I just want cystic fibrosis gone, exorcised from my body like an evil spirit, where it would hang in the air and I’d shoot it with the most powerful handgun in the world, the .44 magnum. So says Dirty Harry. And I believe him.
I don’t want to keep looking up medical information when I’m sick, thinking I have a medical degree and can diagnose myself on a web site. Don’t all diseases share most of the same symptoms? How many symptoms can there be?
I have everything – every disease known to man and womankind. The only question is which one is bothering me today. Fuck symptom finder. I have them all damn it.
Why can’t I take a probe like the one you stick in a turkey on Thanksgiving and jab it in my thigh and find out what’s wrong with me? And why do I know that if I gave the probe’s readout or report to two doctors, I would get two completely different diagnoses and they might both be wrong. Where’s the third doctor when you need him? On a golf course somewhere, no doubt, or on his yacht or private jet or on the moon, drinking lunar mohitos. Fuck them all. Scratch that. Fuck the ones who suck. Praise and worship the rest. They’re good people.
The eye doctor told me I needed new reading and distance glasses. I thought I’d have to buy two separate pairs, but she told me I could get one pair with “progressive” lenses that covered all distances. Sounded great. Not sure how the magic works, but I love saving money.
Here I am wearing the glasses in question. Finally, no bag over my head, though I'd look better with one on.
To prevent a fashion faux pas, I brought my wife. And after trying on a dozen styles, she helped me choose a pair of tortoise-shell Nike glasses with a green inner frame, which was a hip, youthful touch. They seemed okay, but I didn’t have lenses in them so I couldn’t get a clear image of how I looked. But my wife told me they looked good.
After the frame was picked, the sales guy tried to sell me every 80 dollar add-on I didn’t need. I gave in for the glare protection because that feature might help at night. Even with insurance I got pounded for over 250 dollars.
A week passed and I picked up my glasses. Looking in the mirror with them on, two things happened. First, I realized that I looked like Robert De Niro at the end of Casino when he wore huge old-guy glasses. Second, I couldn’t see clearly because of the progressive lenses, which require you to look out of certain parts of the lens to see close up, medium or far distances. Oh, #!$* me.
The sales guy told me not to worry because it takes a week to get comfortable using them, but not to walk down stairs or drive with them yet. What the?Do I have to visit a mall parking lot like I did at age 15 and learn to drive again in these things? Are you kidding me? How did I go to eyeglass hell and not know it?
I was pretty upset at that point. I looked 80-years-old and couldn’t see well (that is probably how I’ll be at that age if, by some miracle, I outfox CF). Yet, the coup de grâce was still on the way. When I got home, I asked my wife if she thought the glasses looked good on me. She shrugged her shoulders and said something like “I thought they did.” Oh, being married some days. Argh, argh, argh. You thought they did? Past tense? What about now, at this moment?
The real blow to the head came when I tried to use them while doing computer work. Impossible, as they had no sweet spot that allowed me to focus clearly on the computer monitor. I could eek out a “less-blurry” image if I tilted my head sideways at just the right distance, and held one leg in the air, but I wouldn’t be able to maintain that pose for the 10 to 12 hours I spend looking at three monitors.
Give me a new pair and I'll let you live. Maybe.
I hate situations like this where I feel like I got hosed. I wish I were Jack Nicholson with his unlimited funds and volcano temper and I could stand in the middle of the optometrist’s office, with the joker who sold them to me sitting there, and the doctor who told me progressive lens were the way to go looking on, and throw the new eyeglasses to the ground, then jump on them until they became a mass of pulverized Nike plastic.
I’d calmly say: “Now how about selling me a pair of glasses I can see out of and use for work without tilting my head like a curious dog waiting for a treat – a pair that doesn’t make me look like I accidently walked out of the nursing home during a game of bingo and can’t find my walker or my way back?”
Is there anyone here who can do that? Is there anyone here who knows what the *$&# they’re doing?
Of course I’d take a 9-iron to the racks of crappy glasses on the walls, destroying them all. Then I’d drop my credit card on the counter and say, “I didn’t see anything I liked today. Call me when your new inventory arrives.”
