Hospital

Although intoxicated when he said it, Holzkind had told me that he was an experienced driver, which led me to believe he would be able to handle the five mile drive through back streets to St. Edward’s hospital, and ultimately the mission was indeed accomplished, but not before going through a rather hair-raising adventure. Speed bumps for example, were a new development to Holzkind. Crosswalks too, common around Cedar Hill Park, were ignored. In fact, the only time he did stop was for stoplights (not stop signs, mind you). At one point he spotted an acquaintance of his (well outside the parameters of Cedar Hill) and wanted to say hello. To do so, he simply put the Tahoe in park in the middle of the street and got out of the vehicle. None too happy were the drivers with whom we shared the road, as you can well imagine. Yet, Holzkind had no inhibitions about doing such things. When confronted on the matter by a heavy man of Hispanic ethnicity, Holzkind said, “I’m driving a dying man to the hospital. Show some consideration.” The other man had nothing to say in return.

Holzkind was also due to pick me up after my requisite one day stay of post-surgery observations, but as will happen there were unforeseen circumstances. One being that Holzkind did not show up, the other having to do with medical complications.

The surgeon who performed my operation was a Pakistani fellow whose name I have never been able to remember. He was reputedly a master with the blade, but during a reception for an award ceremony we both attended some time ago, he had called me a “sycophant and a vacuous fuck.” To my face. This, needless to say, left me ill at ease, not only prior to the surgery, but post-surgery as well. As I had no frame of reference for how I was supposed to feel after such an event, and my condition when I came to was one of absurd anguish, I couldn’t help but consider that he may have done some creative tangling with my viscera. But not to worry, I was told, such sensations were to be expected. In addition to this pain, I also had a temperature of one hundred and four degrees that would not subside. Inertis seemed confident that it was viral, although I knew there was really no way for him to know such a thing without tests. With the chemotherapy sucking the life out of me, my body had little other fighting recourse than fever. It was the result of poisoning my body, and I was forced to pay the toll. Sleep of course was not an option, nor was eating, which after two days sent me into a delirium. Nothing prophetic resulted, unfortunately, just spinning walls and colorful lights. How long it lasted I do not know, but when it finally broke, I was down to a grotesque weight and a bit of my peripheral vision was diminished. I was, however, able to start eating again, albeit lightly; soup, Jell-O, Ensure, that sort of thing. Sleep, too, even befell me, rather than drug induced unconsciousness. Bowel movements, however unrewarding, were an event. Inertis was obsessed with my stool, although to use that term for the soupy excreta I was leaking into the pan was flattery. This was the ultimate goal of my stay at the hospital: eat, sleep, and BM. My raison d’être. If I could manage to fall asleep, then awake with an appetite, I was already on cloud nine. But then, if I could actually have a movement later that same day, well, that was the glory of glories, the holy trinity of St. Ed’s. Not that it was a pleasant experience struggling off to the bathroom to perform the acrobatic feat of shitting into a pan without soiling my gown, then calling a pretty nurse in to collect it, but it was what filled my days.

On Halloween night the children from pediatric oncology stormed the halls with gleeful screams and giggles. Some had masks, others were dressed in scrubs, but none could disguise the results of this wretched fucking disease. One of the nurses was kind enough to give me a bag of candy so I could have something to pass out when the most courageous or jaded of the children ventured into my room. The kind of politeness from these children, I had never witnessed before. What, I wondered, made them so?

Around ten o’clock, as the laughter faded away, I was just searching for the remote to switch off the bothersome overhead light, when Spiderman came into my room. She was perhaps four feet tall, in a hospital gown and greeted me with a “Trick or Treat” muffled behind the plastic mask.

“Have you sneaked away when you’re supposed to be back in bed?” I asked.

She adjusted her mask so that the eye-holes were better situated.

“Anyone in there?”

She nodded in the affirmative; her paper sack of treats rustling and her mask nudged again out of alignment.

“Good, as long as we’re clear on that matter. But after this, you must go back to your ward because the nurses will be very worried about you.”

Again the nod and she asked, “How much do you have?”

“Well,” I said, caught a little off guard by such a blunt question after the others who had preceded her were so sweet and demure. This one, it seemed, was on her way to being a hold-up artist. Apparently she had been lying in wait until the others had run the circuit, so that she could then pass through to collect all the remainders. “How much I have, young lady is irrelevant, for you shall receive just as much as the others.”

“No,” she said pulling her mask down so the mouth hole was at her mouth. “I mean, how much longer do you have?”