My Exciting Hospital Adventure

Hello, all! I've had such an adventure in the hospital the past few days. It is lovely to be home today, enjoying the colors of fall as a storm passes over.

I had difficulties breathing late last week in an encore of the pneumonia I got the evening of my mother's funeral service in August. When all else fails and you're fighting to get air into your lungs, you become willing to do things you have never done before, such as wear pink lycra hot pants or go to a hospital. I've not ever been in a medical hospital. I never did hot pants either.

My ER doctor was a cute little lady named something like Dr. Platinum Blonde, only her real last name had to do with red hair and her first name was the pleasant spice commonly used in baking cinnamon rolls. I'm not kidding you. My ER nurse was a gorgeous girl named Courtney. I wanted to take her home and stare at her for days. I swear, they hire people for ER work who please the eyes while your body is in torture, because of it is good for your health.

So Dr. "Blonde" (insert something about redhead) says to me, I seem to have a case of congestive heart failure and acute pneumonia, with wild white cells and rampant inflammation. It's very interesting, she says, because I do not present as a usual case of congestive heart failure. I found this interesting as well.

They offered me a common anti-anxiety drug to help dispel the anxiety I exhibited upon hearing of my apparent impending death. I thanked them but no thank you, as I happen to be clean and sober, and we clean and sober types face congestive heart failure and large aggressive dogs with prayer and meditation.

So they popped me into the hospital and I didn't even have a chance to put on earrings or do my hair, let alone grab my laptop to record this special event. I'd been rather weepy and my eyes puffed up like marshmallows. The hospital gown did my zoftig shape no favors so I quickly went back to my sweats and they didn't fire me for it.

It was an exciting few days. They pulled me back from the brink of heart failure and stabilized the pneumonia. An x-ray tech came in my room with the bedside apparatus and said he was there to "do" my legs. "But I don't have legs," I said. He actually looked. The nurses and all were quite funny once I cracked a joke and turned down the pain meds. Paula the aide with menopause and an exotic accent ran around saying, "I am a HOT WOMAN today!"

I wrote what I thought might be my final poem, based on an emailed photograph of a distant family member that I received on Thursday last week. Here is what might have been my swan song:

To a Woman I Don't Know

My cousin the photographer

says you look like someone

we should know and he smirks

the knowing question: Who?

Your cheeks must mean something

after all -- I can't think

your bland smile is important

and anything could have happened

in those blue eyes.

When the Nazis had a party

they looked like you

with nothing to hide

except the unfathomable secrets

in their coffee every morning.

Well, nice not to have that be my swan song. I think I'll be sleeping and breathing exercises for a few more days, not to mention it is once again a deadline for my writing assignments. "Hello," I shall say in my new breathy voice, "I wonder if you might comment on the state of affairs at the food bank this Christmas. Hold on while I do a quick breathing exercise and then we shall have a proper interview, shall we?"