Oh, how I wish I could do that. Instead, I have to go back and see how much it’s going to cost me to get new ones. I can’t wait to take it in the shorts – again.
I’m living proof some of us don’t get smarter as we grow older. We just get fuglier.
I went to see my gastro doctor today. I’m so used to going to clinic with a mask and gloves on it felt strange going “naked” to a non-CF doctor with patients in the waiting room not worried about bacteria. I still took precautions by taking my own pen to sign in with, and I used my shirt to open every door. Afterall, it is an office with patients who may have c-diff, which is something I hope I never get again.
The nurse made me wear a paper gown, which could have been 120-grit sandpaper. I should have written “Von’s” on it since it fell like a grocery bag.
When the doctor went to shake my hand, I put my elbow out and told him I might be coming down with a cold. Bad move on my part. Later in the exam, he thought that some of the chest pain might be from the cold. I had to backpedal a bit and tell him I wasn’t sure if I had the cold yet, and we should ignore it as a possible cause. I reminded him I was being cautious because I didn’t want to give it to him and have him give it to his patients WHEN HE SHAKES THEIR HANDS.
Doctors need to drop hand-shaking. Shaking hands comes in second on the list of ways to catch sh** you don’t want, right behind French kissing with open sores in your mouth.
Dr. Gastro wants to do an endoscopy and colonoscopy on me. Argh, argh, argh. Last time he put me under it took forever to regain my lung function. Something about the anesthesia gets to my breathing. More embarrassing last time was when I was just about to go nighty night, I started telling the anesthesiologist how good looking he was. True story. When I woke up he had written his phone number on my stomach.
I’m just kidding about the phone number part, but I wish I was making up the part about going on and on about his good looks. I’m not. It’s embarrassing to think about, but the guy did look like a frigging model.
Regarding the potential procedures, I told the doc that I’d have to speak to my CF doc and get back to him. I’m thinking that the next time I’m on IVs they can do the tests in the hospital. The IVs may help prevent me from losing my air for awhile. We’ll see. Regardless, I don’t want to do those tests, as the potential results scare me.
If only I had a coupe of fistulas on my body. Dr. Gastro could have opened them up and looked inside me, squeezed my intestines and rubbed my colon – all while I sat there and watched.
Oh, cows in Texas with holes in your body, will you ever leave my thoughts?
I woke up this morning sweating with pain in the center of my chest where my Xiphoid process is located, which is one of the coolest names for anything in the body, and a great name for rock band. I wondered: Is it my heart? My esophagus? Stomach? Where are you coming from, Pain? WHEREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE?
So, at 5:30 in the morning I sat there exceeding the maximum dosage for Tums, hoping it might be GERD from last night’s meal. Then I thought about cows.
I thought about cows because of the latest post by Dr. Nanos, which is a name I like a lot because it sounds very superhero or super villain-like, depending on whether Nanos uses her scientific mind for good or evil. Well, the good Dr. posted a picture of a scientific cow with a fistula in its side (these cows have windows, fistulas, in them so the scientists can look at the cow’s insides and open it up to stick their hands in).
Yuck, get out of my head image of the cow with the ship window in it. Too late.
I had a nightmare a few hours earlier, not about cows, but about someone breaking into the house. And usually I only have nightmares when I eat something that doesn’t agree with me. So, I hoped it was heartburn, not my heart. And I wished I had a fistula in my chest that I could use to look inside my body. (How creepy would that be?) However, I would like to see what’s going on in my stomach and be able to stick my hand in there like a box of gooey slime on Halloween.
The combination of anxiety adrenalin and thinking about cow ports killed any chance of going back to sleep. I sat there on the edge of the old couch I sleep on thinking about how I would approach my predicament during the day. Would I call my heart doctor? Or my stomach doctor? Then I noticed the triceps on my left arm looked gigantic and was tender. I must have had a reaction to yesterday’s allergy shot. Oh, just great, damn it. Now I have a trifecta of doctors to call.
