My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

I formulate infinity stored deep inside of me…

Sep 18

How I got here

Category: Life

So, after thirty-five hours in the Cedars-Sinai emergency room, I’m officially in a real room. See, yesterday morning the little balloon inside my trache tube decided to burst, meaning that the air usually directed toward my lungs began coming out of my mouth. A few minutes later and I’m on a stretcher heading for an ambulance parked behind the Beverly Hilton. It was clearly the perfect way to start my day, and end my vacation, the perfect way to say good-bye to Sara. 

I get to the e.r. and the trache really needs to come out, but the ENT (trache doctor) is about two hours out, so e.r. doc decides to go for it old-school style. I get a little subcutaneous morphine, he yanks out the dead trache and jams in the new one, while I simply gurgle and gasp. At this point the doctor’s really crankin’ on my neck, he looks nervous. It’s exactly what you want to see dance across your doctor’s face as he fucks with your air-way. He’s nervous because he can’t secure the new trache, I’m bleeding and not looking particularly good. He decides to pull out trache number two and toss in a third. Fortunately, blood-loss and pain aside, the third time’s a charm.

However, I’m still here in the hospital because, as it turns out, I’ve been traveling with a faulty ventilator all week and after the trache trauma I couldn’t stand the shallow breathing. Apparently, the vent has a leak, which is why I’ve felt kind of funny since I left Tampa. I’m nervous a lot lately, so the tightness in my chest seemed like my usual dumb fucking idiocy. At least I’m an accurate dumb fucking idiot.

I’m sitting in the hospital, waiting for a replacement vent, trying to get new flights back to Tampa. My neck hurts, I’m exhausted. Everything good seems far away. Ira, the red-carpet, the parties, Sara, it all seems like it’s behind L.A. SMOG. I wish I could find my way out.

2 comments

2 Comments so far

  1. redandjonny September 18th, 2008 3:47 am

    WOW..

    For the first time in I don’t know how long.. The ringing in my ears completely stopped when I read that. (I damaged my hearing permantly years ago at a Motorhead concert sitting front stage beside the main speakers for 2 hours.)
    I was so fucking scared for you the whole world got quiet. Fuck dude… that really scared the shit out of me for the first 2 paragraphs.

    I’m glad its all working out as best it can though… Thank the spaghetti monster you’ve finally upgraded from miserable bastard to dumb fucking idiot. I’m Glad, Not white kitchen garbage bag glad.. but happy glad.
    ..So the ringing in my ears has come back.

    Check your email man… I sent you some cool shit that might inspire your work.

    love yeh bro.

    PS.

    Wheres my fucking photos?!?!?!

  2. monica September 18th, 2008 5:43 pm

    what you mean to say is that you were in Compton, some guys roll up… yada yada yada… bitches went down.

    🙂