Feeling Blue on Floor Six

I wish I belonged here in the hospital – only not as a patient – but as one of the many nurses coming and going in the hallway. They all walk along briskly, shouting out pleasantries to one another – bustling along with purpose – heading somewhere for a reason.

Not me. Poor me.

My room is situated across from the nurse’s lounge. This means that all day long, as I feel sorry for myself and agonize over terrible doldrums brought about by loneliness and chronic pain, I get to watch this door swing open and closed – revealing another world to me.

While I sit in my cramped and stuffy room – which I’m sharing with two others – BOTH MALE – listening to depressing hospital noises comprised of beeping, hissing, softened footsteps and the odd vomiting – I also have to suffer through the lounge door swinging open – each time releasing peals of laughter and happy conversation.

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Nurses come and go at all hours – dressed in navy, purple, blue, green – one gorgeous blonde woman rocks it in hot pink scrubs – that somehow accentuate her beautiful body despite being shapeless. If I was my regular acerbic self, I’d hate her, her perky behind as well as her golden French braid with matching pink bow.

While they’re all in there laughing and having a gay old time with their containers of homemade brownies and cookies, I’m stuck in this insanely suffocating room with Roomie A who’s 80 and Roomie B who’s 20 (more on them in another post).

Back it up a bit – I found myself here along with my overnight bag wrapped in lime green plastic and placed gently in the closet on Saturday night. The nurse who met me upon arrival – was decidedly not as kind as the ICU nurses. She was clearly put out when I needed to pee and rather than help me shuffle over to the toilet less than 10 feet from my bed, insisted I use the commode she rolled over next to my bed which meant my pathetic stream was musical entertainment for everyone in the room.

I had to ask her to help me wipe – twice – each time louder than the time before – because she seemed to have trouble hearing my request. And she sighed before doing so – just in case I missed the cues that she was annoyed by my presence.

Little did I know then that I would soon devise a sure-fire method to determine whether my twice daily incoming nurse would be one of the good ones or one of the not-so-good (more about this in an upcoming post). Suffice it to say that of all the nurses I had during my brief but seemingly long stay of five days – I only had to endure two not so good ones (three, if you count Miss “Piss in the Commode for all to Hear.”)

My first full day at the hospital was uneventful – though I was encouraged to “ambulate” (which is a fancy way to say “walk”) by my lovely nurse Humphrey (that is his real name – because he’s awesome and he deserves to be named). I used my IV pole as support and had Humphrey close behind as I shuffled along the ward in my zebra socks. A woman in a wheelchair looked up at me as I ambulated on by and said: “Smile, Honey.” I wanted to laugh in her face and say to her: “I am, Honey.”

Nurse Humphrey laughed behind me and knowing what I know about him – he was just being good-natured toward the woman and her flippant comment – not laughing at the irony like me.

Man – all those years of RBF and being told to “smile” while walking down the street or standing in line at the bank – mainly by old, gross dudes. Now I had the perfect comeback: “Sorry – cancer took my smile nerves, you insensitive jackass!”

Going to the potty was a bit of an ordeal. It required me buzzing Humphrey so that he could come to my room to disconnect my leg massagers as well as my IV so that I could slog across the room to the toilet and sink.

On a side note – these leg massagers – though they sound like something wonderful and spa-like – are created by Satan. Designed to keep the circulation moving, they are velcroed around your calves like warm and buzzing leg warmers – they are noisy, irritating and kept me awake most nights.

It was at this point in time that I psyched myself up to take a look in the mirror. All I knew was that the right side of my face, neck and ear felt like bloody steaks when I touched them – with no sensation whatsoever.

So after getting unhooked, I trudged to the alcove with the sink and mirror, took a deep breath and then stared in the mirror.

Not horrible.

But definitely not great either. My hair on my left side looked okay – somewhat greasy but okay. The hair on my right side though – now that’s another story. Some of it was standing almost straight up – think “There’s Something about Mary” – but with blood and iodine instead of . . . you know. Plus, bits of my hair had been hastily tied up in mini-elastics – probably during surgery – and these insane little ponytails were well on their way to becoming full-fledged dreads.

My right eye was sealed shut, blackened around the lid and beneath and there were stitches in the mix as well – but I was hesitant to explore further. I later learned that a gold weight had been sewn into my eyelid allowing me to close it and the clever docs had rejigged a muscle or a nerve from my left side which allowed me to open my right eye up.

My nose had some sort of blue material (nasal packing I was soon to discover) stuffed up my left nostril – due to bleeding from an oxygen tube during surgery.

My right cheek was now a pale and waxy flap of skin taken from my left thigh; my neck was scarred and swollen from where lymph nodes had been extracted; my right ear was now purely decorative – which is quite ironic considering it was hideous. It had been cut off from the front and then peeled back so that my ear canal and eardrum could be removed. Also removed – the cute little shell-like curlicues all ears have. This current monstrosity looked as if someone took a lump of flesh-coloured play-doh and rolled it in between their palms until it reached a vague sort of ear-shape and then it was stitched back onto the side of my head – noticeably lower than where my left ear currently resides.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful – I’m not. I’m indebted for all that was done for me during my 14-hour surgery. But still – looking in that mirror – it suddenly occurred to me that my beauty pageant competition days were officially over.

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That night, I took some phone calls. I was bored stiff and really needed these calls. Brennan phoned me and put me on speaker – he was sitting out back at our house, with the kids, my brother, his wife, my best friend and another couple – and they all yelled happy greetings to me. They were just about to order supper and were toasting to my successful surgery.

I got off the phone feeling sad. Everyone was ecstatic; everyone was celebrating. And I was stuck here breathing through my mouth and looking like the Bride of Frankenstein.

Then I remembered – tomorrow was Monday. Tomorrow would be a better day – it meant one day closer to going home. Plus, Brennan was visiting in the early afternoon – which meant I would be reunited with my beloved – and by “beloved” – I’m referring to my laptop.

I would no longer have to resort to eavesdropping on nurses and my roomies for sole entertainment as now I’d be able to watch Golden Girls and The IT Crowd. Of course, I would STILL be eavesdropping – but as of tomorrow – I’d have options.

That evening, I lumbered back toward bed after my last tinkle for the night. Getting into bed was not a simple feat for me – it involved some serious awkward movements that always resulted in me flashing unsuspecting nurses walking by with my Sharon Stone impression from Basic Instinct. I swear that at one point, I heard a “Code Black” announcement after one of my graceless and bumbling attempts to get into bed.

But you know me – always willing to look on the bright side – at least it wasn’t a “Code Grey”.*

To be continued . . .

*Credit’s given where credit’s due: ”At least it’s not a Code Grey” was my friend Lisa’s hilarious retort when I first told her about the “Code Black” occurring every time I fumbled into bed.

On Monday April 26, 2021, my life changed forever when I heard the words: “You have cancer.” This blog post is the seventh in a series entitled: Cancer Culture and revolves around my personal experience surrounding this devastating diagnosis.

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