At 9:00, I called my allergy doc, who was very nice and told me not to worry, as we’d bump the dose down next week. I made an appointment with my stomach doctor for tomorrow because my stomach bothered me all day. I called my heart doctor to talk to him, as he’s good at calming me down, but he’s out until August. Dr. Xanax filled in for him.
Tonight I’ve decided that I’m tired of having to go to where the medical equipment is. I want it to come to me. So, I’m going to plan a heist worthy of a movie and steal everything I need. This way when I wake up with pain, I can simply run an EKG or stick an endoscope down my throat to see what’s going on. I won’t have to stress about getting in to see a doctor or going to the ER. I’ll have everything I need. Hmm, I’ll probably need a doctor at home to help. I’ll kidnap one of those, too.
BTW, I’ll need a crew to help me break into the ER, which is open 24 hours a day. We’ll need to carry everything out in our clothing. Who wants to help out? Any ideas how we’ll get the x-ray machine out? Send in your resume if you’re interested. Do criminals have resumes? Probably not. An email and prison record will work.
Remember, when you read my future post about all of my new home medical equipment, you have no idea where it came from.
She does some nice detective work figuring out what’s it like to not feel well with CF. For me, she touches upon one of the hardest parts of having cystic fibrosis – just generally feeling under the weather a lot. It would be much easier if I felt great for three or four months after a tune-up. Then, bang, I start feeling bad and in I go for a tune-up. Now that I’m older, the stretches between I.V.s test me to a greater degree and are battles to see how long I can stay well and out of the hospital. And not cough up blood – my favorite CF event.
A few weeks ago, my coughing production quadrupled, which is the sign that I’m getting ready for another tune-up. I know the pattern well by now. It’s when I have days I lack energy, have strange chest pains and SOB, and feel like giving up. It’s made worse by the fact I have grind out work most days. But I hate going in the hospital more, though I sometimes think it would be nice to live there.
As I’ve gotten older, CF is complicated by other aging issues. I don’t know about anyone reading this and their experience, but when I don’t feel well the first place I look is CF – it gets blamed right away, villain that it is. However, it hasn’t been the cause of my health problems every time.
It’s a challenge to get my CF doctor, who is excellent at what he does, to look beyond CF. When I’m in the hospital or at clinic and it feels like I have more than an exacerbation, I have a hard time describing why I don’t feel well and the symptoms. This makes it harder for the doctors to comprehend. They think I’m crazy.
I’m embarrassed to say what illnesses I’ve thought I’ve had in the past. However, I have called a few right, one being a wheat intolerance. I thought it was CF causing the madness, but it was because of my diet and wheat. Once I reduced my wheat intake by 90 percent the symptoms started disappearing. I did rub in the fact at clinic that hell froze over and I was correct for once – lucky guess?
I haven’t been feeling well most days for awhile now, as usual, but I can’t blame wheat this time. It’s something else, and I can’t get it off of my mind.
Here’s how my thought process goes most days: Am I taking too much magnesium? Is it the chocolate? Testosterone? Is it my stomach or my heart? They said my heart was okay. Why did I get shoulder pains yesterday and some chest discomfort? What caused the bloating? Why am I getting shortness of breath lately? I’m back on Cayston. Is it not working? My peak flow is good. Pulseox down 1 percent. Is it a panic attack? I don’t feel anxious. How can I describe this to the doctor? Is it time to go to the gun store? Could I be eating something that affects my heart?
And it goes on and on like that for days, weeks, months.
“Communication Breakdown, It’s always the same,
I’m having a nervous breakdown, Drive me insane!”
-Led Zeppelin
When I started this blog for my daughter, I wanted to leave behind an accurate record of what I went through fighting cystic fibrosis. I’m not sure I’ve accomplished that or not. I can tell you that this week the blog feels as live and raw as it’s ever been. I don’t think I’ve held much back, if anything, for better or worse.
I reread the posts and it has been quite a week.
