So I had my second session of IV antibiotics today. And that was pretty uneventful on my end. Pretty much just a rest with a needle in my arm.
But it did provide some very highly quality um, passive observation of human behaviour.
Known to the ignorant as “eavesdropping”, or as I like to think about it, “being a writer”.
I am endlessly curious about the actual content of people’s actual lives. And I got to listen to some real life while I was in the little lounge for IV patients.
Very comfy chairs, by the way. And I am hard to please in that area.
So to speak.
There was Lois, an elderly lady in an utterly camptastic floral print sun dress with sequins! Can you imagine? Sequins all around the collar.
It was actually quite tasteful, Nothing garish or tacky about it. Just little patterns of sparkly (but not shiny) sequins the same color as the dress.
And Lois was there to teach me to count my blessings, because before I observed her struggle I thought I had difficult to find veins, but nope.
It took at least an hour and four different people giving it a go WITH A VEIN FINDER before they got an IV line into her.
What’s a vein finder, you so helpfully ask? (See, I know there was a reason I liked you so much!). A vein finder is a wonderful modern device that shines a bright light into the area in question that makes the veins more visible.
I learned so much today.
Actually, sign of the times, most of my fellow patients were elderly. No surprise there, what with the aging population and whatnot. Some of them were there in the care of their children, who were about my age.
I wonder how my Mom is doing.
I also enjoyed listening to one of the ER doctors, Doctor (I swear I am not making this up) Low-Beer, interact with the patients.
I have no way to evaluate the quality of her diagnoses, of course, but I can evaluate her bedside manner, and it was pretty good. There was one time where I thought she was being a little too argumentative with a patient, but it still worked out fine.
She’s no Patch Adams but she’s good enough that it wouldn’t effect outcomes, and outcomes are the bottom line every time.
Like yesterday, I sort of dozed my way through time. Not really awake, not really asleep, sort of half way between the two.
I was very mellow. Admittedly, the fatigue brought on by the infection helped.
My two main symptoms of infection are fatigue and bouts of fever. The fatigue sucks, but the fever is far worse.
The fatigue makes me feel like napping.
The fever makes me feel like I’m in Hell.
But again, just as I thought I was about to be free, my nurse told me that I had to wait around because the doctor wanted to consult with me.
I’ll tell you how that went after the break.
Aaand we’re back.
So once my IV treatment is done and I cool my heels (by now they’re freezer-fresh) a bit more, they put me in a rather snug but acceptable exam room and tell me to strip down and put the gown on.
What’s with those gowns, anyway? To put them on properly you have to go against what every other garment in Western society has taught you and put it on “backwards”, and there’s no instructions to that effect anywhere on it and the nurses don’t tell you either. The only way to learn is to do it the logical but wrong way and have the nurses smirk at you as they tell you to do it the other way.
And I hate that kind of thing. A lot.
Anyhow, I suit up and await the doctor. And it’s Doctor Low-Beer again! And she is looking kind of freaked out.
And that’s something you never wanted to see. Your ER doctor looking freaked out and really worried. So I am, shall we say, alert.
She gives me a talk about my case, but that rapidly turns into a talk about how I really, really, really should be looking after my diabetes and that because my blood sugar is so high that it’s making it hard for the antibiotics to do their job.
Well I always was too sweet for my own good.
She said straight out that if I don’t start taking my insulin, I will die. And it will not be a pleasant death. It will be nasty.
She then apologized for being harsh, but she didn’t have to. That’s exactly the sort of thing I need in order to penetrate the thick fucking fog in my mind and force me to take my own health seriously for once.
I think she was thinking about admitting me at one point.
The very last thing she said to me was, “Thanks for coming back!”.
Yowza. That really hurt. I bet she has dealt with a lot of us stupid-stubborn fat dudes in our forties who blithely neglect and abuse themselves into an early grave while their doctors look on in helpless horror as all their very important advice is ignored.
Well I sure as fuck don’t want to be one of those idiots.
Oh then, just to drive the message home, my nurse repeated the highlights of the talk to me just to make absolutely sure I understood it.
Got it, ladies. I promise to do better in the future.
Because that’s the thing. This all left me feeling deeply ashamed of myself. I felt lower than a snake’s nutsack.
And that’s a good thing too, because clearly, my own self-interest is not sufficient motivation to get me to act. I need externalities to be involved.
In fact, I kind of wish they had yelled at me some. Remember, I have never had anyone to do that for me in my life.
Luckily, that “harsh” statement about it being insulin or death got through to me because as it turns out I do not want to die. Death scares me. I want to live.
Hell, I can’t die yet, I haven’t even lived yet.
So tonight, I will take my first dose of insulin in years, and as of tonight, my hunt for a blood sugar monitor that doesn’t require me to jab a jagged need into the densent nerve cluster on the human body begins.
Wish me luck.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.