Rules are safety. If there are no lines to color in, your picture will most likely suck. Crossing the street at the cross walk keeps you from getting killed. Walk however the fuck you want, but do it in the cross walk. This is my life, this is my credo. There is nothing as soothing as going through a system. Some people hate it, I embrace it.
This has never been so clear to me as it was the night before last. I had been feeling sick all day. In fact, I have been feeling like shit for a week or better. Not in a specific way, there have been some specific symptoms and all, but for the most part I just feel like dog shit. My girlfriend is sick. My sister and father are sick. Half my work is sick. SO it stands to reason, that I am sick. But I must be dying, right? Anyway, so I’m feeling like shit and feeling bad about life in a general way, I’m pretty stressed. I can’t seem to find solutions, but only more problems. I can’t concentrate on anyone of them long enough to work through it: the dishwasher, should I go back to school (by go back I mean enter college for the first time), I need to plant hte flower bulbs, why has my hand been numb for six months? If I tell the doctor she’ll want me to do an MRI, I’m sure I have at least one herniated disk that means back surgery, I can’t afford that, but I sure am sick of the numbness in my hand, I want to get my girl’s friends car fixed. What I need to finish the fence, I need to cover the back porch, why did I start smoking again...
Shit like that. I know it does no good to sit and worry without looking for solutions, but still. So I’m sitting in my chair and my chest starts hurting. It’s about 7:30 PM. I try to ignore it. I had an EKG six months ago and I’m fine. But it feels funny. It’s a weird pulsing kind of pain, it’s lower and more to the left of my normal pain that is apparently a result of heart burn. So I sit there and try to play video games. I skip smoking any weed, because I know it will make it all worse. So, I sit. It hurts. Why does it heart like that? Fuck. I’m fine, I know I’m fine. This is going to be nothing.
It gets on to be about bed time. I go to bed. I can’t sleep. It hurts to bad. Why the fuck does it feel like that? So I try sitting on the couch. My lady won’t sleep because I’m freaking out. I sit on the edge of the bed. It’s about 11:00. I can’t breath now. I feel like I can’t take a deep breath. I feel like I’m hyperventilating.
I try calling a doctor friend, but he never answers the phone. He only calls to confirm the latest scoop that he’s heard about me. Then I call like a jack ass for six months without him returning a call... but I digress.
According to the Internet, I have every single symptoms of chest pain. There is no choice, I have to go to the Emergency Room. Lucky for me, I live like two blocks from it.
So we drive there. I’m apologizing the whole time. I know this is just another panic attack, but it feels so weird and I don’t want to die. I’m a fat guy, twenty-eight years old or not, I don’t fuck with chest pain. So we go to the ER and walk in. There’s a little desk, we have to stand behind a yellow line.
"Do you need to be seen today?" A girl who’s probably like 19, has two facial peiricings, and is wearing pajamas. They weren’t scrubs, they were pajamas.
"Yeah." I mumble from behind the yellow line. She asks what’s wrong with me. For a moment, I believe she cares, I want to tell her about the dishwasher, the broken BMW, my numb hand and everything else, but I remember that I just need to stick to the issue at hand. "I’m having some chest pain."
"Follow me." She says. I start to feel safe. There’s a procedure for chest pain and I don’t have to wait in line just yet. She takes my vitals. Then I’m led else where and she starts putting stickers on me. She reaches under my shirt and doesn’t have me take it off. I don’t know if this awkward or if I should be grateful. I’m not the sexiest dude when I’m shirtless, so maybe it’s better if I die with it on. I almost forget about my chest pain, I’m here for some test now. She hooks a bunch of wires to the stickers. She turns on a machine for about 30 seconds prints something and then disconnects. This all feels so routine. It feels so safe. I feel better. My lady is crying. She thinks I’m going to die. I smile a bit because I know that I won’t die now; I’m in a system. Systems rarely fail.
"I’m going to take you to a triage nurse and go show this to a doctor." I’m in the system. If I start dying right here, I know that they have a flow sheet for that as well. It feels good, like there is no chance of chaos. I know that’s bullshit, the law firm I work for has sued this hospital so many times for malpractice.
