Hopeless

I haven’t slept all night. One of the nurses told me yesterday at the hospital that people have died in their sleep before because they started bleeding in their throat and didn’t wake up so they drowned. I wonder if she realized the horror that would bring me. I’ve been watching “Man vs. Wild” on the Discovery Channel for five hours now. I’m pretty sure I know how to survive in any climate and any country. What is on at 4am on a Monday morning? Something’s tickling my throat. This can’t be real. I run downstairs to get a cup full of ice because the doctor told me that, if it started bleeding again, ice might make it stop.
Two large Taco Bell to-go cups full of ice later and my body is shivering. My arms are convulsing and my lips are numb. I yell for my mom when I realize that the ice is not helping. As soon as an ice cube fully melts, the blood flows. My mom comes in to the TV room and when she realizes that I am freezing myself she takes the cup away from me and walks me down to the car for yet another trip to the emergency room.
It’s the same setup, same nurses, same doctor and same procedure. I don’t have much hope. At 7:45am he finishes up his cauterizing and sends me home saying:
“No one ever bleeds a third time honey, don’t worry.”
We pull into the drive way and I stagger up the stairs to the couch that has been my home for the last two and a half weeks and lay down. The second my head hits the pillow I smell the salt and rusted metal, feel the warmth run down my throat and begin to sob. I walk in to my mother’s room where she is calling work to tell them she won’t be coming in today and she immediately hangs up the phone.
“You have got to be kidding me. What did that man do to you?” she says with a quivering voice.
I get another bowl from the kitchen and ride back to the hospital, my arm still sore from the I.V. they just pulled out, the identification bracelet still on my wrist and the smell of Clorox still fresh in my hair. I am at the end of my patience.
I go into the same room and my mother tells them to call my original doctor and tell him to get here as soon as possible. I never would have thought that I would’ve wanted to see that cold and ugly man again. Today, he is my last hope for sleep, food and healing. They give me a double dose of morphine to help calm me down because I am so distraught by this point. As the blood continues to run from my mouth I am crying and shaking and praying out loud for God to please make it stop. I have myself so worked up that I get sick and have to lean over the trash can in the corner of the room while holding my arm out straight to keep the intravenous working properly. The back of my paper robe falls completely open and my not so “very sexy” (or whatever Victoria calls them) underwear are exposed to anyone walking down the hall and the two males nurses that are caring for me.
After my stomach calms down, I am able to sit back in the bed and wait for my doctor. He finally arrives in a tizzy. Hope. My mom explains everything we’ve been through and he apologizes countless times for his absence. The nurse with the worn down tattoos comes in and they get ready to fix me for good. I feel comfort. He spends an hour longer than the other doctor tending to my throat and uses ten times the amount of instruments, creams, medicines and Q-tip thingies. Finally, I feel like I can sleep. He finishes up and tells me that he wants to keep me in the emergency room on watch for the next eight hours to make sure that I am healing correctly.
My mother sits by my bed holding my hand and rests her hand on my side. She is worn out from the ups and downs and the driving and worrying. I feel so bad for her. She had to watch me this entire time. What horrible images she must have seen. My mom is a strong woman. She loves me well. We both sleep for about four hours while waiting for my doctor to come back and tell me I was okay to leave.
He returns and checks me out. All seems well and he assures me that I won’t bleed like that again. I am prescribed more pain killers and told not to eat for a week. We go home.
***
One week after my last hospital visit, I am 25 pounds skinnier than I was four weeks ago, hungry and ready to get my mind on other things. I slept through the entire night last night. My body will let me live without my tonsils.