Days in the hospital devolve into routine intrusions. There are obligatory knocks at the door, but they are perfunctory. Staff does not bother to wait for a response before entering. It is as if we patients are children, not yet meriting respectful privacy.
My day starts at six forty-five with a cheerful breakfast delivery. At eight there is the knock for transportation to take me to radiation. I’m back by nine-thirty. There is a chance that I will have half an hour to read the paper before there is another knock for “vital signs,” the blood pressure, temperature and heart-rate routine. But it is only a chance. More than likely there will be rounds also.
Rounds here is much like an academic procession. There is the head resident, the soon-to-be head resident, the interns and in the rear, medical students. They are all garbed in green gowns and yellow masks to increase their anonymity. I don’t know what any of them look like from the bridge of their noses on down.
After all that, I might have time to cram in a shower before I get premedicated for the rabbit crap.
Monitoring rabbit crap means that they do vital signs every fifteen minutes for the first two hours, then every half hour for two hours, then once an hour until the bag is drained. Meanwhile an array of gowned and masked functionaries drop by for little professional chats. There are dieticians, physical therapists, social workers, paper pushers, all quite pleasant and earnest but the totality of it makes privacy a premium.
Sometimes in the afternoon I bust out to perambulate the halls, pushing my antler rack of rabbit crap and hydration fluids with one hand, holding up my pajama bottoms with the other. Of course, I wear my Darth Vader mask as well. On these excursions I have made a remarkable discovery. There are some really sick people in here!
Now I know that may not sound earth-shattering. It’s a hospital. Duh! But still, I have to marvel at the folks that they are able to keep alive. I see them wheeled through the halls in chairs and gurneys – gray, hairless skeletons. Vacant-eyed. Spindly-limbed. Often with odd numbers of limbs. Gasping whisps. After seeing all that, I don’t take it as much of a complement when the Docs tell me that I look good.
On Thursday night, the nurse came in to ask me whether I was a diabetic. I shook my head and wanted to know where that was coming from. He said that he had just gotten my blood-work back and there was high glucose. He added that I had a platelet count of seven! I told him that yesterday my platelet count was 130 and that I had been blowing my nose all day. If my platelet count was seven everybody on the ward would know it. “And besides,” I said,trumping the obvious, “no one’s drawn my blood today.” He looked at me wide eyed and said, “I wonder whose blood it is.” You’ve got to keep a clear head, even in a place like Stanford.
That night, I had a burning itch in my crotch and the bottoms of my feet. The nurse said it was from radiation. He got me some creams. Another nurse told me to drape my privates with baby wipes, not exactly the Shroud of Turin but a minor miracle. Still. the little guys have seen better times.
The next morning the radiation people blamed the itching on rabbits.