The triage nurse is ugly. Not in a specific way, just in general. There is nothing attractive about her and her face is saggy, her skin rough, and her upper lip has an implication of a moustache. I hate her. She ask me questions, the same ones I’ve already been asked. Rate my pain 0-10, how frequent, is it sharp, dull, or what? The girl with the facial piercing comes back and hands her the EKG printout and says the doctor says its fine. I feel relieved, but now I start to worry that perhaps my lung is collapsing, or perhaps a stroke, maybe a blood clot (is that the same as a stroke). My lady pokes me and says "that’s good."
I get shuffled out to a little tiny cubicle in a row of three. This is where the paperwork gets done. The girl in it is fat. She didn’t look as old and tired as the triage nurse, but she is still fat. She has cleavage pouring out of a pink wife beater and big necklaces falling into her boob canyon. She’s trashy, but nice. She reminds me of the kind of girl who thought she was a gangster chick when she was younger. I didn’t look at her nails, but I’m sure she had fake ones. In between checking me in, she is arguing with some other lady about why she clocked out and is still working. The other lady didn’t want to just leave the patient sitting there.
I go to a waiting room. There’s a few people sitting. There is one who’s bleeding from the hand, but not much. He’s young with his mother. There’s another couple people sitting staring. We all have our bracelets, most of us have our support system with us. A loud girl appears from somewhere walking in the hall, she’s wearing her pajamas and she is walking in a way that suggest that she thinks her flabby, cheap pajama clad ass is nice. She is either talking loudly to herself "People are fucking stupid." or talking on a cell phone head set. I make a point of not validating her existence by looking up. I hope she dies. She keeps walking about. She is with the man quietly hiding behind the fish tank waiting to be called. She is a big trashy middle finger being held up at respectable society. I hate her so much. We read newspapers and wait. Trashy girl and her sister spill coffee and are told to clean it up. They buy salted nuts after borrowing money from the man behind the fish tank. He suggest she get a job. She says "I have a job, it’s called taking care of you; cleaning your dirty drawers." The man falls silent. I don’t think he wants to discuss his underwear in public with a stupid loud girl. I’m not sure if he’s her dad, boyfriend, or what. I’m sure he hates her. Stupid girl wants people to notice her. Luckily, everyone refuses to. She wanders off.
I get called and put in a room. More stickers are stuck to me. The ones from the EKG are still there. I guess that’s so they can hook me back up faster if I need one quickly. This makes me feel safe. Now there are just three or four new stickers with snaps on them. They are for a heart monitor. A little thing is clipped to my finger. A blood pressure cuff is put on. I feel safe wrapped up in all my monitors. If there is something wrong. They will know.
The new nurse is nice. She’s a pretty black girl in purple scrubs. She seems to barely notice I’m alive and I like that. She’s not worried about me. My girlfriend is tired. I try to get her to go home and I’ll call her when I’m done, but she says no. We wait. We are next to a blanket warmer. People come in and get blankets. An EMT tells us it’s a good way to meet people. I wonder if he would have said that if I was in more distress.
There is a man on the other side of the wall and curtain from me. I’m not sure what his deal is, but he’s grunting. I decide that he has a kidney stone he is passing. I base this on nothing.
Eventually, a doctor comes in. He talks to me. Tells me that I have a viral infection and that’s what made my chest hurt and I got myself worked up and I hyperventilated. He’s going to give me a chest x-ray "to make sure nothing else is going on." I don’t know what this means, but I don’t ask. He tells me to quit smoking or this could become all too routine and eventually it will be something real. I haven’t smoked cigarettes since. He gives me pills to calm me down. My girl friend looks at me, as if to say, I told you to take those earlier. I wouldn’t though, because I didn’t want to die in my sleep.
I don’t see the doctor again. The x-ray guy comes in. I like him. He’s super nice. I think he might have been stoned. Maybe super tired. He gives my x-ray. I start playing with the monitor thing clipped to my finger. I find that if I squeeze it, I can make the line go flat on the monitor. I do that for a while. The nice nurse comes back. She tells me I can go home. I get ready and we leave.
I’m all slurry and happy with the pills. I go home and sleep. My chest still hurts.
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