Brief Flash of Optimism
Until I am whisked into the changing room sex of Gray’s Anatomy or written into the brilliant word play of St. Elsewhere, I will firmly believe that hospitals are the worst places in the world.
I’m no eastern medicine fanatic, nor do I believe the conspiracy theory I was told by a man on the street a few weeks back who claimed pharmaceutical companies had the cure to HIV and were withholding it from all Americans (aside from Magic Johnson, who received it in Europe). I’ve experienced the power of modern medicine, and am here today only by the good graces of attentive, brilliant hospital-employed doctors and nurses.
But hospitals, I still insist, hold an unmatchable capacity for terrible.
Only at a hospital can you arrive with dread over a day of testing, be run through a gamut of blood sucking lab needles, marinate in self pity and then, as you are about to head out, get smacked in your navel-gazing face by the reality that you are sadder for feeling bad for yourself than for the completely sunny prognosis you are so lucky to hold.
After leaving more blood in pre-admission testing than Rocky Balboa left in Mother Russia and taking far too many deep breathes of stale x-ray room air, I moped to the elevators.
There, I waited for a ride down with a starkly bald woman who may have been anywhere between thirty and sixty years old before the chemicals and radiation ate her soul. She had breast cancer, and, walking as fast as her atrophied legs could carry her, had to be held by her clearly more worried husband, for danger of being bumped in the ribs by a hospital cart. When her doctor happened through the hall, she thanked him with positive words I know I will still never say to those poking and prodding me.
It’s easy to say oh, I’m so lucky, look at the bright side, people so much sicker are so brave. People say it to me all time, with only the best of intentions. But it doesn’t lift my chin an inch from my self-pitying navel stare. This woman did.
I’m not going to say that this makes it all better, or that I’m completely content with an upcoming month of hell. That’d be stupid, and a lie, and why bother lying on my own damn blog. I’m going to be pissed and annoyed and all those other base emotions over the next week, and over the month that follows.
But before I blog about it, I’ll think about that woman. I might never see her again — perhaps because she’ll soon be cured and driving 100 mph her new lease on life in some exotic place like Tahiti, or maybe because she has mere months to live and they won’t let her out of the cancer center much after today.
But I know that by November, I’ll be back roaming New York, getting a late start on alcohol, back on my bike, back milking every last ounce of the life three doctors by then will have gifted me.
And so instead of feeling sorry for myself, I’ll get off my ass and walk as fast as I can, careful not to get hit in the ribs by a hospital cart, of course.
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As an addendum, I want to stress even more that I’m not doing this as catharsis, or as a scratchpad for contrived optimism or to get attention or force people to awkwardly read me wallow in self pity.
And so I’m reaching out to heart surgery communities on the internet, trying to tell my story so that others can more comfortably live theirs, knowing the things they’re thinking are normal and okay and passing.
If you’re one of those people I’ve put this blog out to, know that it’s dedicated to you. And please please please e-mail me. I can’t promise to be as nice as this entry suggests, as it’s not my MO to be positive about life, but we can at least discuss how shitty those automatic breathing tubes are, or, if it applies, how funny it is when you overhear a nurse use the term “penis swab”, as I did today.
Penis swab. Pure gold.
