it seems sometimes like everyone in the world has some serious disease, and is either presently suffering, or doesn't know that they will be soon. my realization that i was brooding over this notion became clear when, after an 8:30 am monday to 12:00 pm tuesday work shift (that then resumed tuesday at 5:00 pm and just finished this morning), i went by the universal coffeeshop to grab something hot and christmas-flavored. i walked in the door around 9:00 am, all greasy from the night spent working (cowlicks spewing from both the front and back of my head), feeling silly in my blue scrubs ("that radiology tech must think he's pretty cool dressing like a surgeon"), very self-consumed as always. but then, i noticed everyone in the room seemed really healthy. i mean, not just getting by. it was surreal. all these animated voices talking coherently, bursting from these taut, lean, vibrant bodies, all of which seemed to have energy to spare. and it gave me pause to consider that, maybe after all, everyone's not sick. see, there's a musty smell of a sick, moist hospital body -- it's ubiquitous among patients -- appreciated most purely when the sick body is leaned forward as in invitation for you to listen to the lungs from behind, and the gown is pealed from the sticky skin. it's the area that's been soaking in sickness, pressed up against the hospital bed under this dead weight of human fever all night. it sticks in your nose when you leave the hospital in the morning. you're always kind of shocked when a new odor hits you. in the coffeehouse, everyone smelled like warm wealth and ski lodge, and there was this tiny wisp of neiman's perfume hanging at the door. and that's when it struck me. that everyone's not sick. it was nice to discover, because when you're around all this sickness, you begin to feel sick yourself. i don't mean in a hypochondriactic sort of way, but in a hopeless "we're all just waiting for our death" sort of way. i've had too-many-to-count of my patients die this month, and i just a few days ago stumbled upon a nine year's diagnosis of leukemia; last night i had to tell someone (very much alone in a dark room that smelled like a summer porta-potty) that death was two or three days away -- which caught this patient by surprise. it always catches them by surprise. it would catch me by surprise. so i formally conveyed all of the medical infomation to the other residents over morning report and then drug myself out the door, bleary-eyed and numb. in the car, though, delirious popped on when i turned the key (it was one of their older, more subdued songs about finding Jesus, and was playing muffled from a dubbed cassette), and i sort of shook my head and wondered which reality was reality -- or if either was reality, or if they both together were reality...
and then i smelled the wealthy people and everything was better. at least it gave me that impression.
OH, there it is. my coffee just abruptly ran out of steam. i'm going to take a nap.
hey, but since you've suffered with me awhile, you'll find great delight in downloading and watching this... trust me, it's not a virus, and it's well worth your time:
and lance, thanks for helping with the spelling of lobotomy. what's a "labotomy" anyway? an otomy of a lab? as opposed to an otomy of a golden retriever?
