(c) 2017 Trinny Sigler
I found myself in search of a quick
emergency room in eastern Tennessee
which was mission impossible because all
they do down there is moonshine and zipline, and that's a bad combination. I
wish I could say I had been engaging in both, but at mid-forties, I don't need
either to mess up my back. I was tucked in bed by 10 and woke up in the eighth
ring of hell for no reason.
My buddy told me choices for a
hospital that, to my pain-warped brain sounded like "Wellmart" or
"Hell's Path." I don't need no discount chain ER, and I thought I was
already halfway down hell's path at least, so I picked the later. While I'm
waiting for the phlebotomist to come in, I can
hear her talking in the hallway.
"I had to punch in late. I
locked my keys in the car."
"Well how'd you get
here?" another one called.
"I had to call my mommy."
Hear that? A girl who couldn't find
her way to work without Mommy's help is about to play with needles in my tiny,
rolling, spider, muppet veins. Then she walked in, and she's new. I know when
they are new in the same way a horse knows the rider is spooked, in the same
way a baby knows when someone has never held a baby before. She's nervous. I'm
scared.
Veins and blood are the reason I'm
a writer and not a nurse. I could have a thriving career making fifty an hour
over time if it weren't for blood. Instead I hide in the attic and make shit up
and hope you like it. I look away as she takes my arm and ties it up. She pokes
with her finger. She takes a deep breath.
"Little pinch."
"Okay."
She stirs and stirs and stirs.
"Hmmm," she says.
I say "What?"
"Well..."
Another nurse comes over,
"What'sa matter? Cain't you find it?"
"I cain't get it to
thread."
"Oh well, try again."
"Oh no! That's a mess!"
"We can clean that up. Try
again. That'un will probably bleed again."
"Ok...well...I cain't get it
again."
And I'm thinking: Now half my
state shoots up heroin, and any one of those shaking addicts up any holler can find
a vein daily and multiple times. What's the issue here?
"Well!" The second nurse
says, "You done blew that'un out. Try the other one."
I grasp her hand, "You got one
more try in that other arm, and then I'm gonna puke, punch, or pass out. I
don't know which. Your move."
"I'll try the hand, hon. Honey,
your lil ole hands are I's co."
"Huh?"
"Co. "
My mind flips through every file
I've got working, and I know I've heard this somewhere before. Where? Where?
Where? I's? Co? I know what this means. I got it! I heard this when I was a
breakfast waitress at Cracker Barrel in Fayetteville
North Carolina
"Ice cold!" I yell out
loud with all the pride Helen Keller must have felt when she figured out water.
"Yes! My hands are ice cold."
And now that the code has been
cracked, I finally understand what the waitress at the barbeque shack meant
last night when she asked me if I wanted "co-saw". And then the
thought occurred to me that this is all Paula Deen's fault. I'm a little afraid
of Pennywise from It, the nurse from Misery, and Paula Deen. If
you think about it, they all have the same smile. That smile that says: Extremely
friendly or psycho, I could go either way. And her damn cookin' is so good
that I think she has to be in dutch with the devil. Anyway I think I ate so
much for lunch that my stomach blew out my backbone.
They finally get the blood drawn,
and the IV in. Another one comes in, "What brings you here today?"
"My side hurts, and my back is
having spasms."
"Hmm..." she looks at the
others with that look that says: These West
Virginia
Finally after about two days, the
doctor comes in. He says my muscles are pulled and I have an ovarian cyst and
to follow up with my doctor, and then he leaves. The nurse comes back.
"Okay, hon! You are free to
leave. Here's your script."
I stammer, "But it's Easter
Sunday, and I'm just like I was when I got here. I have to drive 300 miles in a
Jeep Wrangler today with a busted back. Can I get a dose of pain meds?"
She gives me that look again.
"Lemme ask! Doc may be at lunch now so you'll prolly have to wait."
She comes back and shoots something
in my IV. "Well now you'll have to
wait on a med check."
"How long is that?"
"Fifteen minutes."
"Jesus, girl. I've been here,
sitting at a 90 degree angle on this gurney for about two days. Fifteen more
minutes won't hurt."
I finally get out of there and
leave Hell's Path behind me. I get back to good old West-by-God and go the next
day to follow up with my doctor. She takes one look at my blowed-out vein and
gives the nurse a look that says: Umm hmm...all these hillbillies are on
heroin. You know that look. We always get it at the ER.