Don't look down. Creative Commons image
If the week has taught me anything, it’s the dangers of miscommunication. That lesson started in the hospital and extended itself into Friday. I didn’t realize how tightly wound I was balancing work and the hospital stay – there’s nothing like a battery of heart tests to keep you from the laptop and to get you behind in your work.
I know I’ve joked about this before, but it would really help if they had a workstation in the room. I need to figure out something better for future visits. Now that I’m older and cranky, it’s not as comfortable sitting at the bed typing away. If I win the lottery, I’m donating a chunk of dough to the hospital to redo all of the rooms Marriott style. I’ll ask them to name it the Fox Lives Here wing, with pictures of my arrogant pal on every wall.
Despite bringing a printed list of meds with me, the hospital seemed incapable of getting them correct. Some meds never showed up. Some showed up two days into the visit. My favorite part: certain meds I don’t take that weren’t on my list showed up, i.e., Pulmozyme, some stomach med they gave me during the last visit, and TOBI, which is wrong because I take TOBRA mixed for the eFlow.
Each time the RT arrived with a dose of Pulmozyme or TOBI in his hand and a look of “but all of you are the same” on his face, I thought Fox might unleash some of verbal kung fu on him. Worst of all, then you have to argue with the RT that you don’t take a med.
“It’s in the chart,” the RT says.
“The chart’s wrong,” I say.
“The chart’s wrong?”
“Yes, the chart’s wrong.”
“How can the chart be wrong?”
“That’s a good question.”
“The chart’s wrong?”
“Yes, the chart’s wrong.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll go check the chart.”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
Five minutes later the RT returns.
“It’s in the chart,” he says.
“The chart’s wrong,” I say.
You get the idea of how it goes from there. Usually the last line is “I’ll go check it out.” What he really should say is, “I’m going to go on break and your insurance will be billed anyway.”
There’s always a corkage fee at any fine restaurant when you bring your own wine. Why not at the hospital?
Now I know why playwright David Mamet is a genius when it comes to writing dialogue. He writes it with repetition and that’s how many of our conversations go. The RT dialogue isn’t an exaggeration. It takes place in real-time, rapid fire, and lasts 10 to 15 seconds.
But it happens three times a day.
Then I received the email that sparked yesterday’s posts. When you receive partial ALL-CAPS from someone you respect, it sets off a chain reaction. Here’s the kicker. The primary person who read my original blog post, misread my statements, then placed the misreading on the Internet where other people reacted to it, causing my friend to have to deal with it.
I realized this week that the most important game we ever played in school wasn’t really a game or a joke. It delivered a great lesson, but was usually breezed over with a quick “do you get it now?” by the teacher.
The game I’m talking about is when one person tells a secret to another and the secret travels from person to another until it gets to the last person and sounds nothing like the original message.
What chaps my lips is how this game of “communication breakdown” takes place during each hospital visit. And worst of all, how it’s played with only two or three people working from a printed list of meds. They have a program in their head about cystic fibrosis and insert that program, overriding what’s in front of them – especially the doctor.
I’ll email my clinic later in the week about this visit and the story of the printed list. They’re good at dealing with these situations. I’m glad because if I hear “it’s in the chart” one more time, Fox will go postal. Not that I wouldn’t like to see that, but I don’t want to have to switch hospitals. Despite its flaws, I like the one I’m currently at.
Fox here. And I’m a bit irritated with my yellow labrador of a creation, Unknown. Here’s what went down.
Are my eyes dilated? Ginger, help. I can't get up.
I’m standing by the poolside of my buddy’s Malibu Mansion tonight and feeling good about life again. Ginger, god bless her nursing heart, has just given me my fifth dose of poison dart frog. We’ll all laughing because my fur is standing on end and I look like I stuck my paw in a wall socket.
Not to mention that I’m wearing Ginger’s panties, which say “I love foxes” on them. They feel comfy, but they’re riding up my ass, but I can’t do anything about it because my paws aren’t listening to me and because they’re paws. Nobody’s lending a hand, they’re just snapping pictures and laughing.
