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Hospital roommates can make for an interesting time...

Hey, I’m back. (You knew I was gone, right?)

It’s been awhile since I posted anything here, and so I wanted to get back on the horse. This is another piece that I originally wrote for my old blog on Google back in the day. I thought it was humorous, and a bit more timely, but also kind of mean in some respects (and maybe it still is). With a little more perspective, I went back and changed a few things. Obviously, no one likes being in the hospital, but some people deal with it better than others, so these are just my observations and experiences. If any of these people are you, I apologize. But this is what happened, so screw it.

In the early Spring of 2011, just a few weeks away from my 35th birthday, I started to feel a little off. I had been going to the gym regularly and working pretty hard at my job, but I was starting to feel run down, and had actually started to lose weight without trying, which everyone says is a bad thing (And they’re right). So, I did what anyone would do in my situation: I went to my chiropractor, Dr. Lee. I know chiropractors aren’t actually doctors, but this guy was. Not a medical doctor, of course, but he clearly had some degrees and I figured whatever was going on, he would fix it. Dr. Lee saw something wasn’t right, and tried what he called an Iron Test. It sounds cool, but actually has nothing to do with Tony Stark. As I lay on my back, he asked me to lift my leg up and he put his hand on the bottom of my shoe and told me to push against it, and he would do the same with his hand. He literally threw my foot back almost over my head. I had almost no strength. He said I was iron deficient and suggested that I should make an appointment with my actual doctor. Needless to say, this disappointed me. I really hoped Dr. Lee could fix whatever the issue was.

When I went to see my primary care physician a couple of weeks later, he took one look at me and said, “You don’t look so good.” I naturally thought, “Well, fix me!” He took blood and told me to get some iron supplements and sent me home. That night, I got a call from the laboratory where my blood was and they said they were sending an ambulance because they had never seen results like this. Always bucking the trends.

That night, I was admitted to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for what would be the first of three stays that Spring. The first two were very similar to an episode of House, where various doctors poked at me, trying to figure out what the Hell was the matter. Definitely was not fun.

They even collapsed my lung at one point, and that really sucked. The collapsing was bad enough, but then they had to blow it back up, which was even more painful, but at least they gave me pain drugs.

Because I don’t want to depress anyone, and since I’m fine now, I thought I would focus a little more on the humorous side of my long hospital stays. I'm going to tell you about my roommates. Be warned, however, when it comes to hospitals, you leave your dignity at the door, so some of this may be rather low-brow.  Gotta be done. Don't worry. I won't use any names. Well, I will if it works for the comedy..

Upon my admittance, the room I was put in was also occupied by an older, Hungarian man who apparently spoke very little English. His daughter was able to translate for the doctors, but she didn't come by very often, so when they would do their rounds in the morning and ask how he was feeling, they did what most people do when someone doesn't understand what they are saying: they said it louder. I realize it is a normal human reaction, but the guy wasn't deaf, he was Hungarian. He's not going to get it any easier if you yell out, "ARE YOU IN ANY PAIN?" As a result, I knew everything that was up with this guy because they shouted at him every test and procedure he was going to have.

The best part came when they were going to take him for an X-ray, and he was... in disposed. I’m not sure if he really had to go or if he just didn’t want to go to the X-Ray, but he refused to get off the toilet for anyone (For those who are unaware, for insurance reasons, no matter what your ailment is, you have to be wheeled to the testing room in the event you fall and want to sue them.) They waited a little while, but the guy just wouldn't budge. In a minor panic, the nurse used her personal cell phone to call the guy's daughter to explain to him that he had to get up and go. She then had to hand the guy her personal cell-phone through the slightly open bathroom door so he could talk to his daughter. Of course, he had not washed his hands before handling her phone. Hospitals are pretty germy anyway, but that was just gross. I met a lot of nice, helpful and good people at Beth Israel, but this girl was clearly an idiot.

When they thought I might have had pneumonia, they shipped him to another room and I had a whole day where I was all alone. So, I lived it up. I asked for the AC to be turned on! The room was unbelievably stuffy and my Hungarian friend apparently liked it that way. Now, all the nurses and techs who came in said they loved it because it was so nice and cool in there. Other than the constant blood tests and the bone marrow biopsy that they performed on me, we had a ball.

