out my bedroom window while working this afternoon

Last Saturday my mom drove me to the hospital so I could sit in a creepy recliner and get started on the new medication I’m trying.  I’m terrified of planes, tunnels, and small spaces, but they get me where I need to go so I deal with them from time to time and pretend I’m fine.  I had that same feeling when I was checking in and the nurse was starting my IV.  That whole, Okay, so I’m doing this thing that’s making me panic but I will play it cool and just not think about it.  Much.

Chances are that this medication will work, will get me off the eighteen pills I take every day, and won’t leave me with any of the potentially fatal possible side effects.  Having a shot of Benadryll in the IV first did help me to mellow out, and I even finally took a nap about a half hour before I was finished.

Hospitals are weird places.  I was feeling cranky Saturday and for four or five hours kept muttering to myself, That is a *curtain* between our recliner areas, *not a wall*  Shut up, already.

I got to hear a woman’s son pontificate (and I do mean pontificate) about on the job safety, health care, politics, and something else that I was able to avoid by listening to music with my iPhone headphones that only work in one ear and smushing the other ear into my pillow.  Some people just know they have a captive audience, and so they talk to the other people they’re with extra loud to, what, impress the rest of us?  Like we’re going to hop up and roll our IV stands over and say, Hey!  You are so onto something. Mind if I move my recliner over here so I can hear you more clearly? 

There was a young guy there, though, with his very ill father.  I didn’t see them, really, just a little bit of the incredibly frail man’s legs through gaps in my curtain and theirs.  He’d arrived late, and the son was very plain and direct with the nurse.  No excuses or anything, just, He is very weak today. 

Later he walked to the hallway to quietly make a call.  I couldn’t see him, but I pictured him with his hand cupped around the phone.  Can you bring Daddy’s dilaudid? he said quietly, I brought him down today.  Can you bring it?  Please?

And soon the mother, the wife, arrived and I decided to quit feeling bad for myself.  I’m fine, really, so I just took a nap.