This Is Spinal Tap. repost.
May 26th, 2006 by Kevin
I am laying on my left side, both hands squeezing those of the med student in front of me in a death grip, our knuckles pale white. I know I am hurting her and I don’t care. More med students stand behind her chair and in front of the flowers. The room seems too dim. I am terrified.
My face is swollen, puffy, nearly unrecognizable. I feel like a water balloon. This is not my life. This cannot be my life.
“You have to relax. You have to relax and hold still.”
Or what?
I want to be anywhere but here, anywhere, anywhere: doing my taxes, changing a flat tire, cleaning up baby poop, all of the above at once. Anywhere but here looking at this girl, this perfect girl with her perfect straight brown hair, this perfect girl with her perfect white coat who has probably never been sick in her whole perfect life.
Not very long ago I was feeling pretty fucking perfect myself. Maybe not lab-coat perfect, but not so bad.
Get me the fuck out of here, I plead with my eyes, but she is watching the doctor and wincing a little from my grasp. I hope I break her hand.
I still don’t understand what is happening to me. One day I am at work and things begin to fade. Suddenly there is a flurry of doctors, referrals, more doctors, tests, more doctors, and then I am here for a week, dosed with steroids, which at first makes me laugh.
I am Hans and he is Franz and we’re going to pump *clap* YOU UP!
It is almost a joke to me at first. I don’t think it will last. It will go away, surely. Doctors fix things.
Now I am here again and it is not nearly as funny because the shit isn’t working. They said it would work but it doesn’t, and this just doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen to people. You don’t just stop seeing.
I’m not old.
I think of my son’s face, so small and smooth.
There is a small crowd at my back, a group of young, fresh-faced people watching me in my backless green gown and purple cotton underwear (thank Christ I am not wearing a thong), and someone asks me about my tattoo as if I am supposed to answer right now, as if I am supposed to be distracted by fucking small talk right now, right now at this very moment in which someone is about to jam a fucking needle into my spine.
Well sit right down, young man, let me tell you all about it. I was fifteen, and- FUCK YOU.
I am already in a mood today because no one will bring my son, and I wonder why the hell no one can be bothered to drive him here, it’s not as if it’s that fucking far, and now this, now this.
I cannot be sick. I am the only one who can do my job. I am the only one who can take care of my child. I just bought a brand-new car. This is ridiculous. This is just ridiculous.
I am a young upwardly motherfucking mobile urban professional with a kid, for the love of Christ. I am not some sick person laying in a hospital bed in a hospital gown with a bunch of college kids staring at me like I’m a creature in a fish tank.
They tell me I’m going to feel some pressure, pressure, right, because last time I checked no one was offering me any drugs and that is one big motherfucking needle, but strangely enough I do only feel pressure, and then the worst sort of horrible, horrible, oh GOD, what the fuck; and then I am squeezing that bitch’s hands like I am going to mash them into pulp and she’s pulling away, and they cannot get the fucking needle in.
What?
I have a crooked back. Apparently this presents a problem.
I think I just may catch a break and then there is more pressure and then I hear it, oh God I hear it, and there is a grinding sound, and when I realize it is the needle sawing between my vertebrae I almost throw up.
“It’s in.”
Oh dear Jesus God stop.
It does not hurt, it does not hurt at all and I’m not sure why because I didn’t get pain medication (why?) but it’s just so fucking gross, just so fucking gross and wrong and gross and wrong and just GAH take it out take it out take it out.
I imagine the spinal fluid going into the syringe, an acid yellow.
What are they looking for??
The medical students lean and stare and ooh and ah and I want to kick them all until they are dead. Fucking teaching hospitals. The girl whose hand I clamped is wringing her hand and staring at me as if I have three heads.
Trade places with me and see how pleasant your handshake is, sister.
There are tears rolling down my face and I am ashamed to be leaking like a big stupid baby but I have not made a sound. I have not made a sound throughout this entire medical ordeal, and I will not make a sound.
I will not make a sound until the evening rounds are through, until the midnight checks are finished, until I am confident that everyone is done doing what they do and that I am alone in my sterile room and that I can weep for what I don’t know yet under the thin white cotton blankets in peace.
Phentemine. wrote on 01/9/08 at 12:33 pm :
Phentemine….
Phentemine….