Then they brought in Money.

"Money" Wilson was brought in late on a Saturday night, and he sounded like he had been enjoying himself a little too much. I liked keeping the curtain closed between the beds, so I didn't see what was going on, but based on what I heard, it seemed that Money had passed out in his home, and someone I believed to be a landlord or a neighbor with a key to his place brought him to the hospital. I then heard that person say good-bye to him and rush out of there as fast as possible. I could have sworn I even heard their car screech out of the parking lot. The nurse then brought Money a bucket for him to puke in, which he used extensively (and loudly) for the next several hours. He then proceeded to cry over and over that he was cold and he needed a blanket, and another nurse then turned the heat back up, so I went back to sweating my brains out in there.  Damn you, Money!

The interesting thing was that I only knew he went by Money because most of the staff seemed to know who he was, and by the way they talked to him, I gathered that this wasn’t his first visit to Beth Israel for alcohol poisoning. As the days went on, I alternated between feeling sorry for Money and being angry at him. For one, I heard a couple doctors ask him if he had ingested rubbing alcohol or nail polish remover, because they found some in his system (or maybe in his vomit bucket). He claimed a friend had given him a shot of vodka that "tasted kinda funny." The doctor then replied, “That doesn’t sound like a very good friend.” Of course, no one believed his story, because as Dr. House said, "Everybody lies." 

Sadly, it seemed Money was an alcoholic, and rubbing alcohol was all he had handy that night. He also claimed that he must have had some kind of stroke while walking out of his apartment and someone found him in the hall, but the doctors informed him he was brought in by someone who said they found him in his apartment, probably in a pile of puke. It’s all conjecture, but anyone who had to deal with Money probably knew his modus operandi. Here I was, stuck there while several doctors tried to figure out what was wrong with me, and next to me there's a guy who was a regular in the place because he can't lay off the rubbing alcohol. I know alcoholism is a disease like anything else, but healthcare costs are ridiculous in this country, and someone is paying for this guy. And how the hell do you drink rubbing alcohol anyway?

On the other hand, Money never received one visitor the entire time he was there. He talked on the phone a little bit and watched some TV, but even the nurses and doctors seemed to pay him little mind, because they had been through it all before. After a few days, they shipped him off to a rehab facility. I sometimes wonder where he is now, and if he got some help. In a lot of ways, I do feel bad for him. He seemed alone in this world, except for the bad friend who gave him the funny tasting vodka, and he seemed like the type of guy who could use a friend once in a while.

After Money left, I was alone in the room, which was really the way to go. I was even sent home for a few days, and then had to go back when I experienced extreme shortness of breath just walking down a hallway. It was during this last stay that I saw the most roommates, most of them for only a day or two. One guy had obviously had some sort of gastro-intestinal issue, because when the doctors asked him if he had, y'know, "had a movement," he said "No, but I lit a few good farts while I was in there."  The best part was, like any good comedian, he used that joke on a few different doctors and nurses, and it always got a reaction. Unfortunately for me, I knew that he wasn't just coming up with it on the spot. He was doing material.

The next roommate was a young, college-age kid, who obviously came from wealth.  I know it's weird to say just based on over-hearing his conversations, but the fact that his parents visited and told him that when he got out, he and his girlfriend could take the rest of the summer off and use their vacation home the whole time was a pretty good indication. The curious thing about this kid was that he came in on a Friday, and by Saturday night had made enough of a stink to where the doctors allowed him to go home. One thing I learned about hospitals is that you can always go home, providing you sign a form that doesn’t hold them responsible if anything happens to you. So, this was his decision, and he came to it about 9:00 on Saturday night, so no pharmacy was open to get his prescription filled. His parents, used to getting their way, asked the hospital to fill it, which they do not do. Hospital lesson #2: It is not their policy to let folks walk out with drugs. They will give you whatever you need while you’re there (The day of the bone marrow biopsy, I was given a lot of morphine, and it was amazing.), but you can’t leave with any actual drugs, especially if you are refusing their service because the atmosphere isn’t to your liking. But the kid and his rich, white family decided to grin and bear it and leave and get his script filled at the first opportunity because, as he put it, he "couldn't take another meal in this place." I suppose I don't blame him entirely, but...Well, ok. Fuck you, you whiney little bitch.  Have some sympathy for the folks who weren't given the choice. Yeah, no one likes to be in the hospital, but I had been there over a month and this was my third stint that year, and you had been there a damn day, so I’m sorry that the food stinks. And I also didn't get access to Mommy and Daddy's lakehouse so I could bang my girlfriend every night when I got out. I was just happy to be alive.

