I was discharged from Eastern Maine Medical Center on September 9th. For four nights and five days I'd stayed on the Sixth floor with a bacterial infection in my blood and, for at least the first 36 hours of my stay, a temperature of 103.4 (a great radio station I'm sure but not a great body temp). I'd never been admitted to the hospital before. I can remember as a kid wanting every strep throat infection to result in the removal of my tonsils and a chance to choke down all the ice cream I could manage but other then that fleeting childhood fantasy I've tried like hell to avoid hospitals at all costs.
Sadly, the hospital was unavoidable this time around. My brand new Port-a-Cath was infected after only nine days. The picc line that I'd been so quick to vilify would have probably kept me from all the time spent in one of those drafty johnnies.
If I'd only listened to my Father. He'd gone through two Port-a-Cath surgeries and in his opinion if I could tough it out with the hygiene limitations (it's damn near impossible to take a good shower with your arm wrapped in a plastic vice) then I'd be better off with the picc line. "What the hell does the Old Man know?" I said as I watched them rip the plastic tubing from my right arm. In what would be one of his last bits of Fatherly Advice, I chose to ignore him. So, really, not that different then the previous thirty-seven years of Fatherly Advice.
Anyway, the point of all this is that after 96 plus hours in a hospital without even a whiff of fresh air I cannot get the smell and taste of that wretched fucking place out of my head. Or maybe it's not in my head. Perhaps it's ingrained in me somehow. It's infiltrated my skin, my taste buds, my olfactory senses. This stomach turning smell of medicine and cleaning products folded into a faint scent of urine(admittedly, mine but do you have any idea how hard it is to keep it in those damn jugs when you're woozy from a 103+ temp?), old people and rubbing alcohol keep popping up no matter where I am. In the car? Yup. By the lake? Yup. Wal-mart? Yup. Granted, Wal-marts always smell awful but I was hoping for a different kind of awful. Perhaps the scent of bad life choices. Anything to take away the lingering hospital odor but to no avail.
I'm eleven days removed from my stay and the smell isn't going anywhere. I'm still on anti-biotics so that may have something to do with it. I've got chemo running through my veins so that may have something to do with it. And I still wake up during the night to feel for an IV hanging from my arm or chest before rolling back over so that may have something to do with it. I've decided my only chance of combating it is with one of the dozen or so pipes my Dad left behind. Pipe smoke typically smells great plus I've already got cancer so how much worse can it get?
Sadly, the hospital was unavoidable this time around. My brand new Port-a-Cath was infected after only nine days. The picc line that I'd been so quick to vilify would have probably kept me from all the time spent in one of those drafty johnnies.
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| I've got a great ass |
If I'd only listened to my Father. He'd gone through two Port-a-Cath surgeries and in his opinion if I could tough it out with the hygiene limitations (it's damn near impossible to take a good shower with your arm wrapped in a plastic vice) then I'd be better off with the picc line. "What the hell does the Old Man know?" I said as I watched them rip the plastic tubing from my right arm. In what would be one of his last bits of Fatherly Advice, I chose to ignore him. So, really, not that different then the previous thirty-seven years of Fatherly Advice.
Anyway, the point of all this is that after 96 plus hours in a hospital without even a whiff of fresh air I cannot get the smell and taste of that wretched fucking place out of my head. Or maybe it's not in my head. Perhaps it's ingrained in me somehow. It's infiltrated my skin, my taste buds, my olfactory senses. This stomach turning smell of medicine and cleaning products folded into a faint scent of urine(admittedly, mine but do you have any idea how hard it is to keep it in those damn jugs when you're woozy from a 103+ temp?), old people and rubbing alcohol keep popping up no matter where I am. In the car? Yup. By the lake? Yup. Wal-mart? Yup. Granted, Wal-marts always smell awful but I was hoping for a different kind of awful. Perhaps the scent of bad life choices. Anything to take away the lingering hospital odor but to no avail.
I'm eleven days removed from my stay and the smell isn't going anywhere. I'm still on anti-biotics so that may have something to do with it. I've got chemo running through my veins so that may have something to do with it. And I still wake up during the night to feel for an IV hanging from my arm or chest before rolling back over so that may have something to do with it. I've decided my only chance of combating it is with one of the dozen or so pipes my Dad left behind. Pipe smoke typically smells great plus I've already got cancer so how much worse can it get?
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