Sirens, Sheets and Plastic Shackles

I was at the mercy of the hospital staff now. As previously told, I was hauled on the gurney through hallways and passages and the haunted forests and plunked down in a bed.

Actually, it is kind of cool to be pushed down those hallways. Kind of a amusement park ride. It seemed as if the Orderlies, if such people are still called that, moved quite fast, finessing the corners without a bump and missing any blurry passerby.  (I believe at one point of my stay I heard the nurse call for a transport specialist, but perhaps I was partially delireous.)

That had been the first of several such adventures rides I would experience.

I can remember the next events, but not necessarily in order. It is like trying to catalogue the

landscape while inside a whirlwind. I know a nurse came in and she put an infusion hookup in my right arm. This is part of what is commonly referred to as an IV. It is the part plugged into the patient via a needle. There is a little short hose of a connector attacked that can be plugged into the IV tubing.

I hate needles, but nonetheless, for good measure or just for the heck of it maybe, she put an infusion hookup in my left arm, too. They never really did anything with the left one after that. What was it, for, Balance?

Anyway, she did hang a bag of something on the pole and run a tube from it to my right arm. I was now tethered to my bed by a plastic chain.

Another uniformed lady appeared, jammed a butterfly needle in my arm and drew out four vials of blood.

I did mention I hate needles, didn't I?

A technician then came in and did an ultrasound. I can't recall if it were my chest or stomach. I only know no needles were involved.

Then they all left me alone, but not for long. They had hardly stepped out until I rang for the nurse. It was bedpan time. I'm not sure if I ever used a bedpan before in my life, but it sure became a fixture now every quarter hour  for  the next couple or so days. It was an easy on and off, because all I had been left wearing was this thin hospital gown with the air conditioned back. It was only tied up at the neck, so it was definitely quick open; frankly it was sort of never closed. The bedpan itself was like a saddle, you kind rocked along with the flow, if you know what I mean.

Man, I was hit with terrible floods of diarrhea. I can see why people die from it. Unattended, you would probably suffer rapid dehydration. I understand part of whatever was in the IV was for the purpose of keeping liquids in my body.

I kind of hate putting people out if I can do it myself. The bathroom didn't look far away and I got it in my head I could make it in there. As my Pastor often says, "Br-r-r-k! Wrong Answer!" I threw my legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Immediately alarm bells began filling the air and people came running from all directions.

"Where are you going?" One of them asked as a couple of them grabbed me.

"I'm going to the bathroom," I responded.

"No, you're not, you have to get back in bed." I was still resisting, completing forgetting I was attached to an IV as well. "You're going on the floor, you know?"

I glanced down and sure enough, I was. I got back in bed. My attempt to save people the trouble of waiting upon me had resulted in them having to scrub the floor AND change the bed. I was indeed imprisoned upon that bed.

There was nothing very dignified in having this disease. Not only is it annoying to have to ride the bedpan constantly, in these circumstances a parade of people filed through who got to see my normally hidden equipment and probably the most humiliating thing of all is to have some strange woman wiping your bottom.

Along with the seemingly never ending diarrhea (where is it all coming from) there were other tortures.  Every morning the Vampire would show up and collect her vials of blood. She was one of the few people there that didn't appear to have a sense of humor. Twice a day a nurse would appear and inject me in the stomach with a needle and four time a day a nurse would squirt a fowl-tasting elixir down my throat. I wasn't able to eat anything and no one had really told me anything either.

And no one in the outside world, other than my wife, even knew I was here. My wife didn't even know where they had taken me. I had no means of communicating to the world at large, no computer, no phone, nothing. I feared I would never get out of the place.