Sleepless Valentines

It’s 8:45 am, and I am hanging in my cell at French Hospital with my cellie Tom. I am by the window, he is by the door, and we have had our breakfast, French toast and sausage, pretty good but a little spicy if you have mucositis. Also, apple juice and coffee. We both slept badly, interrupted every twenty minutes or so for one reason or another, just often enough that we (at least I) couldn’t get past the whirring and clicking of the IV pumps (very timely comment by Manitoubou on the last post.) Tom had a knee replaced yesterday morning and has some pain, and I am peeing a lot from all this hydration. I asked for an Ambien, but my Doc hadn’t ordered it, so they gave me a Benadryl. I was not kept awake by sneezing. We have formed a yard gang, the Valentine Dudes, since we are in room 214. The tattooist is coming by later to get our colors inked on.

It’s raining pretty good on and off, and my windows seat is a little cool, both in view and in venting. As soon as cellie Tom leaves for physical therapy, in a minute or two, I will try for my daily constitutional. Every time I share a room in a hospital, the bathroom is right by the other guy’s bed, and his guests will be sitting in chairs just outside the bathroom door. Yesterday I just drove them all out with some ‘Reveille’ on my bugle, followed up with ‘Charge!’ They did not return until ‘Taps.’

Dang, they all just left for Tom’s PT, and now the nurses have moved in to change his bed. I am left here wishing for 5 minutes of privacy. Why do I always end up blogging about the hospital bathroom experience? Dang, they all returned from PT just as the nurses finished the bed, so I am breaking out the bugle. I am considering doing a Miles Davis jazz riff.

I came in yesterday morning and was getting a PICC line put in by 8:30am. I blew it and let them go with the right arm, without considering which side the IV pole would be at. Of course, I hadn’t seen the room yet, but still, an old pro like me should’ve known which questions to ask. Doh! Now I have IV lines across my body, and have to be a little more careful when I move.

Anyway, I have been sucking down 2000 mg of methotrexate since yesterday about 1pm, and I will finish around 11am. Just like old times, except 50 times more in one dose. No nausea, no side effects, but the best is yet to come. After the methotrexate they will hit me with the cytarabine, in pulsed doses over the next 2 days. I have to give them a handwriting sample before the first pulse of cytarabine, as a baseline sample. After each pulse they will get another sample, and if I start writing like a doctor, that’s bad. If I start writing like Hemingway, that’s worse, and if I start writing like Nietzsche, I turned German.

It’s funny but once I get in the hospital my whole mood elevates a little. Maybe it’s because I feel like I am doing something to battle this disease, maybe it’s just that I get in this scrappy mode, still wanting to live and to prove I am a tough guy. I still don’t like the crazy idea that people are best served when in their lowest of times by sharing their living space with total strangers, but I’ve harped on that before, so I let it go now.

Unfortunately, when you lie sleepless in the night in the hospital, that is when it all seems the most hopeless. I actually had to add planning my funeral to my to-do list in my brain! I remember having to go do this planning with my brother when my father died, or maybe we were just finalizing it, I don’t clearly remember because I wasn’t all there when it happened. I don’t want Dana to have to do this when the time comes.

To Do List

It’s a lot of work,
getting ready to die.
I don’t want to leave a big mess
for my loved ones to clean up.
Sorry enough the troubles I left
in their minds, all those bad memories,
like stacks of 33s and videotapes that
got wet in the flood, warped and
smelling of rot and earwigs.
They have digital copies but can’t shed the
old records, just in case.
I go through my things and fill the boxes-
Goodwill, Give Away, Garbage.
My buddy gets this pile,
sell the gym, who wants this desk,
get tires on the car,
write a maintenance schedule,
fix the refrigerator,
where is the living will,
where is the last will and testament,
are the bank records straight,
is the bill-paying routine clear?
And then I think, ‘What about
my remains, my funeral, I don’t want
to add a gritty pile of ash and bone
to the soggy messes
in the basements of those I love,
to the warped vinyl and the moldy papers.
Will I need special handling
because of all the chemo?
What can I do to save my love
from all the damage I’ve wrought?
I don’t have time,
I need more time,
please let me pile up
a little more time.