SICK AGAIN

Sick again, I couldn‘t believe it. I fell over in my chair defeated and ready to throw in the towel. I slumped and melted as if the bones in my body had disintegrated. I thought that the worse was over. I never imagined for one second that what doctors predicted would come true.

Before I could hit the ground, I was rescued by a nurse assistant on duty and asked to change into a gown. I refused of course. I didn’t trust the medical facility and challenged the test results, they so eagerly read as if it were good news. I rolled my eyes with the last bit of energy I had before my complete breakdown. 

“What would be the point of completing my current tasks?” I implied. The nurse was more than confused. You could see her fingers itching over to the panic button. Still, she smiled and said that she wasn’t at liberty to speak on the matter. I found that quite cowardice. She was so anxious to read the news of my lab results. It was as if she got off on telling patients they had days to live. If I could reach the scalpel on the supply table I would have cut her throat. The sound of her guzzling blood over powered her speech in my mind.

I contemplated about the walk home. I had driven but; I thought it would be fitting to take a stroll. It had seemed like such a long haul to overcome my first bout with illness. I just didn’t think I could make it through a second time. I stayed for the poking and prodding, the excessive lab work that could only reveal one thing. I was set-up.  What was the point of chemo therapy? I was no stranger to walks with death, but what was the point of fighting the inevitable? It had come back with a vengeance, knocking down my walls of confidence and security. 

 

I looked up at the strange woman and refused any help. She was forcing me into a gown along with one of her team. She couldn’t handle me on her own. Her presence sickened me. I couldn’t wait to get a moment alone with her. I believe they altered the test results, by the many vigilantes against survival and perseverance. They were apart the of devils advocates I’m sure. I could smell them from a mile away.

I was caught off guard. I was so angry I stood in the middle of the hospital garden and screamed for God and his son to show face. I drifted into biblical times. The grass became sand, my feet were bare, and the sun was hot. My hands were swelling and callusing as the sun burned them. I held them high towards the sky waiting for God to tell me what was going on.

 

Screaming at the top of my lungs drew much attention. They saw me standing in a hospital gown raising my hands to the sky, speaking in some odd language. I saw no one just the sun beaming down upon me as I glared in the bright lights that soon blinded me.

 

It was going to be a very long walk home. I was so taken back by the news. I forget where I lived. I left my car in the parking lot and started on my journey home. I didn’t have a care in the world. I walked along side cars on the highway. The breeze flowing in from my open back gown gave me, just enough of a cooling to beat the exhausting heat. I was one with the earth and beginning to accept my fate.

 

In reality I believe at this point the nursing staff retrieved me from the outside courtyard just in front of the hospitals entrance, and bused me back to my room. I say shades of gray. I couldn’t understand nor could I explain the happenings occurring in my mind. All I could see was darkness. It was sure to be a long walk home. A long walk back to civilization, I couldn’t think.

 

The nurse was just behind the curtain pushing in the machines. She was back to take my vitals. I couldn’t believe they were trying to admit me based on a technicality. I was sick in the head. My physical frame was as well as it was going to get. If I were going to take the walk down these long halls to isolation then it was no point in even admitting me. I wasn’t going to stand for it, not again. I did my time. I paid my dues. I‘d learned my lesson.

 

I’d survived the long walk home once before. I couldn’t see the need for my revisiting the long endless roads of humility. Fading into sleep as the nurse punctures my flesh, I remember only the smell of the cool air and the clouds in the sky. They were in the shape of fluffy kernels of popcorn. A treat I rarely ate unless at the movies, but one I all of sudden craved. It was going to be a long walk home, and I had yet to be granted the right and privilege to do so.