It seems our physician has come to the conclusion that we are now at the stage of life where "salvaging" should become a part of our conversational lexicon. Came as something of a shock, it did. But if we were honest, we'd say that it was probably a bit overdue.
Never one to lose his sense of humor in the face of grim statistics, I plan to approach my Salvage Business like everything else: Just one more thing to wake up and conquer. I've imagined my Salvage Therapy to include putting a 1963 Chevy Pickup on blocks in the front yard, having a deceased washing machine on the back porch, and a pile of flat tires in the backyard...just in case they come in handy. I had thought the salvage mentality had gone the way of BetaMax with the advent of eBay and recycling. I'm just going through the Garage Sale stage of my life, it seems.
I have a date tomorrow with a vampire - a square-bottomed lesbian who will drain me of several vials of tainted blood. We'll ship them off and see if I qualify for a new clinical trial for the latest, greatest hope of the Aidsy Set, as Randy used to call it. I've been tired for a long, long time. My current headache has lasted for 8 weeks - unabated. I've proven that no amount of Vicodin, Klonopin, Tylenol, Sudafed or Marijuana (concurrently, on at least one occasion) can keep it away. Something's been rotten in Denmark for a little while now, though I didn't mind until I started with the vomiting. That's where we draw the line.
I would rather endure amputation than hurl. Honest. Been that way since time immemorial.
It seems we've exhausted the rather lengthy list of medications that can prolong the beleaguered existence of a person in our condition - or quite nearly done so. We have now officially become a hopeful guinea pig. Hopeful, because there's not yet a guarantee that even the clinical trial is an option. Hence my Interview With The Vampire tomorrow.
We are likely to be uncharacteristically under the weather in the near future and, if history tells us anything, will be unpleasant in the extreme. New medicine does that to us - especially if it makes us hurl. While we are not prone to being maudlin or morbid, we do find refuge in a deep well of nastiness that sustains us in such moments. Who knows how many nurses have been driven from the profession by one of our many hospital stays?
It's all about expectations and predictability. You expect that you won't wake up dead in the morning. (I know that's oxymoronic, but you get my point.) You expect that today will be rather like yesterday and not bring anything shocking to your doorstep. If you'd expected it, you wouldn't have been shocked, no? You hope that your demise is predictable, slow and leaves plenty of time for tidying up around the house: ditching the worst of the porn, cleaning up enough so they don't call you a slob post-mortem, folding your underwear so they remark upon your attention to detail. You hope.
My expectations when hospitalized are that I will be treated like a lazy guest at the Hilton. I will lie there while you wait on me hand and foot (and vein). When I need something, I'll push the little button and you will scamper to me as though you'd been waiting on nothing more than my call light and my request for another ultra-mini can of Coke. Or to change the sheets I've sweat through for the third time in an hour. Or to remove the urinal from the table where I'm going to eat in a few minutes. When my expectations aren't met, I turn into a Nursing Instructor and give the short course in How To Make Your Life Bearable and Mine Unspeakably Pleasant For The Next Few Days. Just give me what I want when I want it and then go away. And smile, for Christ's sake. It's not like you're the one hooked up to the machines. You're getting paid for this and I'm going to get a bill.
I did not expect to be salvaged so soon. But here we are. It's disconcerting, to say the least. But we will continue to picnic and pretend that the big birds circling over head are simply after our tuna salad. And we will continue to laugh. We invite you to at least smile. It takes our mind off things.
Should we be lax in providing new material in the near future, don't worry. We'll either be back soon enough with something provocative and hysterical (to us, anyway) or our sister will post the nice words the newspaper says about us when it's all over. Either way...you'll have at least one more original read. Hell, we may even pre-write our obituary and post it here so we can enjoy it together.
Now that's the way things ought to work. Salvaged or not.
Never one to lose his sense of humor in the face of grim statistics, I plan to approach my Salvage Business like everything else: Just one more thing to wake up and conquer. I've imagined my Salvage Therapy to include putting a 1963 Chevy Pickup on blocks in the front yard, having a deceased washing machine on the back porch, and a pile of flat tires in the backyard...just in case they come in handy. I had thought the salvage mentality had gone the way of BetaMax with the advent of eBay and recycling. I'm just going through the Garage Sale stage of my life, it seems.
I have a date tomorrow with a vampire - a square-bottomed lesbian who will drain me of several vials of tainted blood. We'll ship them off and see if I qualify for a new clinical trial for the latest, greatest hope of the Aidsy Set, as Randy used to call it. I've been tired for a long, long time. My current headache has lasted for 8 weeks - unabated. I've proven that no amount of Vicodin, Klonopin, Tylenol, Sudafed or Marijuana (concurrently, on at least one occasion) can keep it away. Something's been rotten in Denmark for a little while now, though I didn't mind until I started with the vomiting. That's where we draw the line.
I would rather endure amputation than hurl. Honest. Been that way since time immemorial.
It seems we've exhausted the rather lengthy list of medications that can prolong the beleaguered existence of a person in our condition - or quite nearly done so. We have now officially become a hopeful guinea pig. Hopeful, because there's not yet a guarantee that even the clinical trial is an option. Hence my Interview With The Vampire tomorrow.
We are likely to be uncharacteristically under the weather in the near future and, if history tells us anything, will be unpleasant in the extreme. New medicine does that to us - especially if it makes us hurl. While we are not prone to being maudlin or morbid, we do find refuge in a deep well of nastiness that sustains us in such moments. Who knows how many nurses have been driven from the profession by one of our many hospital stays?
It's all about expectations and predictability. You expect that you won't wake up dead in the morning. (I know that's oxymoronic, but you get my point.) You expect that today will be rather like yesterday and not bring anything shocking to your doorstep. If you'd expected it, you wouldn't have been shocked, no? You hope that your demise is predictable, slow and leaves plenty of time for tidying up around the house: ditching the worst of the porn, cleaning up enough so they don't call you a slob post-mortem, folding your underwear so they remark upon your attention to detail. You hope.
My expectations when hospitalized are that I will be treated like a lazy guest at the Hilton. I will lie there while you wait on me hand and foot (and vein). When I need something, I'll push the little button and you will scamper to me as though you'd been waiting on nothing more than my call light and my request for another ultra-mini can of Coke. Or to change the sheets I've sweat through for the third time in an hour. Or to remove the urinal from the table where I'm going to eat in a few minutes. When my expectations aren't met, I turn into a Nursing Instructor and give the short course in How To Make Your Life Bearable and Mine Unspeakably Pleasant For The Next Few Days. Just give me what I want when I want it and then go away. And smile, for Christ's sake. It's not like you're the one hooked up to the machines. You're getting paid for this and I'm going to get a bill.I did not expect to be salvaged so soon. But here we are. It's disconcerting, to say the least. But we will continue to picnic and pretend that the big birds circling over head are simply after our tuna salad. And we will continue to laugh. We invite you to at least smile. It takes our mind off things.
Should we be lax in providing new material in the near future, don't worry. We'll either be back soon enough with something provocative and hysterical (to us, anyway) or our sister will post the nice words the newspaper says about us when it's all over. Either way...you'll have at least one more original read. Hell, we may even pre-write our obituary and post it here so we can enjoy it together.
Now that's the way things ought to work. Salvaged or not.
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