A big sweaty man in pink scrubs and black, curly locks loudly mispronounced my name, shaking a large styrofoam cup in one hand, full of ruby red liquid with thick shavings of ice. He instructed me to take the drink back to my seat, sip on it often, and continue reading my outdated periodical. So I sat patient, in my third waiting room of four, each room smaller than the one before, fuller than the first.
He peeked his soiled medicine ball of a head back in the room only minutes later, mispronouncing my name once again, in the most unfortunate way. He was one of those sorts that just looks at the letters and tries out loud, knowing he’ll probably get it wrong. Mother never taught him phonics. “Am I getting that right?” He asked with a silly, sheepish tone. I shook my head side to side. “Like the senator,” I said, knowing it wouldn’t help. “There’s a senator?” he asked. “Yes, there’s a senator,” I replied with stoic slowness, feeling both sinister and philosophical, as if my reply revealed some unseen truth about all things, both light and dark. Finally, to prove the fruitlessness of our exchange, he made a sweaty little smile and said, “just making sure you’re still here, keep drinkin’!” I kept drinking.
An hour later, after having been transferred to my last waiting room (complete with its own set of restrooms, each larger than the waiting room itself), and after reading the April 2004 issue of Bassmaster twice, my name was finally called with purpose. This time it was a middle-aged female, she liked to keep the tone of her voice just loud enough that everyone in the hospital had at least a chance of hearing it. She called my name to the small empty room as if there might be others, waiting hopefully for their name to be mispronounced. “I guess that’s me,” I said, trying for a subtlety she didn’t have the patience for. She grabbed my arm the way the teacher-beasts would grab my arm in the third grade when I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was only slightly shocked. After asking me my date of birth, she passed me off to new, slightly younger nurse with both enthusiasm and big hair.
This new ball of fire marveled at my arm’s lack of body fat. “So many veins, it’s a nurse’s dream!” She looked over my arm the way I might look at a Porterhouse. “No more than most people,” I said with a kind grin. She didn’t get it, or didn’t want to. Her gluttonous smile was gone, my arm’s charm was spent. I do just fine with shots if I remind myself to watch and act as if it’s a sensation I appreciate. The relative ease with which nurses enjoy my well-mapped veins is an added advantage. “Here’s the prick,” she said with boredom, referring in a rather obvious fashion to both the syringe in her hand and the way she felt about the young man before her. And I’ll be damned if it wasn’t a prick like no other.
The moment one has a green IV plug hanging from his or her arm, easily connected to an assortment of modern things, one feels just sightly less than human.
Yet another new nurse guided me down the long hall in my robe. I chuckled at the fact that they’ve really perfected the design of the machine they were about to shoot me through, so aerodynamic and efficient, and yet, as always, the robe wrapped round me just couldn’t quite do the job. You know the problem, it ties off alright, but you’re showing cheek and you can feel it. Cool air flowing in places cool air doesn’t usually flow. I smiled knowing that the only person who found this entertaining was me, because they see it every day. And for ten or twenty yards, I kept smiling. Because it felt nice.
I worked up the courage to ask if I could keep my robe, and just before I could ask, the nurse (youngest of them all, I may in fact be older) holding my completely sober and capable arm turned me toward my final destination. I was immediately taken by the clean white science before me. It was a fairly large room, with high white ceilings and very little aside from the awesome pearly white donut in the middle. To my left I saw windows on a wall, with a darkly lit control room with nice office chairs and a red phone that probably has a direct line to President Nixon. As I inched closer to the machine, and the bed beneath it, the nurse quietly instructed me to enter the bed from one direction, lay down, put my arms above my head, and wait for further instruction.
Long ago, when such experiences first became necessary, I developed a strategy to preserve my sanity and comfort. This is expensive, I decided, so I may as well act as if I’m supposed to enjoy it. A highly specialized form of luxury and pleasure. A heightened and enhanced experience that only insurance companies can afford. Looking toward the ceiling, with the pretty lights and tubing moving in and out of the machine, with its quiet, meticulous noises, I thought of how so many elements of the experience seemed unnecessary, but completely artful. Like a museum-grade installation. Irwin meets Flavin meets Kubrick meets Turrell. “Now this is what I’m paying for,” I thought of saying. But I knew the nurse wouldn’t understand.
In my mind I had confused CT with MRI, because to me they’re both acronyms that stand for Circular Space Odyssey Test Thing. A few years ago, I had an MRI. It was less enjoyable. It wasn’t a donut, but a chamber. And the sounds, they weren’t pleasant. Unless you like listening to Stomp warm up on your headphones, with the volume too loud, naked, in a confined circular tomb, for half an hour. So, needless to say, I was happy to see that there was no post-post-modern coffin I’d be electronically rolling into, just a Brancusi-sculpted ring big enough to drive a fat person through.
