The Urbаn Prophet™ 5.0

To say the pain was intense would have been an understatement. Usually, I'm quite good at putting up a brave front in the face of adversity and when push comes to shove, I've always thought of myself as somebody who could keep it together when it became necessary to do so but how wrong I was. I was close to screaming like a baby!

Anyway, after I managed to gather enough of my wits together, I got dressed and dragged myself over to my door to see if I could get one of my housemates to help me out. By this time it was already 9 a.m. , I had waited one and a half hours because, initially, I wanted to head over to the convenience store and buy some antacid as I thought it was simply heart-burn. However, the pain grew more and more stronger as time went by that by the time it was 9 a.m. , I could hardly move.

Anyway, I grabbed a random housemate from the kitchen and told him in no uncertain terms that I needed to go to a hospital. He looked at me funny, and then proceeded to hand me 20 bucks and told me that's all he has and that i should use it to call a cab. I kind of just blinked at him for a few seconds then at the wadded up 20 dollar bill he had just shoved into my hand, then I more or less went no no no, its not your money i want, i want you to follow me to the hospital so that the cabbie won't just shove me out of his cab in front of the emergency room after I pass out, or worse yet, throw my body into a disused dumpster. So no I want you yo come with me. Maybe he would have responded to me better if I had called him by his first name, instead of by my other house mates name, the one that he doesn't like that is, but hey I was delirious, and both their names start with "R".

So he calls a cab, and I roll up into a ball on the sofa, the pain had progressed from a constant pain to a throbbing, traveling one, as it slowly started climbing up the pain scale. The wait felt like it took forever, as I kind of over-acted on the coach I noticed little things which I hadn't before, like how our carpet in the living room really needs cleaning and how their just too much cobwebs next to the heater. To be honest it was all very surreal, it felt like I was watching something horrible happen to myself but not actually feeling any of it until I started thinking about it. It's strange that in adversity your brain can just tune out, or detach itself and make everything seem like its a dream. Eventually the cab did arrive and shuttled me and my kidnapped housemate to Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston.

When we reached to hospital, to be honest, I don't really remember much, i was in a daze when I was getting myself registered and had a preliminary chat with the attending doctor. After the necessary signing of names, I was shuffled back to the waiting room, just so that I'd achieve the necessary quota of time spent waiting waiting before the y finally shuffled me back into the ward and a nurse gave me a cup to pee in and jabbed my arm repeatedly trying to find a vein. While the nurse was doing that a doctor came in and began asking a few more probing questions about where it hurt what kind of pain it was. For some reason she was fairly insistent on how much I had to drink the week before, I dunno, I guess she thought I looked like an alcoholic or something. After I told her, no I'm not an alcoholic, she felt around my stomach and then told me that since the pain is in my pancreas, I must have pancreatitis. I was like "what? what the hell is that? How serious is that?" and all she said was, "Hmm, well let's discuss that when we get back the test results. I'm sure it's nothing that serious god-forbid." All I said then was stifled, tiny, little "....eek...".

After they had collected all the bodily fluids they wanted from me and we're done scaring the shit out of me, they then left me on a hospital bed in Room 37, which was actually just curtained up space and not really a room. While I was lying there waiting for the Doctor to come back to me with my test results something even more surreal happened. I'm lying there on my cot, very obviously trying to control my tendency to writhe in pain when a pretty face attached to a fairly attractive young lady peeked through the curtains. She smiled at me and said, "Hi there, I'm -whateverhernamewasiwasintoomuchpainthatiforget-, from bla-bla pharmaceuticals and I was wondering if you'd like to take part in a survey study we're doing on HIV awareness. If you do, we'll give you a free HIV test!" I was perplexed, I felt like I was going to literally die on that cot then and there, there I was, grunting like a stuck pig, practically rolling of the bed in pain, convulsing with pain, and here comes this chick wanting me to participate in marketing survey? It was at that point that I truly began to believe in karma, considering what I used to do for a living before this that is.