So, I’m pretty messed up. I have to use Unknown’s Xopenex just to breathe again. My tail is stiff as a rock and I’m knocking glasses in the pool every time I spin around. The pool is where we have that damn ER doc that made Unknown wait six hours. Couple of my pals, Badger and Skunk, have tied him up and are dipping the dope upside down over and over. Six hours is the goal. After that we’ll give him the bill and kick his ass out of here.
Great times, right?
Yeah, that’s what I thought. That’s until Bambi comes strolling out with her MacBook Pro open. She’s screaming something in French or French-like, but I can’t tell her to speak English because the dart frog has paralzyzed my vocal cords. So, she holds the screen up for me to read.
Holy $$*#*#*$. What has Unknown done now? Unknown has gone and written the post of the century for total wimpiness. WTF is he doing to my blog. I’m pissed. I can’t speak, and trying to type with paws ain’t exactly easy when ya got all your faculties in place, which I clearly don’t.
The gang can see I’m upset. Ginger loses her mind when my eyes start cartooning out of my head. She knocks me down on the mat and goes all Pulp Fiction on me with a syringe the size of an Old Milwaukee bottle right to my fox heart. I spring to life and feel like I just traveled through a worm hole to reality with that ER doc screaming every time they let him up for air. Skunk gives him a blast of bad air, which ends the party on the spot because we gotta evacuate.
Here I am in action. Photo by Neil Phillips. Creative Commons.
Now it’s 12:30 at night and I have to apologize to all my readers for Unknown. I’ve put him back in his kennel. How’s he expect to fight this f’ing disease if he’s going to cry like a baby. He better dig deep and stop the whining or an ass-kicking the size of the moon is coming his way.
I’m sending him off to my pal @onlyz for a few days of Camp Onlyz’s Grow a Pair, where they’re going to surgically repair the two chicken nuggets he’s sporting. He’ll come back a a rabid Akita.
And I say this to cystic fibrosis for the number you’ve done on my pal Unknown this week, one day I’m going to catch you. And when I do, I going to hurt you, and then I’m going to hurt you again. Then me and my pals are going to reenact the final scene of Braveheart, the one with the creepy tools and slab. Except it won’t be Mel Gibson screaming “freedom” this time.
Unknown is tired after his jail time this week, screaming for the Lakers tonight with his daughter, and no McGriddles in the last three days.
He asked me, humble Fox, to post in his absence. I’m feeling pretty tired too after my quick jaunt to Vegas last night with a couple of gal-pal nurses. Rum Jungle was rocking. I got thrown out again, but that’s not unusual. What can I say? It’s my nature to cause trouble.
Tonight, I’m going to share a few photos from my vacation. There should be more, but Unknown panicked and forgot to grab a fresh camera battery before leaving the casa. Slim photo pickings thanks to that boneheaded error.
The photo below is the first room Unknown stayed in – for 45 minutes. Then he cried like a little lab pup about chest pain and they took him straight to a lower grade room. Learn from Foxy on this one, folks, never talk your way out of an upgrade. They’ll snatch it from you if you do.
Now this is a room for a hospital party!
Here’s the hole they sent Unknown to after he complained.
Welcome to the garden view, Mr. Unknown
Remember when they strapped Unknown to a table and scanned his heart? This is the badboy itself. Those are the two blue straps they used. 20 minutes of hell for Unknown. 20 minutes of napping for me.
Don't move or you'll have to repeat the test
Someone thought it would be funny to erase the hospital information board below. I am Fox, after all. Everything worked out great and the nurse thought it was cute until she read “patient goals.” The smile fell off her face. Ouch, you nasty boy.
Fox out. Picture below. WARNING: Adult language
You got in trouble, you got in trouble. Ha, ha, ha.
I, humble Fox, King of the Vulpes vulpes, received the accolades I am due in @CFFatboy’s blog extraordinaire. Here’s the link so you can read all about me.
I’m honored. Anytime someone stays up until 1:30 in the morning writing about you, with a hot fox named Beautiful at his side, well, how nice is that? Thanks, CF Fatboy, you’re a stand-up guy kicking CF’s green ass. May you live a long life and write about me a dozen more times. I’ll send you some adventures that Unknown is afraid to add to the blog.
