So I'm in the hospital and am getting pumped full of saline just to keep me hydrated...

It is the same hospital, btw, where I was born almost exactly 52 years ago right now...

Anyway, I have had to piss so much that it seems as if I am back on a bender.

I was twenty-six years old when I gave up libations (man am I thirsty) and to that day, I am 52.

Been in the hospital since Saturday. Went in with a 103.5 temp., very high for me, coughing up blood, not just the tinged mucus stuff, but literally palms full of vivid, red blood that just a few seconds ago was traveling around inside of me keeping the whole system greased up, if you will.

I have not slept for more than an hour, hour and a half since last wed so if I posted anything a tad bit Looney, well, there's the reason.

How do you handle a birthday when they actually are giving you vicadin while wearing masks just so they have a little protection from the catchiness of your illness, loonesy?

Not well, it seems, as it took me a few minutes to put all that had happened over the last few hours into some kind of perspective when I came too after falling into a deep, deep hour and a half sleep. Doesn't seem like much but boy was I under. I have a pic in my shoulder, a tube in my nose, and every so often, the blood comes back from sneaking into and then out my lungs.

This past week has been, as you can see, all over the map for me.

Now they transferred me to luxurious new room that looks more like a suite at the Ritz than a double room at the local hosp.

I almost think I had some kind of psychotic break but it is just the combination of getting older and, as the one called Pink pointed out decades ago, one day closer to death that seems to have me so discombobulated.

I think it's being in the same hospital I was born in on my birthday that is making this a little more poignant than it should be. Still, I have been reflecting more than usual yet still less than I should. I am blessed to have several people in my life who care deeply for me, perhaps are wondering at this very moment how I will come out of all this in the end.

This guy moved in to share the room with me two days ago and we became fast, deep friends simply because we shared a moment of bittersweet mortality. It was special to me since my "roomy" had an heart attack episode that stripped him bare to the bone with only me to turn to in those frantic moments when you are sure life is ebbing away swiftly. He was frantic; calling his wife to come quickly and share what he felt could very well be his slip into oblivion.

I couldn't help but to be pulled into his life-sized drama as only the thinnest of drawn sheets kept us separated but drawn as close, I imaging, as two men clinging to the hope of life in a battlefield might be. His heart pounding as fast as it had decades ago when he ran just because he could. Me checking to see if more blood was getting ready to flow useless from my mouth.

His wife burst in looking ten years older than she had just three hours ago when she had left with a twinkling Irish smile brought on by the forced bonding hospitals often cause spread across her still cute face.

A few more hours and the drama for him was over. She sat in a chair next to her still but still husband with the top of her draped over his body, as if telling his spirit it would have to go through her this time, buster.

Ten hours later when nervous laughter had turn into joy and then, of course because I was involved, ribald guffaws, I received the call that I had the call to the private room I sit in now.

She looked at me, half expecting me to refuse the upgrade. I over tired my stare, not knowing what to say. We both knew those moments of the most intimate sharing were over forever before any one of the three of us wanted them to be. She knew I would be better off and only time would tell if either of us would reach for the phone to try and reclaim this frenetic span of stranger to intiment sharer of pain and joy and back to strangers again.

It was a strange way to slide into my birthday. I reached out to my dear friend, she let me ramble on, and on about my newfound maturity when faced with what is quickly turning into what surely would be a life-altering day. I had forgotten this all happen around my birthday in the same hospital I was born in 52 years ago today until someone else, dear to me in different way, had reminded me.

All in all, I would have to say, a very good start for year 53…

Sending good thoughts for a full recovery .. Best wishes	auntAgonist	Oct-22-09 04:47 AM	#1
I'm very anxious....	WCGreen	Oct-22-09 11:30 AM	#4
Wow! Hope you are OK!	crispini	Oct-22-09 06:55 AM	#2
mostly getting better, the tragection is good...	WCGreen	Oct-22-09 11:31 AM	#5
wow	lost-in-nj	Oct-22-09 09:58 AM	#3
I felt so bad leaving them...	WCGreen	Oct-22-09 11:32 AM	#6
Hey	Bertha Venation	Oct-22-09 11:36 AM	#7
Wow, Chris...	CaliforniaPeggy	Oct-22-09 11:45 AM	#8
Poignant post	supernova	Oct-22-09 11:59 AM	#9
I am hoping your next year is a good one.	ThomCat	Oct-22-09 01:59 PM	#10
Holy smokes! I hope you will be ok. hugs	GreenPartyVoter	Oct-22-09 02:42 PM	#11