White walls. White ceilings. White floors. So white it’s blinding. The fluorescent light bulbs buzz, humming the familiar monotonous song like when you walk through the appliance section at Sear’s. The sounds of screaming sirens and crying babies blur, but the soft glow from the hallway beckons me in still.
The pediatric emergency room is finally finished after a couple and years, and a couple million dollars; I think the Lion King wallpaper is a nice touch. The scent of wet paint and Purcell hangs heavy in the hallway, the whirring of x-rays and MRI machines creates a Doppler effect as you walk past the unmarked doorways. I think about how scary it must be for the little kids already on edge from the bumps and bruises that brought them here.
I see myself in these children, three or four years old on my dad’s lap, trying to hold back the tears so I could make them see how tough I was. I guess it’s been that reckless pride that’s kept me tethered to the ER. I was always small. Not frail or underdeveloped, just short, and I hated it. I was picked on by classmates and teased a little, but that wasn’t what broke me. It was the people, kids and adults alike, who confused my height for physical weakness. I constantly tried to overcompensate competing with a streak of recklessness. I wanted to prove to them, and to myself, that I was not just as good as the other kids, I was better.
Reflecting back, it all started, or so my parents tell me, when I was about six months old. They say that it was as if I just decided to get up and walk. And so it began. From then on it was a race against time; how long could I last as a screaming infant climbing my crib like it was Mt. Everest, sprinting through our home in University Heights like Jesse Owens? Aside from some minor wear and tear, I went on relatively unscathed for about four years, quite a feat for the Evil Knievel on a big wheel. But ultimately, fate catches up all of us. Mine manifested in the Beachwood JCC pool parking lot. At that point in my development, my face only about a yard away from he ground, very similar to the height of the three bicycle racks in front of the JCC pool. As per Murphy’s Law, I ran head first into the jagged corner of the bike rack, hurling me into a screaming torrent of blood and tears. I honestly have no recollection of ever going from the JCC parking lot to the Emergency Room, from what my mom tells me, I “finally
shut the hell up” somewhere between Lander Rd. and Mayfield. By the time I realized what was going on it was too late, I was being held down by two nurses while a doctor began to stitch me up like a ripped teddy bear. Three stitches. Three blue stitches, apparently I requested blue over black, as if it mattered. They could’ve sewed purple polka-dotted tooth floss in me and I wouldn’t have said a word.
As far as first conscious experiences go, it wasn’t too bad. In fact, I like the Emergency Room so much that the next day was a repeat performance. I was not content with such a measly amount of stitches, I wanted double digits. In my backyard, on the now rotting swing set, I sat on a swing. The swing set’s posts were only buried about a foot, giving the whole structure a tendency to sway with the shifting weight of its inhabitants. Sitting on the swing, floating back and forth on the metal spider webs, the hard plastic of the gymnast ring split my scalp an inch into my hairline. I don’t cry this time. I think the déjà vu was too overwhelming for me to do much of anything. Apparently it had the same effect on my father who, en route to the hospital for the second time in forty-eight hours, stopped to buy lemonade from two girls selling on the side of Beachwood Blvd. off of an orange and yellow Little Tikes table.
By that point I considered my self a seasoned veteran. After the previous days ordeal, my suffering wasn’t even rewarded with more manly scars. At the time I was happy about getting the butterfly bandage, but looking back, another scar story to tell the ladies wouldn’t hurt. After that weekend I was jaded for life. Over the next thirteen years I had accumulated a long list of injuries to add to my medical file. Surgical staples, nails in the foot, broken thumb, fractured shin, bursitis in the knee, two bruised ribs, broken nose (a few times), four concussions, and a touch of the flu. And now, walking this brand new hallway, it’s funny that the only things that I really notice are the chairs lining the wall. They look brand new, stiff and uncomfortable probably, waiting to be broken in by the bruised and battered. The wing is too new; the chairs, like everything else, will get worn down. They will get soft and ragged, torn and bled on. It’s just a matter of time.
I must’ve stopped walking, because I suddenly feel the immense weight of my dad’s hand on top of my head, poised and ready to deliver the blow. It’s not a smack or a punch, but merely some encouragement. The index finger is placed of the middle finger and pressure is applied. Due to the basic cylindrical shape of the human digits, the index fingers rolls of under the force and lands on my head with a resounding thud. The sharp sting snaps me out of my daydream, now my body is in control. Instinctively, my feet move forwards. For all that I know I’m at the airport being carried away on the moving sidewalk towards the usual terminal. I’m just going through the motions.
We sit in the uncomfortable chairs and wait amidst the crying babies wrapped in the arms of their consoling mothers. We stare at the wall. My dad has come prepared. He pulls out a stack of crossword puzzles, catches my eye, and looks down. I’m jealous that he has something to do other than listen to the nauseating sounds of the hospital.
