my life & other stories

I Almost Died.
Part I

Did you know that black colored stool is a sign of internal bleeding? So is blood in your excrement.

All news to me.

A week had gone by with certain aforementioned issues, and I simply thought “that’s odd,” and went about my merry way. I’m not the type to “get sick” per say, so I didn’t think much of it. My view on illness has always been that there isn’t much out there that can’t be cured by a couple Advil and a night without drinking. However, my B.M. issues worsened, and were coupled with chronic fatigue, bouts of dizziness, and an unquenchable thirst (for water, not for power). It wasn’t until I started vomiting blood that I began to think that something may or may not be wrong with me. Face down in a toilet filled with a colorful blend of hemoglobin and New England clam chowder, I told myself “I may need to see a doctor about this…”

“…in the morning.”

So I went to bed, hoping a good night's sleep would take care of business. I had trouble sleeping though, cursed with terrible nightmares about work. Tossing and turning, I finally decided to get a warm glass of water and a couple Advil to help me sleep. I climbed out of bed, but as I got to the bathroom my head started spinning fast and furiously. I had an awful metallic taste on my tongue, and I felt my legs give out beneath me. For reasons I can’t explain, Olivia Thirlby’s terrible performance in Juno raced through my head, and as my hands searched the wall for something to grasp onto, I told myself “I don’t care what people say, I thought that movie sucked.” Moments later I came to, sprawled out on the tiled floor. I had passed out and on my way down hit my head on the counter top and knocked over the trash can.

Laying there, I noticed that there was blood on the floor. My face was throbbing from banging it against the counter top, and I touched it I realized that my nose was bleeding. "Jesus!" I thought to myself, "Another bleeding fucking orifice." I was two bloody nipples away from a complete meltdown. I tried to reach for a handful of toilet paper to stop the blood, but my head was still spinning. So I just sat there with my head in my hands, watching blood drip onto the white bathmat my mother gave me for Christmas. It was then that I decided to start considering going to doctors. Nowish.

It was 1AM Tuesday morning. My roommate Katy was asleep, and I debated on whether I should wake her or not. She had to work in the morning, so I figured I would try to figure this one out on my own. I had never been to an emergency room in Queens and I had no idea what to do, so I returned to my room and pulled out all my health insurance paperwork. The task was more difficult than I had anticipated. Figuring I would never need it, I had filed the letters my insurance company had sent me, unread and still in the envelopes they had been mailed in. I found a booklet I thought might help, but with my brain working at less-than-cull-capacity, I decided that this was beyond me and that I needed Katy's assistance.

I lightly knocked on her door, and surprisingly she immediately responded. She didn’t leap from bed and in a single motion and rip my head from its body as I would have done. Just a simple “come in.” I pushed the door open, and was relieved to see her fully clothed and alone (not that she’s unattractive mind you. It’s just that finding her mid-coitus was the very last thing I needed at this point in time). Standing in her door way I told her “uh…I think I may need to go to the emergency room.”

Katy sprung to action. Within 30 minutes she had found the nearest emergency room and called a car to come pick us up. I, in the meantime, had phoned the emergency hotline number I had found on the back of my insurance card. My head had stopped spinning and I began to think again that maybe if I went back to bed I would wake up fine in the morning. Really, I was just looking for someone to tell me it was okay to stay in my bed. After describing my symptoms to the nurse on the other end of the line, she sat their silently for a second.

“Do you think I need to go to the emergency room?” I prodded.
“Uh…are you kidding me?” She responded. “I mean…” she paused as she carefully chose her next word. “Duh.”

The nurse had demanded that I call an ambulance. But I hate to make a scene, so Katy and I took the car she had ordered. As we piled into the back, I asked the driver to take us to Mt. Sinai Hospital in Astoria, using my most convincing I’m-not-going-to-die-in-your-back-seat voice.

Katy and I didn’t wait very long in the waiting room. My ass had hardly hit the seat before a nurse had poked her little raisin head from behind the door and called my name. Katy and I followed her into a little room where she took my temperature, my heart rate, and blood pressure. I described my symptoms to her and waited for her to say “Oh we get this all the time.” She’d laugh at my naivety, and casually retrieve a pill bottle from an easy to reach desk drawer. She’d hand me a couple pills and a glass of water and say “take these and get out of here. Go get some sleep, you two look exhausted!”

Instead, she picked up a phone and over the loud speakers announced some code. Code green or code red or code Nancy Drew, I didn’t hear what she said. But the next thing I knew I was being hoisted onto a stretcher by some giant black guy and wheeled into triage.