Let the Freak Show Begin!!

I woke up. Family around me, smiles and tears. I looked around the room and noticed machines, LOTS of machines, and all of them hooked up to me. Bags of fluids in different shapes and sizes, all jockeying for position on the I.V. poles. Heart monitor blipping away, the sound blending with the whirring noise coming from a large machine ( I later find out that's for my dialysis). I can only whisper, my voice a combination of Demi Moore and Regan from The Exorcist. Mom asks me if I want to write and holds a pad for me. I think I'm writing all these questions until I look down to see what I've written. It's all gobblygook - like I've fingerpainted using blue ink. I try calling as many of my friends as I can but no one is able to understand or hear me very well. I find out later that one of my girlfriends had sent an email out to our group of friends telling them I might try calling and that it wasn't some masher breathing heavy into the phone.

Doctors would come into my room. I didn't recognize most of them but I recognized that fake jovial tone. "So, you're finally awake! How are you feeling?" They're not really paying attention, they're busy looking at charts, machine printouts and the plastic bags hanging from my I.V. poles. I whisper at them in my sexyscary voice, "I'm thirsty. When can I go home?" No liquids for me, I can only be "daubed" with this thing that looks like a toothbrush with a sponge on the tip...and only my lips can be daubed, no sucking down the miniscule amount of water in the sponge (yup, I tried!). "We'll talk about going home later." I realized that I was in some weird bed that felt as if it were made of swimming pool floats. I had tubes in my nose, in my hands and coming out of a bag wrapped around my left foot. I couldn't make sense of anything. Everything blended. I asked the same questions, sometimes within minutes of each other.

My sister tells me she knew I was going to be fine when she saw something I did a few days before. Some nurses were in my room talking about how I might need a tracheotomy because the breathing tube needed to be removed. I responded, even from the depths of my coma, with the classic flip-off - using the middle fingers from both of my hands. I woke up two days later.

I remember almost crying when the night nurse let me brush my teeth, as long as I promised not to swallow the water. She had to help me hold the toothbrush because I didn't have the strength to do it myself.

I remember the sticky water. I didn't know what it was and I didn't care because they let me drink it in small amounts. The non-water was thick, sweet and cool. After not being able to drink for four weeks, it felt wonderful sliding down my sore throat.

I don't remember telling my ten year old nephew that he should get me a diet soda because, "the doctor said it was okay". My family tells me I was incredibly sneaky in my attempts to get that soda. My "meals" were pumped into my body and I wanted something to chew. I failed my first swallow test. Chew a cracker and then swallow some applesauce. I thought I could fake my way through the second swallow test, couldn't get that damn applesauce down. The aroma of food sent me into a frenzy. I wanted to know what my family had eaten; if the scent lingered in their clothes or on their breath, I needed to inhale that wonderful smell. When I finally passed the swallow test, I lay in my bed in anticipation of the food cart. Here it was, my first meal after four weeks of liquid food. I was so excited. And then I smelled it - a fishy, earthy scent. My father removed the cover. Creamed cod and peas. I didn't want it - creamed cod and peas. My first meal? Sugar free jello and that damn applesauce.