Finally, they brought in the coup de grace, Lee from Lawrence.  Lee apparently also had some kind of gastro problem, although this seemed to stem from an earlier stomach-stapling surgery and a rather poor diet. Lee was nice enough, but also a talker, and by this point, I really wasn’t feeling very social. Despite my lack of interest, he had no problem telling me that he used to weigh 600 pounds, and was now down to a svelte 280. I didn’t know a lot about his ailment, but I do know there are a lot of dietary restrictions after a procedure like that, and it sounded like Lee was not very good at adhering to them. It seemed like Lee drank a lot, too (although not rubbing alcohol, at least), but was now having trouble keeping anything down. So, while the doctors tried to figure out exactly what was wrong with him (besides the obvious), he was restricted to ice chips.  Lee begged and pleaded with the nurses for some food, then yelled at them, then apologized, then yelled and apologized again, but to no avail.  Only ice chips.  He did seem to be placated by his afternoon soaps, which he claimed to only watch because of his girlfriend ("Girlfriend?" I thought, as a single man. "He has a girlfriend?")  He was also extremely anxious to be in his bed and undisturbed by 9:00 on Monday night to watch WWE Raw on TV, only to then tell the nurses that he wasn't that into it and he just watched it because it was something he used to watch as a kid. Whatever, dude.  If it was just some show you watched, why are you spazzing out over missing it when you’re in the hospital? And besides, nobody cares. Hospitals adhere to their own schedules, not the evening television lineup. He even called this supposed girlfriend on the room phone during the show so they could talk about it together. He talked on that phone a lot, in fact.  The phone that they charge about $95,000 per minute to use (I was told immediately to use my cell phone if I had to call anyone for that very reason). He's probably still there washing dishes to pay off his phone bill.

I found the oddest thing about Lee, however, was his vanity.  Remember, he was about 280 pounds of saggy flesh that used to be 600, so he didn't exactly look like one of those professional wrestlers he was fond of watching.

Well, maybe this guy:

And yet, every morning he could not see or talk to anybody before brushing his teeth and taking a shower. He would ask the nurse when the doctor was coming by so he could, I guess, look pretty for them? Maybe he thought if he was clean, they would send him home, figuring his stomach is obviously fine, too. I suppose I was just over it by that point, and I guess it's good to have some personal pride, but he never left that room all day, and no one ever came to visit him except his doctor and the nurse who brought the ice chips. And let’s face it, nobody looks good in a johnny. Just who was he trying to impress exactly? At that point, my goal was to just get better and get out of there. Who cares if my hair wasn't washed every day? Yes, I brushed my teeth after meals and washed up in the morning, but it wasn't an obsession. In fact, any more than that was kind of a pain since I was hooked up to all kinds of machines. Maybe it was something his mom told him during one of their marathon, million-dollar phone sessions.

After a few days with Lee, I was finally discharged and left him there. He was the only one I left behind, after going through seven (count 'em) roommates, plus a few stints where I had no roommate. In retrospect, they served their purpose in my life, because as bad as I felt at times, some of these people were doing worse. And I'm not telling these stories to make fun of anyone’s suffering. I'm really trying to give a little perspective. In the end, most of us are lucky in some way.  Even if it's to not be Money.

Thanks for reading. Leave a comment if you have a fun hospital story you want to share. And be sure to check out my podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

And remember, everybody lies.