a hospital story

He was right. It has been a long time since I've written. Too long. I guess that's how it goes; life gets in the way from telling stories sometimes. You get busy with living, occupy yourself with creating memories and doing things to have stories to tell later. I have a few good ones - stories, that is - since the last time I posted. I could write about how I escaped from the Davis emergency room, IV still stuck in my arm like a pesky metal splinter attached to a tube. I pulled that fucker right out and applied pressure to stop the bleeding. It really wasn't that difficult. The most difficult thing about the experience, other from my worrying about how big the hospital bill was going to be, was wondering (and not knowing) what the hell was wrong with me. How about this: I'll begin at the beginning.

I was in Davis last week, with Richard. We were just sort of having a lazy day, a lazy afternoon, that involved a lot of lying around in the bedroom, and some not-so-much lying around in the bedroom, if you get my drift. We were sleeping - or at least, he was sleeping. I was trying to sleep. We had eaten an edible pot product and the effect was starting to really kick in. Unfortunately, I was on my period, and my cramps started kicking in as well. I remember asking him if he had any ibuprofen or asprin - he didn't. So I got up out of bed and left his room, thinking perhaps one of his roommates did or I could find some in the bathroom. There wasn't any within eye sight in the bathroom, so I ventured into the kitchen and found some on the shelf above the sink. At this point, the pain was intensifying, quickly. It was white hot. I remember almost doubling over at the sink as I popped 3 200mg pills into my mouth, turned on the faucet, cupped my hand under the water and brought it to my mouth. I swallowed the pills. The pain got worse. I started feeling very, very weak. Dizzy. Like, trouble walking, dizzy, like, hands against the hallway as I walked back toward his bedroom to hold me up, dizzy.

I stopped outside his bedroom door and put the my hand on the door handle. I paused. It was as if I knew that I wasn't going to be able to open the door. My body was getting ready to give out, preparing to re-boot itself, seconds away from a ctrl+alt+delete, physiological soft reset sort of thing. I knew I was close. I turned to look at Richard's roommate, who was sitting in his bedroom to the left, door open, playing guitar. "Can you help me open the door?" I asked him, forcing myself to speak up so he could hear me, straining to enunciate. "I think I'm going to faint" may have come out of my mouth, a mere mumble. Perhaps it never escaped my lips at all.

He jumped up and opened the door. I entered into a darkened room. The next thing I remember, I was crumpled up on the floor, back hurting, head hurting, wondering why I was crumpled up on the floor, wondering why my back and head hurt, confused, Richard standing over me, holding my face in his hands, trying to wake me up, repeating my name, attempting to lead me back to this world from wherever I had gone, attempting to get a hold of my quickly-escaping consciousness, trying to pull me out of the black and back into the blue. Everything was moving in slow motion and when he spoke to me, his voice sounded like it was coming from verrrrry far away, like the sound was traveling underwater through a tunnel.