Laid
up, sick in every part of my body I was. I could lie half on my side
in one precise, impossible to maintain position, that would stop me
vomiting. Any other and I would hurl thick green bile out in to the
charmless papier mache kidney bowls, as vomiting into a kidney will
make you feel better.
I never
dry heaved, as there was always some part of my stomach lining to
tear out and disgorge, probably reaching down into starved duodenum.
No food or liquid could be kept down
Veins
had collapsed due to dehydration, re-acquiring line for fluid an
endlessly painful series of stabs, infection setting in rapidly so
the initial welcome coolness of the perfusing water was replaced by
the hot inflammation of hungry bacteria. First patient opposite was
dying, sharing a room with a nice old chap who's body was slowly
shutting down. Second room-mate had a tracheotomy tube that spat out
of the vagina like incision in his throat and bounced around the
floor like a pen-top.
Defibs
whining in the dead of night, woken too early. Could never rest.
Forced upright for examinations, vomited immediately.
Through
all of this my bladder would not function. The discomfort was unreal,
underneath, alongside and above the nausea. I would drag a drip stand
to the lavatory, begging for relief, and nothing.
The
Emperor Tiberius, I recalled with no satisfaction, had executed men
using a similar procedure. Sweating, near crying.
No
relief.
I
confessed all to the doctors. I had given up. I was now willing to
undergo being touched; to undergo the most horrendous procedure I
could think of.
Catheterisation.
Catherisation.
The touching of my genitals by persons unknown, and then, the
hideous, agonising violation by plastic tubing into my insides, a
nightmare creature made to hurt men and women, and humiliate them,
puking up my insides, puking out my bladder by force into some
fucking bag, dangling at the end of my bed, symbol of internal
failure, the young man so shit he couldn't even piss himself.
I was
offered this stark choice, when I didn't think I would have any.
Catheter? Or megadose of valium?
Easy,no?
I took
the valium, and for the only time in my hospital stay, I was happy.
The old men dying and ejecting breathing aids were forgotten...the
nurses complaining about bed wetting patients, my own vomiting, all
gone. Afternoon drifted by in haze, march sun drifting across the
curiously barred window.
And as
it passed into shadow, the problem was resolved
Copyright Bloody Mulberry 12.04.14
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