IT'S JUST A DREAM. GO BACK TO SLEEP

.
Blog number forty and five                                                        Sep. 30, 2006

After my bypass operation, the first thing I remember is a nurse asking me how I'm feeling.  I try to tell her I feel all right, but I can't speak because of the breathing tube stuck down my windpipe.  I shook my head as a response.  I remembered at the time that someone had told me I wouldn't be able to speak with that tube down my esophagus, so I wondered why she asked me a question.  My son Daryl tells me later that he didn't think I was alive, so the nurse did that in order to show him that the doc hadn't killed me.

The next thing I remember is that I was nauseous, so I rang for the nurse and told her my problem.  She said she would give me a shot that would take care of that.  A few minutes later I rang her again and asked for some crackers. She said, "I thought you were nauseous." 

I replied, "I am.  I wanted the crackers to see if that would make me feel better." 

She said, "I haven't given you your shot yet."

Now here's a strange thing, and remember, I was still in ICU, going in and out of consciousness.  Every time I thought of that incident, I remembered the nurse bending down by the foot of my bed and injecting the drug to make my nausea go away, but as I remember it, my head was down there, lower than my feet.  Why that is so, I don't know. I think I subconsciously put my head where my consciousness was.  It was only after I went home, and several weeks after that, that I focused on that experience and realized what I had imagined.  It seemed so real until I really looked into it.  It also seems strange to me that I didn't think anything odd, my head being down there.  Seems odd now, so I guess my mind is catching up with the real reality.  Either that or I'm crazy like my wife says I am.

A very kind nurse pulls the tubes out that were stuck in my chest by telling me beforehand what she was going to do each time, then slapping near the tube while at the same time jerking the tube out.  She also bathed me, which was very welcome.  I sensed a sadness about her -- some tragedy happening or recently happened.  I wish now I had had the where-with-all to tell her how much I appreciated her efforts in my behalf.  Of all the nurses I have ever had, she stands out as the most caring.  I really felt that she was focused totally upon my comfort.

I had another nurse that told me to make sure my private parts didn't show when had to get in and out of the bed.  I told her that I was too sick to worry about my modesty and she said, "I'm not concerned about your modesty.  I'm concerned about mine." 

I thought, "Well, fuck you, lady.  Don't look." 

The last thing done to me was when the doctor came and pulled out the wires that were placed in my body in case I needed a pacer. He didn't do like the nurse did.  He just jerked one out, then the other.  It was the strangest feeling, like a chill inside my chest.  Very weird, very uncomfortable, but not painful.

There is a lot more I could tell, but it ain't all that important.  If I was writing a novel; I could use it to flesh out the story, but I ain't, so I won't.
                                 *********************************

I was watching a reality program last night called, "The Blue Tide" about drug use in Los Angeles.  They were talking to this druggie woman whose boyfriend had just shot himself and she was bandaging her arm, all the while explaining that she shot up there, then would see bugs under the skin and would start picking at it until it was a pretty bad wound.

She then talks about the same kind of wounds she has on her upper arms and pulls her shirt aside to show them, but we can't see them because they are blurred in order to save our sensibilities in some way.  So I'm wondering, why are they showing this while at the same time blurring it so we can't see it?  What's up with that?

I was sitting at Java City on 18th and Capital in Sacramento and I overhear four young men at another table talking about the methadone treatments they have.  I learn that at least one guy is daily - I think, maybe weekly, selling his blood serum to pay for his methadone treatments.  Backing away from the situation, I realize that our society seems to be vampiristic, (don't look for this word in the dictionary. It's my own coinage.) taking blood in exchange for treatment for a condition brought on by the very same society.  Something seems very wrong there.