This nurse, the young one, my nurse for the planned remainder, was real nice. She had a soft voice and talked slow, which is the best way to talk. I felt an attraction toward her, but not for any reason but to be across a table from her in the cafeteria downstairs, listening to her talk slow about her job, about the weather, about whatever. We all love to sit around while our piano-playing friend doodles on the keys. I just wanted to sit around while she played her voice. To be her casual hospital friend so I’d have an excuse to listen to her say things to me. It wasn’t romantic at all. Just a love of lungs, air, and disposition. I didn’t want to be her man, I wanted to be her patient.
With my hands above my head, she took one wrist and wrapped it around a plastic tube. Her hands were warm, and she would assure me repeatedly that I was doing “juuuust fine.” I didn’t need that assurance, nothing was happening, but for some reason I didn’t mind her telling me. I thought of how I always hated it when people asked me if I was okay. Pouty little faces asking if I’m alright, of course I’m alright. Sympathy was never something I asked for or enjoyed. But encouragement, that was alright.
I realized I hadn’t said a word to this nurse, she had never asked a question. What a gift, to be able to speak incessantly to someone without their interaction. And all the while I wanted her to keep talking, I had no complaints. I took note of this rare occurrence. Someone was talking without stopping, to me, I was completely inside myself, and I didn’t mind at all. I was only half listening, but she was only half talking. This was an exchange we were both aware and accepting of. I thought maybe good marriages involve this sort of therapeutic allowance, an unwritten rule for vast portions of the evening. You’re allowed to talk half the night if I’m allowed to half-listen all the night. Or maybe that’s a bad marriage. Either way, it was soft and good between us. I was content not knowing more about her, she was simply the softest machine in a building full of machines.
“I’m gonna start the flow, you’re gonna feel warm all over, then we’ll start.”
She began feeding my arm with the contrast fluid from a flanking machine, my heightened senses kept waiting for a change in temperature, and as the seconds passed I began to doubt I’d even feel this warmness she promised. But before I could even be aware of that doubt, a warmness like no other flooded over and through in shocking undulations. It was as though I could feel the blood running every vein, warming me up like the palm of my mother’s hand. It was fearsome, feverish, and lovely. I hadn’t felt that warm and warped since the Easter Sunday I lost my will to keep standing beneath the sun-draped aura of the chorus, beckoned by the spirit. Some spirit. But this was no hallelujah moment. Science was making love to me. I didn’t say yes, but I didn’t say no.
As I passed through the circular belt, a band of diodes and bulbs blinked rhythmic patterned sparks and gave off a bevy of noises as something inside the ring seemed to be racing round the human-eating circle. The pace with which I slowly came under and through this nameless hoop had a cinematic power, I felt a mystery and imagined music. It’d make a fine visual for time-travel, or contact between dimensions. In an instant the spectacular quality of the experience produced a sinking, terrifying ache in my chest. I became aware of the fact that not everybody gets a CT scan on the first day of March, if at all. I felt blessed by what interests me, by how easily my soul is fed. If I were dying, I thought, this wouldn’t be so bad. And it wouldn’t be. I felt bad for thinking it, because of all the people who’ve fought for their lives between CT scans and devastating treatments. But to me there’s nothing wrong with the idea of being scanned and tested and battered with treatments. If, of course, I could do that till I died instead of deal with the hurt out there, on the other side of the thick white walls. Where I’ve got to break hearts and get confused in a painting studio without paintings. Make my own meals and listen to the old man a floor beneath cough and cry himself to sleep. For a moment it was a fantasy, to die with science. Here I am institution, try anything you like, you can keep me forever, you can keep me company. Just start by erasing my memory.
The low and satisfying hum of the machine had peaked and begun to slow. In the sensation I had no idea if it had been five minutes or five seconds since the beginning, but I saw the nurse walking back toward me and I knew our time was drawing to a close. Exhausted yet content, I thought I wouldn’t mind a few more minutes of one-sided conversation with my favorite nurse. She wasn’t saying anything though, I’d have to speak to get her going.
“So I suppose my face feeling numb is just part of the procedure.”
“No, it isn’t,” she palmed my forearm, “does your face feel numb?”
“Well, my lips, now,” she looked seriously worried and I began to backtrack, “they did…It’s nothing serious.”
“No, it is serious, I’m glad you told me. How did it feel?”
“No no, it’s not a big deal at all.”
“I need to know how it felt.”
“I don’t know. Sort of like when you get punched in the mouth and your face gets numb for a minute.”
“Punched in the mouth?”
“Well.”
In thirty seconds, there was another nurse and two doctors at my side. One doctor was in charge of all the others, she interviewed me with precision. My favorite nurse was still present, now scared for me and the implications of my “reaction.” I owned up as best I could to my real intentions. “I was just trying to shoot the bull with the nice nurse here, I’m gonna be fine.” She assured me that she’s seen patients act this way before with the worst results.
“Did your chest feel as though it was sinking or contracting?”
“Well.”
