Portraits from My Stay at the Hospital, Part Two

I wake up concerned about how I smell. I've been told not to bathe since I'm hooked up to all this equipment. I have no deodorant. I dig through the small basket of toiletries the first nurse gave to me the night before looking for anything that might help. I choose the lotion. It doesn't help much. I brush my teeth and try to drag the small comb the hospital provided through my hair. It's like those combs they used to give you for school picture day. It's hopeless.

I decide to practice civil disobedience. I put on my yoga pants from the day before. The heart monitor battery pack fits nicely in the pocket and gives me more mobility. I try to do yoga, but the floor seems kind of gross and the battery pack keeps falling out of my pocket. I sit back down and wait.

Fred comes on his way to work. He drops off a clean pair of underwear (Animal from the Muppets) and a book and a phone charger. I forgot to ask him for deodorant. He looks grim and tired. I tell him I'm supposed to be home before dinner, hopefully, but that it all depends on how quickly they can administer and read the stress test. He sits for a while and then heads off to work.

A doctor comes in and hands me her business card. She asks me a lot of questions about the chest pain and about yoga. She tells me everything looks benign but that I need to have the stress test anyway. She apologizes for the delay.

I'm hungry. I call the cute young nurse in and ask her if I should order breakfast so that I don't miss it completely. She says no. I ask her if there's anything that we can do about the fact that the IV in my arm is killing me. She says no. I tell her I'm not taking off my pants. She says ok. She says she'll be back in soon to update me on the status of my stress test. I tell her I'm going to go for a walk. She asks me not to leave the ward.

I walk around the ward, which is decorated with lovely textiles from around the world, all framed and labeled, as if this were a wing of an art museum. I stop and read each one. I try not to peek inside the other rooms. Some have doors open, others have doors closed. Some have pieces of paper taped to them with clip art stars. I wonder what that means. My door does not have stars. I see lots of people in white coats. They are all very young.

I'm getting a caffeine or morphine headache. My face is so puffy I can see the bags under my eyes in my field of vision. This must be from the morphine. I have to walk with my right arm bent and up to avoid the searing pain from the IV. I keep walking. Walking, walking, walking until I overhear a conversation between some of the staff about one of the patients needing a death certificate but they seem unsure of the time of death. I decide to retreat back to my room. My thoughts travel around the idea of death, the surprise at having been near to someone's dying without even noticing the passing. I get sad.

A man comes into my room with a wheelchair. He checks my bar code on my hospital id bracelet. He is wearing a giant silver motorcycle belt buckle and sneakers boldly colored like the Jamaican flag. He wheels me to the stress test waiting room. We talk about Florida. He lived there, too. He says he didn't like it because you had to have a car. He likes it here better. We agree that the cold isn't fun, though. Being wheeled feels like being disembodied. I feel the length of my escort's paces, it feels almost like I am walking, but I am half of my usual height. I think of my sons and how this must be their view as they walk - of people's midsections.

Jamaica motorcycle man backs me into a waiting area and hands me an architecture magazine with Patrick Dempsey on front. I flip through the pages without anything registering. There's a woman with a giant bandage covering half of her face in the bay next to me. The nurses at the nurse station have green three inch binders on all of us. They are flipping through the one about me.

A woman comes to take me to the stress test room. She is probably ten or so years older than me. We talk about yoga. She says she tried it once and didn't like it. Too much chanting and fairies, she says. I tell her she should come to my classes. Guaranteed fairy free (most of the time).

She hooks up the electrodes. Even more than before. I'm glad I have my pants for my run on the treadmill, but I didn't bring my shoes. They were snow boots, anyway. Probably wouldn't be the best for running in.

Another woman comes in. She introduces herself. These two will be administering the stress test. She asks me about yoga, too. They take my blood pressure a couple of times. And then they get me up on the treadmill.

I have a terrible episode of deja vu as I'm stepping onto the treadmill in my yoga pants and johnnie - I notice that my johnnie is still bloody from the night before. I've definitely done this before.

The stress test is stressful. The worst part is the belt that holds the heart monitor in place is restricting my breathing. I feel like I'm going to faint. They get my heart rate up to near-explode and then stop the treadmill and help me to the hospital bed. I feel like I'm going to faint. They tell me that's normal - that the heart doesn't like to slow down that quickly from so high. I still can't breathe because of the belt, and the pressure of me trying to get deep breaths with a tight belt is making my chest hurt. I pant out that I need them to loosen the belt. They do. I pant and gasp, thinking of that fish from the end of the Faith No More video. I can't catch my breath. I think about how a yoga teacher practiced in the arts of pranayama should be able to catch her damn breath.

The women take a few more blood pressures and measurements of this and that. They hand me a clean johnnie since the one I am in is blood-stained and sweaty, and it smells really bad, and then they walk me back to my architecture magazine and wheelchair. I sit there for a while looking at Patrick Dempsey in his luscious outdoor room and watching the other stress test victims walk or wheel past. There's a parade of us.

A much older man comes to wheel me back to my room. I sit on the bed and try to figure out how to order food. I call for the nurse and wait. And wait. I go for a walk. I walk to the nurse's station. I ask the person there how to order food. My nurse comes out to help. I tell her I want food and I want a shower. She says she'll come help me. We walk back to my room together. She rips open a biohazard bag and puts it on my arm over the IV and tapes it in place. She tells me to get my shower and then order my food. It's not the order of events I would have chosen, but I comply.

The shower is awkward. It's a hand-held shower head, and I can't use my right, dominant arm because of the pain from the IV. I do my best at smearing hospital liquid soap around with my left hand and then try to squirt it off, also with my left hand. I make a really sorry attempt at washing my hair. I fear I've done more damage than good, but at least I got rid of the stress-sweat smell emanating from my pits. I try to dry off with my left hand, give up, and get my pants and johnnie back on while still mostly damp. I rip the biohazard bag off, gently, and go wait for the nurse to explain how to get some grub. I drink down a bottle of water while I wait. I check my phone. Some folks have found out I'm in the hospital. I have a string of emails and texts to the extent of "JEEZUS! Aren't you worried????" and I'm not and I think that's odd.

I notice a sign hanging under my TV that I never noticed before that says "Food Service" and a four digit number. I take a chance and dial it on my phone. I order pasta and an apple and a coffee. I hang up. I fall asleep. The nurse comes in to hook me back up to my heart monitor and to explain how to order food. She leaves.

The food comes and it's the best in the world. I'm ravenous. I tear through it all, then I go hunting for more from the kitchen across the hall from my room. I find Sanka packets. I pour four of them into some hot water and hope for the best. I grab two single-serving boxes of raisin bran and power through those. The Sanka tastes like dirty water rather than coffee, but I drink it down. I turn on the TV and flip through the channels. There's nothing to watch. I flip through my phone and check the news. Not much there, either. I wait.