Remember, I created Unknown. He sprang from my animal imagination one day while I was taking a beer piss. What a puss I invented, too. Never look up to a cartoon character, my blogging friends, especially one who is a complete fool.
Speaking of her highness, let’s see what unwound in Unknown’s imaginary world today.
First, this is how normal people look to Doctors: Picture a 24-piece Dora the Explorer puzzle:
Easy to solve
This is how Unknown looks to doctors: Picture a 5,000-piece puzzle of a tiger.
It may bite you.
Now you know why doctors start backing out of the hospital room when Unknown starts talking. Here is what the doctor thinks when Unknown speaks: Too confusing. Where does this piece fit? Is this a piece from a different puzzle? Holy crap, there are a lot of pieces. I’ll start with the sides. Oh, screw it. I didn’t go to medical school to solve complicated puzzles like this nut job. I see the world in black and white, as in my black Porsche 911, and my model girlfriend’s white bikini filled with her 100K chest and hips.
I am Fox, hear me growl.
So, some good news. Unknown’s Labrador heart ain’t too bad. He passed the dart frog test. Though he can’t figure how, as he guesses a missing beat every two seconds counts for passing. Jerky Unknown, you lived through it. That’s a passing grade. Get back in the F’ing casino – you got a movie to finish.
Here’s why Unknown ain’t talking tonight. The cardio docs came by and gave him the green light and told him to stop eating chocolate, which makes no sense whatsoever cause he’s been eating chocolate for many months without problems. They played the “blame it on M&M’s” card. But that’s not why he’s pissed.
He’s upset because the cardio docs didn’t fill out their damn report and now he has to stay in the hospital one more night because the main doc won’t kick him lose without their kiss of approval. When doctors own a hospital, don’t expect an early release. There are yacht payments to be made.
Unknown is a sucker on a stick. I would have ripped out the I.V., crapped on the floor and scampered out of there with August and Tiffany at my side, and a few shots of that poison frog they shot him up with yesterday. Here’s your report, doc, I’d say as I flip him the paw. I’ll email you photos of tonight’s Rum Jungle party in Veg-ass.
Something funny did happen today. The nurse came by and said the pharmacy wanted to know if Unknown had a Symbicort with him or had it gone back by carrier pigeon?
This is two days after he checked into this hotel of hell. Two days. Was he supposed to call in his order for a Symbicort ahead of time, like a chicken fajita at Baja Fresh?
So, the nurse had to take Unknown’s contraband Symbicort to the Rx and they had to place a little sticker on it: Approved by someone who didn’t read a printed list two days ago. What about the other five meds Unknown hid in his carry-on bag? When do the federales break down the door and bust his chicken ass? Let’s see you serve a “nickel” in a real prison, pretty boy. You’ll be begging like a chocolate Labrador pup to return to the hospital and your private “isolation” room.
Last of all, why are the light switches in the hospital room painted red? Shouldn’t a red switch always blow something up? “Pop,” on come the lights. Where’s the fun in that? Now if it caused Unknown’s bed to blast up to the ceiling, well, that would be a good reason to paint a switch red. Eat acoustic tile, UC.
Day 2 in Lock up, Lock down, Lock Sideways – it’s all a matter of perspective
I woke up on the wrong side of my plastic bed this morning. Reality smacked me with where I was and why I’m here. I can serve the “nickel” of the normal CF prison sentence. This stay has rattled my nerves and tested me. Escape plans fill my mind.
I swear I heard Fox partying in the hallway last night. I have never slept in a noisier hospital wing than the one I am in now. Loud talkers on a cell phone can’t match these people for volume. I miss the quiet floor I usually stay on.
Yesterday’s nurse princess transformed into a nasty, bossy four-foot troll who woke me up for blood pressure around dawn. No sweet kisses on the forehead here to awaken me from my slumber. Just a nasty lady mustache atop grinning wart lips.