Anyway, since I couldn't run away and even though I could have easily told the girl, "Well I'm truly sorry miss but I'm a bit too busy right now writhing in pain to answer your questions, but maybe if you come see me later when i'm all doped up, then maybe we might be able to talk." but seeing that I was delirious I just said ya why not. in a way, I guessed that anything that could take my mind of the pain would be good. So the first few questions were relatively easy, and it had to do about how you could get AIDS and my a few on my personal life. 30 questions in total and I only got stumped on one question, "Which is safer to use, a latex condom or a natural skin condom?". I was like, what, natural skin condom, what's that? Turns out, as what I understand from what she explained to me, it's a condom made from the intestines of a sheep. I was like really, you guys use condoms like that here? I mean, that's like, you know, ugh, gross. I can't even imagine putting it on, much less a woman letting me go anywhere near her with it on. Anyway, she then shook my hand and made me sign a certificate of participation and then tried to get me to take that HIV test. It was around this point that my pain level rose from 8 to 10, meaning the worst pain I've ever felt in my life. So I kindly declined her offer. To be honest I don't even know if she was real, I mean the nurses and the doctor seemed to just ignore her like she wasn't there, for all I know in my delusional state, I hallucinated the whole thing. Seriously, I never thought I'd be in a situation where I'd be incapacitated with pain and have to explain in detail my sex-life to a complete though strangely attractive stranger.

When the nurse finally came back with my medication I was practically insane with pain. First, she gave me 4 units of morphine to control the pain and 1 unit of erm, wolfram, wolvram, walphreim, wal-what-ever to control the nausea. To be honest, the morphine did sod-all for the pain. Nothing, not one bit of relief what so ever. So now, not only was still in pain, I was stoned to boot! My friend who had come with me, asked me how the pain was and I managed to tell him that it was getting worse. He ran off to get the nurse. To be honest I don't remember him coming into the room, it was like all of a sudden there's Ryan. For all I know, he was the pretty girl with the questionnaire I talked to earlier.

Anyway, the doctor came back and gave me another 4 units of morphine, which somewhat controlled the pain. Now at least I was wincing in pain, and not writhing, and best of all it put me in a happy, laughy mood. It was around then that I just started to talk nonsense, I mean I was just talking around in circles and my friend Ryan just well, encouraged me. I remember I was talking about the show House and how every week, the usual first diagnosis was for a disease called what was it again? Sounds like a dog's name, u know? Rufus? Dufus? You know, like, woof-woof? It was at that point that the guy in the next cot said, I'm sorry to cut in but I can't take it anymore, its lupus, lupus!

The doctor came back again and stopped our little bantering and asked me if I was still in pain. I told her yeah i was, she then asked me if I wanted more pain meds? I said no I shouldn't I don't want to be too out of it, as it was, I was grasping for straws at keeping my head together. Anyway, she said that the test results came back inconclusive, but it was definitely not pancreatitis because it would have shown in my blood-work. She squeezed my tummy a few more times at which point I winced as she hit different places. That's odd she said, hold on let me try something. The Doctor puttered off to get something and left me in a daze as the morphine started to really hit me. Ryan was like, wow, your eyes are just all pupil and I was like, yeah, its pretty isn't it, butterflies.

The Doctor then came back and shoved a little cup of strangely pink liquid. What's this? I asked. It's Maalox mixed with a bit of novacaine so drink it quickly like your taking a tequila shot or else your mouth will go all numb. Like the good little school boy I listened to my doctor and proceeded pump my system full of yet another narcotic (the novocaine) to my already addled system and lo! Within less then a minute the madman with a knife trying to cut his way out of my stomach withered and died! It was like instant relief, like if you were wearing a shoe thats way too tight and then someone quickly pulled it off your foot.

With that, the doctor then told me that he was changing my diagnosis from pancreatitis to GERD, or Gastro-somethingoranother-disorder, in other words acid reflux. With that she patted me on the back, took of the needles in my arms let me of on my merry little way. Now, at this point, in hind-sight, I'm really glad my house-mte stayed with me through out it all. I mean, there I was, all morphined out with a sprinkle of novocaine let loose on Boston. I mean there I was, stoned immaculate with a bad slur from the novocaine. If I was alone, I'd have given myself 10 minutes on the train before something unnecessarily unpleasant would have happened to me one way or another. For that I have to thank Ryan for sticking it out with me and making sure I got there and back again through all the different states of incapacity I went through yesterday. Kudos to you!

I have no idea how much the bills going to be, or if my insurance will suck all that up or what. The hospital just kind of gently showed me the wya to the door and let me of on my merry little way. I guess they'll send it to me in the mail or something. My housemate said it shouldn't have to fork out that much, he had to have a cat scan the last time he went to the hospital and it only cost him $400 without insurance and I'm insured so well, we'll see. Anyway, the whole experience was quite amazing I think, I've not had to go to a hospital in well... ever. Though I have to say, as fun as it was, it's something I wouldn't wanna have to go through again.

Sincerely,
Nik