They came to get me but it wasn’t in the middle of the night. I was led from the sanitized sanity of the commissary, down the ever encroaching hallway passed the curious closet towards the damned doorway, which finally swung open with precise timing. I passed through the archway and stepped into a room with intense fluorescent lighting that made me squint and almost resist going further but as soon as the barrier was broken a new chapter was to begin.
My giant leap from the ICU into the Ward was immediately met with encouragement that had me believing I was released for good from the mental game of early recovery if only I didn’t hear the words “next step,” meaning I had more steps to go. Far more steps.
They led me to an examination room and had me lay on paper to listen to my heart. I couldn’t remember if anyone had listened to my heart on the other side of the door or had taken my blood pressure or temperature or at least my pulse, anything to make me feel safe and more alive.
Instead I heard my heart drop like a coin into a tall glass of water. The doctor said “this one’s not ready” and they took me from the etherised room back to the doorway where I walked through as if there was a membrane stretched over some birth canal or den that I was being delivered to – a litter of hungry wolves waiting.
If a cowboy has his feet up is it okay to rip the price tag off the heel of his new snakeskin boots? It is if you’re the little brother of the president but if you are the president the answer is no and you should be certain to be the one leaning back in your chair with new boots on, period.
So why was there another patient trying to tickle the bottom of my feet – A and why was he not being taken away on a gurney for being uncooperative – B? There was also some joker in a home decorated t-shirt playing air guitar with the broom. To make matters worse there was a line outside the closet like it was being used as a water closet.
I went from being the last guy on the unit to being the first to complain about the system being broken.
Some guy had the audacity to sit on the floor outside his room not moving for twenty four hours and another just leaned like a scarecrow with a drinking straw in his mouth. Who was the jester going in and out of other people’s rooms laughing all the while?
It was complete chaos and absolute anarchy. I wanted to scream – so I did. “I say it. This is war,” I shouted at the other patients. “This is war,” I cried. “WAAAAR,” I raged blindly. I felt rejuvenated to let it all out but nobody noticed.
Within hours I was led back to the damned doorway to begin a long and arduous adventure in the Ward. The other patients started to irritate me. I must’ve been getting better, so I was told.
Francis Erich McElroy 