Spasm

It feels like I've been sick forever. I know it's only been about two weeks, but good god. Even objectively that sounds like a long time. Sickness, like hangovers, has a way of slowing time down. Days last forever, movies take longer, things are more drawn out. If I hit it just right it's actually enjoyable. It forces me to take my time, move with more forethought, slow down. Sadly that stage has made up the minority of my infirmity.

I developed this cough. A persistent dry cough with nothing coming up, even though morning glances in the mirror show busted blood veins in my eyes. It didn't even feel like there was anything to cough up. I dealt with it, thinking it was the weather or letting the hookah get too hot. It subtly progressed to a state in which I could not breathe without constant conscious effort. It reached the tipping point one night when laying in bed I couldn't catch my breath, no matter what position I lay in or how hard I made myself cough to clear out whatever was in there. So I went to the ER.

I put on jeans and my work shirt from the day, and took a book. I've been in ER waiting rooms before and they are long and boring. Even if you're bleeding and limping. Even past Midnight. The unaffected nurse took down my name and social security number and provided me with a wrist band, all without looking at me. I sat down near a TV playing some new show with Jason Lee and cracked open Running With Scissors, noting I was the only white guy in a room of about twenty. Scratch that, an oddly aged mother/son duo emerged from possibly the same bathroom. Glancing down at my book I noted dried baby food stains on my shirt. I had no idea how long they'd been there.

Soon I had my preliminary checkup with a nurse who took my blood pressure and asked about allergies, medications, and my favorite: pain level. Scale of one to ten. Even when I had a broken hand, sprained wrist, and swollen useless knee I still said "six". Tonight I said no pain. I always wonder if the higher the reported pain level the faster you get in to see the doctor.

Not long after that (the show didn't even end) and elderly woman in a beefy looking wheelchair (which had the look of being hospital provided) and I were called to head back. Perhaps breathing problems hold precedence over other maladies as I was called up before 98% of my fellow sufferers. I held the door open for the nurse and woman as we left the waiting area and I was shown to a room near the reception desk. The woman told me to put on the green gown squarely folded on the bed, adding that I could keep my pants on. Which I appreciated as I never know what to take off in these situations. Like with a masseuse, does "get undressed" mean undies too? I know it's safer to just leave them on but a part of me still doesn't want to be seen as an idiot. Like the masseuse is going to go, "Oh man, look at this retard. He left his underpants on! No happy ending for this guy, haha!"

A professional looking nurse with straw-colored hair came in and listened to my chest in multiple locations, front and back. She asked how long it's been going on, if I'm coughing anything up, if I smoke, etc. She tells me I'm going to get a chest X-ray. A young, tall fellow in green scrubs comes to get me for the X-ray and is nice enough to tie my gown for me in the back. Tricky things. As we walk towards the X-ray machine he asks me how long it's been going on, if I'm coughing anything up, if I smoke, etc. I answer again that I smoke a hookah but not cigarettes. He reacts like I'm trying to defend smoking pencil shavings in lieu of regular tobacco, which annoys me. I get two X-rays, front and side. I have to grab a bar above my head for the side shot and coupled with the open gown it makes me feel like a woman getting a breast exam.

Then I'm sent back to the cold room where the full-on doctor (who is a very handsome, short woman with full brown hair, green eyes, and freckles) listens to my chest in multiple locations, front and back, and asks how long the cough has been going on, if I'm coughing anything up, and if I smoke, etc. I am extremely patient and thankful to all hospital staff but I still notice things like being asked the same set of questions three times.

She says that she definitely hears some crackling in my lungs and hooks me up to a socket coming straight out of the wall. I have done this before but the implications of breathing gas out of a wall socket are not lost on me. It's like my respiratory system has expanded to include the innumerable pipes and gaskets in the walls and ceilings that make a thing like this possible, like my lungs are now a part of this building's structure, and visa versa.

The gas is basically the same stuff you find in an inhaler, but you get a constant stream of it and breathe deeply for some minutes instead of taking a couple of quick hits. The pretty doctor tells me to relax and breathe through the misting contraption and she'll be back in about ten minutes. I try to read but holding the hard plastic device in my mouth and keeping a book in a comfortable line of sight is tricky. So I watch a horrible, horrible movie on USA or TBS with Wesley Snipes and some Latina stripper. Truly terrible stuff. It's literally the worst part of my night.

About ten minutes later the gas stops and I'm just breathing air through a weird tube, so I stop using it and resume my reading. An hour after that I see the professional nurse walk by on the way to somewhere, catch sight of me out of the corner of her eye (but not look right at me, the mark of a true pro), stop, and head back in another direction. Yep, I had been forgotten about. The doctor returns, says she doesn't think it's an infection but a bronchospasm and that she's sending me home with an inhaler and some cough suppression medication, and then I'm all set.

Over an hour later the professional nurse returns with my medicine and has me demonstrate that I know how to use the little clear tube they give out with the asthma inhaler. Spritz, inhale, 1 2 3 4 5, exhale. Good, and again. She explains that the pharmacy didn't deliver the goods because they weren't sure what room to deliver it to even though she called down three times to check on it. I tell her it's no problem and completely mean it. I got like a hundred pages of reading done.

On the way out the parking garage charges me $5. $5 at the rate $1 per hour. Yeah, it's almost six in the morning. I wonder if I could have maybe gotten my ticket validated or something, but it seems cheap to ask about that kinda thing in the ER.

I can feel the inhaler running low and my cough medicine (which are tiny, round, clear, bubble bath bead looking things) is all but used up and just today is the first day I wasn't dependent upon them. I even started calling the inhaler my "pacifier" by mistake. I'm finally able to cough some things up and sleep through the night without getting out of bed to take my hacking and wheezing to the far end of the apartment. Which is awesome because a bloke like me revels in his beauty sleep.

And wellness can't some soon enough. I have a desperately neglected hookah that needs some making up to.