And that was it. I was to stay in a hospital stall for at least an hour. I was to arrange to be picked up by a friend. I couldn’t even walk home even though I lived just blocks away. It became an argument. “I’m fine doctor.” She wouldn’t have it. “You can’t keep me here,” I reminded her with a friendly chuckle. Yes she could. She ordered me another IV on the other side so they could watch my vital signs. “Doctor, I appreciate your being thorough and all, but this is retarded.” She didn’t smile at me or talk slow or give me warmness. Her plan was in action, I was all talk while she half-listened.
As they wheeled me to my stable, the nurse peeked her head over a crowd at the door and made kind eyes and a smile. I returned the expression without a grudge. That nurse without a name gave me the most caring eyes. In their own professional way, those eyes were more devoted to me alone than any pair I’d seen in ages. The only reason my afternoon was ruined was because she wasn’t a machine, and that’s a fair reason. We said goodbye without saying it and she knows I liked her. There would be more nurses in the coming hour, but I never saw her again.
I didn’t have friends on this side of town that could come pick me up, and even if I did, I didn’t want to call them. In fact, I still had my heart set on some sort of escape, feeling able as I was. But they put me on watch till I made the call. So I begrudgingly phoned a friend, sure to apologize and explain how they tied me to a bed with clear plastic tubing. I had an hour to kill, and the only thing on TV was my heartbeat. Steady silent thumping. I called my mother for the first time in forever and talked about her brother.
After half an hour, I convinced them to let me use the restroom in the waiting room, where my clothes were stashed in a cubby. The head nurse agreed, so long as I let a nurse escort me to the bathroom door, and quickly return for another half-hour of monitored heartbeats. I quickly got to my cubby and changed clothes. With jeans and a t-shirt on, staring toward the floor at my sneakers, I felt out of place and capable of freedom. Then and there, with a green plug on one arm and a cotton-stuffed bandage on the other, I made a decision. Even though someone was coming for me, and they needed to see her before they let me go, I was no slave. That half hour was mine, and I was taking my own car home.
I stepped outside the door and the nurse in charge of overseeing my bathroom activity was hooting with a peer down the hall. I simply turned the opposite direction and began to walk. If there’s anything I’ve learned about hospitals it’s that there’s more ways out than there are in. Choose a direction and you’ll find one. Maybe thirty yards down I heard a voice far behind me. “Hey,” she called, “you can’t, hey he’s leaving!” I was partly shocked that they weren’t just letting me walk. They knew I was fine as well as I did. Even if I wasn’t, it’s no crime for me to suffer elsewhere. There were more voices behind me and I knew I couldn’t keep walking.
I looked to either side and saw the green IV plug and the bandage tape once again. Evidence of my status. I ripped each off as I walked, dropping them behind me as I moved to a gait and then a trot. I dashed a left and began to run, partly hoping the cameras would spot me and send a large man in uniform to try and tackle me. It had been months since I got to exhibit my moves in a truly competitive atmosphere. Adrenaline ran through me as I realized I was now sprinting through the oppressive world of Radiology, built for cautious slowness. I could see myself from the cameraman’s position. My story had become one part Harrison Ford thriller, another part eighties music video. Think Brian Adams, Summer of 69.
One nurse, that awful big-haired thing, had made a cross-cut through the wide maze toward the exit she knew I was nearing, and had been able to get closer to my trail than I realized. By the time I busted through two swinging doors and into the same waiting room I started in, to my own bewildered surprise, I was running with an irresponsible velocity. She came through the same doors behind me, maybe six seconds after. I was already in one of the larger lobbies of the hospital, sprawled and luxurious like an open atrium in a shopping mall. I heard her shout “you can’t let him leave!” But there was no one to stop me. I thought of all the patient patients wondering what goes on behind those double doors at the Department of Radiology.
She had given up at the entrance next to the large letters on the wall that spelled her employer’s name. An unmarked border seemed to keep her there, unwilling to make a fool of herself outside her jurisdiction. I realized it was to my advantage to stop running and act normal. The unplugged arm was bleeding, but not terrible. I ducked inside the gift shop and bought a couple peanut butter cups. Ate em whole to reward my valor. They made me come on a 6-hour empty stomach, I had room for six more and a glass of milk.
As my mouth became inundated with chocolate-peanut-butter-delicious and a lack of air, I realized I still had a ride coming. I quickly gave her a dial and told her message-machine to stay clear, mission abort. I called again and still no answer. “I got away from them,” I told her phone a second time, lost in my own story. I was physically free of nurse-arrest, but without an answer from my arranged ride, my conscience wasn’t free to leave the Hospital grounds. I walked to my car, atop the parking garage, and waited. Half an hour later, she finally answered. She was waiting by the ambulances, slightly bitter and truly anxious.
We can wait to live and we can wait to die, and we can pay our way with tests and trials to each. Freedom only comes in the choosing. And of course, the right to a second opinion.