A Funny Thing Happened . . . The Conclusion!

So.  There I was.  Exhausted. In pain.  Missing my family.  Basically just about as miserable as a person can be.  There never seemed to be enough drugs or quiet.  The nurses kept the door to room 666 wide open in case Satan decided to try and go for a stroll again.  When they wheeled her out for some tests I offered a nurse a million dollars to drop her down a flight of stairs.  Hmmm.  Perhaps not my most Christian moment.  I think hanging with the Devil was starting to rub off on me.  I am never a very nice person when I’m tired.  And tired is something I was every second I was in the hospital.  There seems to be this unspoken rule at hospitals, where, if you are asleep, someone must immediately wake you up.  It doesn’t even need to be for a good reason.  At one point, after I had just drifted off, pumped all full of wonderful drugs, a woman came in my room and shook my foot.  I cracked a bleary eye.  What the heck was this?  Why on earth was this woman waking me up after such a horrible night?  “Hello”, she said. “I’m from the Department of Hand Washing and Sanitation.  I wanted to explain to you about the proper way to wash your hands with soap and hot water and the proper way to use Purell”, (cue idiotic smile).  I have never wanted to punch anyone in the face more, and believe me, I often wanna punch people in the face.  How anyone thought that this enthralling lecture couldn’t wait until I was awake was beyond me.

It wasn’t all bad at the hospital.  I mean it was, but some of the bad was funnier than the rest.  Like this student nurse who came to visit me at 3 in the morning to take “my vitals”.  He was a nice enough fella, but he had a very thick, I want to say Caribbean, accent.    He was fiddling around in the dark trying to set up his gear, when he turned and looked at me and said, “Can I lay down”?   Umm. Scuse me?  Now, my first thought was that this was a little unorthodox.  When did nurses start lying down with their patients?  What are they teaching in nursing school anyway?  I thought I’d better clarify.  “What?”, I asked.  “Can I lay down?”, he repeated.  Hmm.  Yep, that is definitely what he said.  Weird.  Then I began looking at my bed and making assessments.  I really didn’t think there was enough room for two of us. (Give me a break. I was taking a lot of drugs).  I thought I’d better clarify again.  “What?”.  Then he starts pointing at my lap and saying, “Can I lay down?  Lay down!”  What the?  Then I realized he was pointing to the button pad in my lap.  I contained two buttons for the lights.  The whole time he’d been asking me to turn the damn lights on, but his accent was so heavy I didn’t understand.  We had a good chuckle over that.  I will go to my grave believing he was asking to lay down!

Then there was my 6:30am visitor.  Let’s call him Antoino.  My, my.  There I am, it’s day 3 and I haven’t had a shower in about 50 hours.  I am a disgusting, sweaty, smelly mess.  As I am laying in bed, simmering in my own filth in walks Antonio pushing a cart.  Wow.  He is quite the specimen.  Tall, dark and super handsome.  He had this whole dangerous Cuban thing going on.  Mucho nice.  He looked down at me and said in a sexy Latin accent, “You wanna wash?”.  Oh man I wish I could’ve seen my own face.  I just about died.  Now some people would consider this a no-brainer.  Handsome man wants to give you a sponge bath?  Heck yeah!  And you know, maybe 15 years and 60 pounds ago I would agree with them.  But as I sat there in my sweat and grime I knew there was NO FREAKING WAY that this man was going to see me nekkid.  I didn’t know what was worse, that he would see me naked or that he would think I was a dirty pig who didn’t want to be clean.  As I laid there with my mouth gaping open I tried to think up something to say.  Finally I squeaked out that I thought I was going home that day and I would just wait and have a shower at home.  I think he bought it.  He said “ok”, then he pushed his cart  over to Satan.  I thought, oh you poor man.  He approached her with no idea what he was getting into.  He said in his sexy voice, “You wanna wash?”  and she said, “Sure”.  A flurry of images that could only be born in the pits of hell ran through my mind.  Oh that poor handsome man.  But, he gave her a bowl of water and a cloth and a bottle of soap and turned and left.  Ooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh.  What can I say.  I was really stoned!

Things with Devil woman did not improve.  I won’t even get into the time I tried to help her in the middle of the night and she started screaming at me to, “mindyourownbusinessyoursuckasslittlesuckupIdon’tneedyourfuckinghelp”, blah,  blah, blah.  By morning I was done being Little Miss Nice Guy.

Now, at this particular hospital, they won’t let you go home until you can get by on oral painkillers.  If you still need to be injected with “the good stuff”, you have to stay.  By day three I was losing my mind.  Every time Satan opened her ugly mouth, my whole body would clench up causing a ridiculous amount of pain in the collarbone, neck and shoulder and I kept having to ask for shots.  I was very upset about this, because all I wanted to do was go home.  I decided to call my hubby for moral support.  I must admit, as soon as heard his voice I started to cry.  I wanted to be home so badly.  I did however, use this phone call as an opportunity to let Satan know just what I thought of her and her behaviour.  I cried into the phone, “Baby, I really wish you and the boys could come and visit me, but you can’t. There is no way. (And then extra loud), BECAUSE MY ROOMATE IS SUCH A FUCKING FOUL MOUTH BITCH, I WOULDN’T WANT HER WITHIN A HUNDRED FEET OF MY CHILDREN!”.   Room 666 got extra quiet.  Satan had gotten the message.  She didn’t talk to me again.

My victory was short lived however.  An hour later when the nurses came to take her for some more tests, as she was wheeled past my bed she said, “Oh, there’s that blubberin’ little crybaby”.  Sigh.  Some fights are just lost causes. 

Through some miracle, the hospital released me that afternoon.  My sweet hubby came and picked me up and drove me home.  I have never been so happy to be home.  Ever.  I crawled into my bed and slept for 8 hours straight.  Within a week I was off the heavy duty pain meds I thought I would have to take forever and within 3 weeks I could give my boys a hug.  I thought coming off the painkillers would be a problem because according to the nurses they were, “a highly addictive narcotic”, but I really didn’t have any problem with them.  There was something else that I had a much bigger problem letting go of.  Spending 3 days and nights with the Devil Woman had taken its toll.  She was such a poisonous, nasty, evil person, and I never realized just how much she affected me until I was in my own home again.  I didn’t just feel comfortable back in my own home. Or happy.  Or relaxed.  I felt safe.  I truly felt as if I were safe from all her evil and hatred.  Safe knowing that she would live out the rest of her miserable life and I wouldn’t have to be a part of it anymore;  that I would no longer be hurt by her evil words.  Still now, months later, I find I am highly sensitive to seeing people be mean to each other.  Whether it’s in real life or a movie or in a book, if I’m seeing someone be mean and abusive to another person I get very upset and I feel it in a way I never did before.  I guess that’s a good thing.  I am much more likely to stand up in defense of someone now, which is great for them, not so great for me if I get my lights punched out for interfering, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take.  I have to say though, if this was the lesson God wanted me to learn, I think he could have found and MUCH less painful way to do it!

I hope you all liked this story.  I know it’s a little long winded.  I will be posting it on my new blog, which I encourage you all to check out at crazymichy.blogspot.com.  It will be filled with my take on all the crazy things that happen in my life and all the things I find interesting.  I swear I just attract funny, so check it out!

Michy