Hospital communication breakdowns are my favorite. I give them a printed list of my meds but somehow they find a way to f**k it up. They cannot process the fact I take two nebs of hypertonic saline in the morning and two in the evening. They write down what they think it should be. READ THE LIST, people. I will be placing a special note on future lists: “Yo, it’s two, I repeat two HTS in the morning and two in the evening. That’s not a typo.”
Then there is the “surprise test of the day.” Today, I wasn’t supposed to eat breakfast, yet breakfast showed up. Luckily, I had treatments to do and didn’t eat it right away. The nurse stopped me in time. What if I had eaten it and couldn’t complete the tests? There’s another day in the hospital and another 10K all because of a three-dollar breakfast being delivered by accident.
It’s getting harder to hide CF from my managers at work. It was easier to do it years ago when I only went in once a year or every 18 months and I could depend on having a new boss every year. Now, it’s tightrope walking and juggling at the same time. It’s getting technically more difficult to hide the truth. I’m not sure how much longer I can do it. I want to work as long as I can, but CF is screwing with that plan.
Tests, tests, and more tests
My insurance company will look for ways to get rid of me after today. These doctors love tests. And they delivered big time with that love today.
First up was what I call the Survivor test. They injected radioactive Thallium into me, then strapped me to a table so I couldn’t move. Three large boxes circled me, taking images of my Labrador heart. It seems strange to say 20 minutes being immobilized feels like a long time, but it does and did. Holy crap. I have new respect for Survivor games where they have to stand on a stick for 6 hours. The tech made it a constant point to tell me not to move. I didn’t and couldn’t thanks to his strap-down job.
From there I went for the poison dart frog venom test. In this one, they placed me on a table and the same guy who shot me up with radioactive material 30 minutes earlier, dosed me with what must have been poison. All of a sudden it felt like I had just chased Fox out of a downtown L.A. bar and down the block. My chest tightened and I couldn’t breathe. SOB. SOB. SOB. Alert. Alert. Dying here. Shoot the f’ing frog that humped me, damn it.
The techs acted like it was normal to feel like you just ate bad blowfish. FU. Normal this, dudes. The bad guy just poisoned me like James Bond in Casino Royale. But I don’t have an Aston Martin with a drug kit in it. Why are you standing there? Give me the antidote. I’ll tell you what I did with the “Nurse, Nurse, Nurse” guy from last night. He’s duct taped to a gurney on the top floor of the parking garage. Antidote, please.
It’s no wonder I have a splitting headache tonight. It took me 10 minutes to come down off of that joy ride to heart stretching heaven.
From there, I enjoyed the Fast Pass to my 50-minute echo test. The three guys working it were cool and Fox had some x-rated guy conversations with them, but it was still painful.
Lunch came after the tests, which was a cheeseburger and fries with three ketchups and no salt. I get the no salt part. I’m in the heart ward. But three ketchups for all of that food? Are you kidding me? Who do I kill?
I got to repeat the Survivor test after lunch. It was just as fun as the first time. Try it yourself sometime. Lie on your bed, with arms at your side, hand clasped over your groin, and don’t move. 20 minutes. Start now.
The rest of the day I worked, barely. But I did eat more M&Ms in one sitting than I’ve ever eaten in my life. They’re monitoring my heart – WTF. Let it race.
Stay well.
Fox’s day in hell.
I thought it was a dude that woke Unknown for blood pressure. It was the lady stache that fooled me. I’ve woken up next to a few whiskers in my day, but this one was thick, black and greasy. I jumped on top of the TV and waited until she dragged her club foot out the door.
I partied hard last night with the nurses. Loud, lively honey babes charmed by moi. Bambi and Ginger helped me tape up the dude next door who couldn’t master the call button. We laughed our asses off to his duct taped, muffled “nurse” yelps. Press the button next time, dude. Press the button.
The docs punished Unknown for “chest pain” today with more chest pain. Whatever they shot into him is something I want a bottle of. That looked like 10 minutes of rollercoasting while drunk on Gin Ball Twisters fun to me. Gotta get me some of that stuff for tonight’s g-string martini “fiesta of love.”
The Unknown Cystic 