.

A doctor wandered through and I, already stressed from the hours I had spent broken, stopped him. "My friend," I said, gesturing to the curtain, "appears to need some help." And for a blessed moment, the moaning ... stopped.

The doctor nodded and stuck his head out the door. Soon a little school of medical types appeared, waddling in behind the doc, as a line of baby ducks, snapping on fresh latex gloves with precision. One by one they all disappeared behind the mysterious Curtain of Doom, until, like the Moaner, the only signs of their presence were the music of their voices and the barely-containing bulging of the drape.

The drape twitched.

"Onto your side," ordered an officious voice.

Rustling. Someone's back, covered in curtain, pressed into my I.V. I shifted over.

"Hmmm. I need the (murmur murmur murmur)," said Officious Voice.

A nurse fluttered out from the Curtain of Doom, blood dotted across his gown. He grabbed something from the supplies and bustled back.

Silence. Then ...

"AH! Ohggodohgodohgodohjesuschristohlordhelpmejesus." A new fact: the Moaner was very religious, indeed. Christian, even. Except,

"FUCKING HELL."

Ok, well. Maybe not.

More rustling, more movement. And then, the nurse uttered the phrase that I will remember for the rest of my life, the words that gave us at last a dreadful, terrible glimpse into what lived behind the Curtain, and what kind of horror could be visited there:

"Doctor, do you want the 3" to tape back the buttock?"

Oh the abomination. The sheer terror of it all. The Moaner wasn't without a finger, a limb or even a head. No, it was worse, a million time worse. It wasn't that he lacked something he was naturally supposed to have, it was that he had something he SHOULDN'T. And I share with you, dear reader, one of the saddest reasons ever to have to go to the emergency room: my roommate, the Moaner, had out-of-control hemorrhoids.

I looked at J as the Moaner revved up, the nurses bustled and the tape ... taped. And for a moment, despite the stress, despite the needles stuck in me and the whoomphing pain pulsing up my legs, despite the fact that another human was suffering just inches away from where I lay, I let the drugs do their work as I gave in to the ridiculousness of it all and laughed until I could laugh no more.

It's Going to Be a Bright, Bright, Bright Sunshiney Day

So. Let's see. Hmmm, it's been a few days so I'm sure SOMEthing has happened. Let's break it down, old school, shall we?

• Work: Work is insane. I have no other way to put it. If my head doesn't explode by the end of this calendar year I will be absolutely ASTOUNDED. I am in meeting after meeting after meeting about the large projects we are taking on, and just the *meetings* are a lot of work. We haven't even gotten to the real "work" of the projects yet! Thankfully I have a amazingly great team (Hi, K, J, A, S, M, F and A!). On Friday a few of us revived one of my favorite traditions, the "Ice Cream Benches," where we grab ice cream and then go sit on the little hidden patio down the hall while enjoying the summer warmth. Thank goodness for these sanity-saving kinds of moments!

• Home: I'm able to get around the house much more easily, as evidenced by the fact that on Friday night (gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!) I was able to get into my beloved hammock -- with J's assistance, of course. It was amazing, actually. The weather has been beyond beautiful the last few days, sunny and 80s. We worked in the yard yesterday (ok, *J* worked in the yard as I sat in the hammock and directed) until we were actually sweaty, and plans for the summer home improvement season are slowly taking shape.

• Friends: It was a great weekend to get together with friends. Cath came over for a visit and dinner at the King & I (Cath would say I still have squid breath from my dinner choice; I beg to differ). After, we listened to 80s club music and journeyed to Garth's to meet up with J and Kim and Dave and the assembled Geeks for a small get-together. There was "Rock Band" and munchies and visiting, which added up to a lovely evening. I didn't even get home until after midnight -- like a real grown-up!

• MBLF: Like I mentioned, I'm moving around a little more easily and am not hurting quite as much as I had been. I'm icing a lot because the swelling is a little intense but PT is helping the leg get stronger and my therapist isn't too worried that I'm hurting myself. I'm just going to keep trucking along!

And now J and I are folding laundry and watching that 1988 cinema classic Sorority Babes at the Slimeball Bowl-a-Rama, which just issued the memorable line "I have your pants." A meta-statement for us all, really.

Chillin'

And so a quiet Sunday morning. I'm sipping cocoa, with cats Bina and Ramad curled on the bed next to me, sleeping. Rarely do they look this sweet and innocent, so this is lovely. Yesterday I had a bit of a crazy day: visited the nurning home and saw my grandmother, went to Target (good sale on sunhats, y'all!), and generally tooled about. Then I spent the evening with an iced, elevated foot so today I can walk again.

Snow is in the air, sadly, but by the end of the week it should be spring again. Soon I'll dislodge the cats, arise, and go to Wegmans so my little family has food for the week. It seems a good day to bake, so I think I'll do that as well ... almond cookies, anyone?

Oot and Aboot

I turned my face to the right and the sun shone a golden red through my closed eyelids, the warmth almost like a scald after months of nothing but distant, pale, watery white light. The passenger-side power window whirred downward, unused to the movement, and the wind swept in abruptly, bringing the smell of wet earth and growing green things. My hair whipped wildly, plastering itself across my mouth and tangling ferociously at the ends so that soon my fingers would not be able to comb through more than an inch or so before becoming snarled. I clutched my iPod, listening as Prince's voice came over the radio (volume at 8) and told me that he didn't want to stop 'til he reached the top because baby, you know it -- he's a star. It was evening. It was painless. It was spring, and I remembered.

Earlier in the day, I had tea with my friend Barb. We chatted about the weather, her children and granddaughter, our pets. At one point, we talked about our weekends and the gorgeous weather we had enjoyed. I told her that I had spent my Sunday working in the yard, even had a little pink around the edges of cheeks and on my forehead from the sun. The warmth had soaked into my sweatshirt, into my skin, until even my bones had a blazing moment of radiating heat for the first time in what seemed a century. I had stood, I told Barb, in the grass and mud, with my eyes closed and barely-steady legs planted, face tilted toward the sky, feeling the sun burn into me, baptize me, with it pure, pale-pink mark.

"The thing is," I told her. "The thing is that, ever since everything happened, I appreciate it all more. I understand it all more. I don't take it for granted, not a moment. Not a second." I felt embarassed to admit it; I felt even more embarassed that such a common event like standing -- standing! -- in my yard made form, even now in the retelling, a rush of hot tears behind my eyes.

Barb was silent for a moment, and took a long sip of tea out of her Eeyore mug. She looked at me. "What a gift," she said quietly.

Call Me Lefty

An exciting 24 hours here in Brokenleftfootville! To whit:

Wearing the Shoes

Dear Das Boot:

This is so hard to say after our close, long-term relationship, but ... I don't need you anymore. It's not you, it's me. I need to stand on my own. Aww, don't cry, baby. We've had our time, but now it's time to renew some old acquaintances with my friends Chuck and Chuck below. Sorry. Keep in touch, ok?
Taking the Stairs

Up the down staircase, that's me. A landmark today was that I actually walked up my front walk and stairs! Just don't ask me to go DOWN the stairs, because gravity is a bitch.

Wielding the Cane

I am no longer 112 years old! Now I'm merely in the retirement age range -- i.e. I no longer use a walker but a cane (and, you know, wheelchair for long tours). Jaunty, no? Now all I need is my new top hat and tails, and we're off. (Semi-)Vertical at last!

Ha. Hahahaha. HA!

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