There’s not even a clock in the hallway yet, this wing is so new. There’s only an octagonal hole with a rainbow of wires crawling out. I reach to my left pocket, no luck. These damn sweat pants have pockets the size of buckets, how could my phone fall out in the car? I don’t even bother asking my dad for the time, he’s already deep into crossword tree; the New York Times is not the puzzle to break focus on. I’ve been watching him do crosswords since my brain could process the images that my eyes sent to it. I know he has done two Plain Dealers already, its Tuesday so that’s about fifteen minutes each, tops. About halfway through the Times is another thirty. It’s only been an hour. I twiddle my thumbs, tap my feet, try to get comfy in this goddamn chair. I stand up to stretch my legs, almost on cue, a gurney sprints around the corner. I sit back down, defeated. Karma’s a bitch.
Dad finishes the puzzle, instead of the ticking of a clock, I count the seconds in pen strokes. He folds the next paper and an overweight nurse in pink scrubs and Velcro shoes calls me into the office. She looks tired, but masks it well with her smile and pleasant tone. We go through the usual questions; age, address, phone number. My dad confirms our insurance information and we’re sent back outside. Another hour passes and my dad’s blue pen runs out of ink. He gets a blue one from a nurse. He’s still in his suit, I don’t know how he does it. I’m in sweatpants and an undershirt and I want to jump out of a window, he just sits there and scribbles down Johnny Cash puns.
A new nurse stumbles out into the hallway, apparently shocked by the brightness. She walks the corridor slowly, her black clogs clack on the tile with every step. She gets within five feet and my dad is on his feet, hand outstretched, visibly flustered at the duration of our wait. Normally, I am a complete foil to my dad’s impatient nature, but today, after this wait, his hurried handshake is a godsend. We go through the usual introduction, and she tells us that she is a third year med student in the second week of her pediatric rotation. My dad jokes around with sarcastic teasing, I stare at the floor. Doctor’s make me nervous. Maybe it’s the needles, or the sticks they jam down your throat, I can’t really put my finger on it. I don’t think they’re bad people, there’s just something wrong about helping someone by causing physical pain. Even in something as docile as a reflex test, they hit you with a hammer. Like I said, something’s wrong, but I cant quite pin in down. She’s kind of cute, about five-feet, three-inches tall with a round face and shoulder length brown curls. And she’s standing in the way of my senior season district-wrestling tournament. As quickly as the thoughts of her attractiveness enter my head they disappear, replaced quickly by a rush of contempt.
The three of us walk back into an examination room. The whole ward is cleverly disguised, built strategically to mask it’s functionalist purpose behind a façade of baby books and Disney wallpaper. I sit on the bed, from a distance the sheet looks like tanned cotton, but it feels more like Kevlar. There’s no blanket, so I lay there, prone and exposed. Another doctor comes in; at this point they all look the same. She tells me that my symptoms sound like it’s just a virus, but the pain in my leg worries them. They might need to take a little blood. Exactly what I needed to hear.
My breathing speeds up and the color leaves my face. The wheels on the blood drawing cart screech and cry out as the lock and release on the floor. My dad tells me not to look at it, but I can’t, and I’m telling him so, very loudly. I’m screaming now, yelling at the startled nurse to get the fucking needle out my arm. Something deep inside snapped, something that didn’t like needles. When she finishes, after several suggestions, she tells me that the IV port is still in me because they may need more. Ok. No big deal. Just don’t look at it, or move, or flex, or acknowledge your arm’s existence and you’ll be fine. They need a urine sample. By this point my endorphins have kicked in, and I don’t mind it so much. It’s a welcome change of scenery; the bathroom is a darker shade of beige and smells like my grandma’s medicine closet. On shaky legs, I wobble to the toilet and do my business. They take the cup from me and I walk slowly back to my bed, where my dad is waiting with a bag of corn chips and a Gatorade from the vending machine down the hall. It took me fifteen minutes to get from my bed, to the toilet, and back to my bed. I guess I’m sicker than I thought.
The med student comes back with my test results. It looks normal, except for my atypical lymphs. I don’t know what those are, but to put it in perspective, a normal person has less than 2%. Mine were at twenty. According to the doctor (she snuck in while I skimming the results, pretending to have a clue), elevated lymph levels are generally associated with mono. That was the K.O. punch to my already crushed spirit. I have to go into the most important wrestling tournament of my life with mono. Bring it.
I don’t really consider the hospital to be a very “special” place. It has been very significant in my development, but by no means do I cherish these opportunities as times to enjoy myself. I ended up sixth at my district, losing my match to go to states by two points in the last eighteen seconds. I’ll never know what might have been had I not had the virus associated with the precursors to mono, and I’ll never know what I would have been like had I chosen to get black stitches instead of blue when I hit my head on the biker rack. The hospital is a place where nothing else matters accept the person in the bed or on the table. It’s a place where there’s nothing to do but bond with whomever you happen to be with. Some of the funniest conversations I have ever heard took place in those walls. I don’t revere the hospital, I merely respect it for the power it has over people, myself included, to band together for the sake of a loved one. This place is special. From birth to death, hospitals are the setting for some of the most emotionally powerful events in our lives, and this is a tribute to those people involved in the making of my life’s history.
