[Every once in a while, we have to go something that blows. Something we’re not prepared for. Something, that at least, makes a good story…]

I walked around my apartment, touching things, pulling my blankets tighter around my bed, staring at the window, and then eventually sitting down on my couch. The TV was playing in the background, Olympic synchronized diving, and I tried to concentrate on what was happening on the screen, but besides a few thoughts about how synchronized diving is an odd sport and how did it get into the Olympics? — I couldn’t keep my head clear.

In a little less than a week, I’ll find myself lying on a hospital bed, hooked up to beeping machines, and wheeled by a bunch of masked people I don’t know into an operating room. The surgery is either simple or complicated — nobody can seem to decide — and all that’s clear is that there’s something foreign that needs to stop renting space on my 9th rib. I’ve been thinking about the surgery for a few hand-wrung weeks, and the closer it is to happening, the fuller my brain gets with every. possible. horrible scenario. Read More »

[Every once in a while, we have to go something that blows. Something we’re not prepared for. Something, that at least, makes a good story…]

I took my off clothes slowly, placing them in the plastic hospital bag and eyeing the hospital johnny with intense trepidation. Intense, fearful, trepidation. I was in the hospital for a biopsy – a biopsy that had been scheduled the day before – so there really hadn’t been any time to prepare for what was about to happen. And when it comes to hospitals, I need to prepare.

After clothing myself in a paper thin gown and crawling underneath a paper thin blanket, I made small talk with a nurse as she prepared vials for the blood she was about to take, and an IV she was about to shove into my arm. Apparently, when you get a biopsy of something hanging around your rib, lots of things are included; vials of your blood, IVs, a few needles of Novocain, “conscious sedation”, and some kind of giant, hand-cranked needle to do the actual biopsying.

The hand-cranked needle was the thing I was least happy about.

I sat underneath the blanket and wiggled my feet, squinting as the nurse flicked the inside of my elbow, the same place that had been flicked only a few days before, and squinted even more as she stuck the needle in. “Looks like someone already got you right here!” she said cheerily, and I nodded as I bit my tongue, wondering if she knew how painful it was to puncture an already bruised patch of skin.

Once the IV was taped securely to my arm, I began the always taxing process of sitting and waiting. People in scrubs padded in and out of the room, my parents stood over the bed and made some strange jokes, and my nurse checked my blood pressure, pulse, and asked me thousands of questions – including if I was in “spiritual distress” (a question I considered answering yes to, because, isn’t every twenty-something in spiritual distress?). Read More »

[Every once in a while, we have to go something that blows. Something we’re not prepared for. Something, that at least, makes a good story…]

I looked down at my shirt, suddenly wondering if it was too revealing for this slightly backwoods New England waiting room. The few other people also waiting for the doctor were mostly over 40, fans of crocs and t-shirts advertising farm stands, and all seemed to be looking at me over their glasses or magazines. I turned back to the wall and checked my watch; I really wanted to get out of here so I could swing by Marshalls before handing the car over to my parents. A week out of the city had its perks – and cheap clothing was one of them.

The doctor herself opened the door to the waiting room and looked at me, motioning with her hand that I should follow her. I got up, vaguely wondering why she had come out to get me herself. After all, I had just gone in for a simple x-ray; proof that a dislocated rib I acquired as a kid was still dislocated.

Instead of walking inside an examination room, we stepped into her office, and she pushed my x-rays up on a light board so I could see them. Something looked strange. I blinked.

“So, you can see, right there, you’ve got a tumor on your ninth rib.”

A what? Huh? I shook my head. I felt like she was speaking French. I couldn’t understand. Read More »