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MAY 22, 2007
NOTES FROM
THE FLOOR
I have spent many hours, while sitting
on the toilet, trying
to find interesting patterns in terrazzo flooring.
Like puffy clouds on a summer day, the random
patterns form seemingly non-random shapes if you stare long enough. For example, in the expanse beneath my feet
as I perch on the throne in my office building, I can pick out a
cartoon bird-type figure (with a long, bendy beak and a mohawk of red
feathers), a frumpy old man with a massive moustache, and, I swear, the
jowly visage
of Babe Ruth. Sometimes
I wonder, in moments of particular boredom, if the patterns hold some
secret code, a fortune that can be
divined like reading tea leaves. Nothing
so far, but I haven't given up.
The other day, I got a close-up view
of the floor, and I
have to say, from a mere two inches away, you don’t see the whimsical
shapes – you see the grime, the footprints, the stray hairs. Then again, maybe I just wasn’t in the mood
for such trivial mind games. I had other
priorities, such as trying to stay alive.
I was waiting for the ambulance, a bit impatiently, because it turns
out that when you're
experiencing the worst pain of your life, you start to kind of panic,
kind of curse the lack of sirens in the distance, kind of freak out: where the fuck are they I'm gonna die here
make them hurry don't let me die. And so on.
As I was saying, I was sprawled on the floor.
Lying
there among the disgusting tumbleweeds of strangers' pubic hairs was
ever so slightly more appealing and less painful
than
sitting on the toilet. It takes a
tremendous amount of pain to not care, not care at all, about random
strangers
seeing you lying on the floor of a public restroom, pants still around
your
knees, alternately mooning and flashing as you writhe in agony. A lot of pain. Basically, it felt like
my
colon was being used by an especially sadistic Boy Scout trying to
earn a
merit badge: the entire expanse was tied into tight, complicated knots
and then
lit on fire.
The EMTs, as they bundled me onto a
stretcher and rushed me
to the ambulance, asked me to rate the pain, on a scale of one to ten. I tried to answer; I threw up instead. Another attempt, same result.
Finally, I squeaked out a reply: “Ten.”
"Twelve" was what I was thinking: this
was much worse than when I had a perforated
colon, which I had
thought, at the time, was a ten – it turns out things can always be
worse. Exponentially stronger, more
profound, more
debilitating, than anything I’ve felt for even a fleeting moment during
the
most severe flare-ups or after any surgery. Worse
even than the experience of drinking GoLytely
before a
colonoscopy. (Rim shot!)
The EMTs didn’t turn on the siren or
run any red lights,
which I suppose should have been the first sign that I wasn’t going to
die,
although since I’m going to get stuck with the bill, I kind of wish
I’d
been treated to the full luxuries on offer. (Then
again, I can imagine insurance companies
listing those as
separate line items on the bill: “RED LIGHTS RUN: 3 at $200 each;
SIREN: 5 instances totaling 1 min. 45 sec., at $645 per minute . . .”)
When I got to the hospital, the
doctors were waiting for me,
“the young man with severe abdominal pain.”
“He has Crohn’s Disease, and he says
the pain is worse than
when he had a perforated colon,” the EMT said gravely.
This was pretty much the only information
they’d been able to get out of me; I really hadn’t been in the mood for
idle
chit-chat.
A nurse rushed in to place my IVs
(yes, plural). I hate IVs.
My veins roll away, and the nurse always keeps
digging anyway;
sometimes, I can’t tell if they’re trying to put a needle in a vein or
mine my
bone marrow. The record is nine tries
before a successful “stick.” This time, I
barely felt them. I didn’t care. I
didn’t flinch. Well, not any more than I
already was, from
everything else.
They started the saline drip while the
doctor interrogated
me about whether or not I tolerated pain medications.
I nodded: yes, I think they’re great.
No bad reactions. She
didn't seem to believe me. Really, I assured her: no
problems. I didn't say it, because I was physically incapable of
yelling, but what I was thinking was: . . . SO GET
ME SOME FUCKING DRUGS ALREADY.
She started talking up some
“stronger-than-morphine”
elixir. Amazing stuff, she said. Knocks out the pain.
Sounds great, doc.
Where is it?
The nurse rushed off, hustling back on
the double with a
syringe full of the stuff.
Five minutes, ten: no effect. “How’s the pain now?” inquired the doctor kept
asking every few seconds. “Still
ten.”
Another partial dose (they were
worried about knocking me
out completely; “stronger than morphine” is apparently pretty damn
strong). Then the rest of the dose. And still ten.
I was pretty sure they were just going
to call the surgeon
and cut me open. Whatever.
Colon, schmolon – I just wanted the pain to
go away, and to eventually, like in the next three months or so, maybe
get out
of the hospital and get on with something approaching a normal life,
with or
without my guts intact.
But no. They
wanted
to some tests first. Abdominal
scan. CAT scan. A
virtual look around, before going in for
the real-life Thrilling Fun Ride Through Doug’s Guts.
It seemed like an awfully passive reaction to such profound pain.
I mean, x-rays are for sprained ankles; when your internal organs are
doing a unision Hindenburg impersonation and the flames can't be
stopped by some of the planet's strongest chemicals, you'd think that
would be the time for something else. Apparently not.
Boy, am I grateful.
Right now, and as I sit here and type
this, with
my colon still intact
(and pizza – real, normal food! – in my stomach) and no IVs in my arms,
I’m
glad they didn’t just whip out the scalpels. Because
as it turned out, there was no perforation. No
literal knots or fire; no massive organ
failure.
Just . . . severe constipation.
Not obstruction, mind you. Constipation. So said the doctor after examining my x-ray results.
By then, the pain medications had
started to work a bit, and
I wasn’t sure I was hearing things properly. I
mean, that couldn’t be right.
“Really? I’ve
been
constipated before. It doesn’t hurt that much. Are you sure?”
Constipation. And
nothing more.
You can fill in the rest of the
details yourself.
Eventually I pooped. Kind of a lot.
By nightfall, I was home in bed, feeling pretty much
fine,
but wondering if that whole thing, the ambulance and the painkillers
that
didn’t work and the x-rays and the inability to speak and the sprawling
on the
floor of the bathroom and the voices of the people in the hall
directing the
EMTs to me and the joyful nausea (because it distracted from the other
pain)
and the . . . and the everything . . . if that had all really happened.
And if it had, and it really hurt that much, many
times
worse than a perforated colon, why was I not dead, or at least still in
the
hospital, hooked up to four IVs, a catheter, a breathing tube, and a
heart
monitor, and under the constant supervision of a glum doctor gravely
noting
my
every breath?
And how could constipation – I mean, really: constipation?! – hurt that much?
Beats me. Apparently.
I’ll ask
the terrazzo
floor tomorrow, from afar.
In the meantime, I realize it offered
one fortune I was slow
to digest, if you’ll pardon the pun: There’s a lot of prune juice in my
future.
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