by Tom Hansen
“A little.”
“On a scale from one to ten, how much does it hurt?”
“Mmmm, I dunno. Four, sometimes eight maybe,” I mumbled.
“Okay,” he said, “the Pain Team will be in later to talk to you about it some more.”
I started to doze off again.
“Mr. Hansen?”
He was still there. It must have been early, the sun wasn’t coming in through the window yet.
“Umm hmm.”
“Your wounds are very serious. Do you understand this?”
“Umm hmm.”
“You underwent an operation. We were able to clean your wounds out somewhat but you still may require amputation. Right now we just have to wait and see.”
“Okay.”
He paused for a minute.
“You know what that means, don’t you? You could lose your leg.”
“Umm hmm.”
He paused again.
“You did quite a number on yourself,” he said, trying to lighten the mood.
“Umm hmm, I know.”
“You lapsed into a coma there for a bit,” he said, trying to impress the gravity of the situation on me further.
“Hmmm,” I said.
There was a long silence. He was trying to think of a response. I was sure he’d seen lots of terrible injuries, car crashes, stabbings, murders, mutilations, all the crazy things that happen to people, or that people do to each other. He probably just hadn’t seen injuries like this, seemingly so deliberately self-inflicted. Apparently he couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Finally he spoke again, apparently having given up.
“All right then. You take care of yourself and get some rest. The Pain Team will be in to see you soon.”
“Okay.”
It was later the same day, I think. There were three doctors in the room, two men and one woman, talking amongst themselves. When they noticed I was awake they walked over. One of the men did the talking.
“Hello Mr. Hansen,”
“Hi.”
“How are you?”
Why do they keep asking that?
“I’m okay.”
“We’re with the Pain Team.”
“Umm hmm.”
They seemed a little more casual than the other doctors, more relaxed.
“We’re here to evaluate your pain. It’s in your leg? Is that right?”
“Yeah. It hurts when I move.”
Sometimes I could get into a certain position and the pain would subside for a bit, but most of the time there was a constant dull ache coming through, despite all the drugs.
“How bad would you say it is, on a scale from one to ten?”
“It hurts when I move.”
“Can you give me a number? Is it a three, or a seven?”
“Mmmmm, four or five, maybe. Sometimes uhhhh.... when I try to move.”
The other doctor stood around, watching the proceedings. The woman took notes on a clipboard.
“Your chart shows that upon admittance you were placed on 60mg of Methadone every six hours, then that was deemed insufficient and raised to 80mg, and then 90mg every six hours. Is that working out okay? Is that enough?”
“Yeah, sure. It’s okay I guess. I just can’t move.”
Every time I said something he nodded, as if he understood.
“We’ve set you up with this Morphine pump,” he said, pulling a little boxlike machine next to the bed. It was mounted on a rolling stand. The box had a clear plastic door. Locked inside was a huge syringe.
“This is how you operate it,” he said, handing me a little push button control.
“I’ve set it up so you can push the button and get a dose, in case you need it. Every five minutes.”
“Okay.”
I’ve had one of these before. They’re pretty useless. It was a nice thought however. It was also a little reassuring that they’d sent a whole team because of my pain.
“You’re going to start regular dressing changes to your wounds soon, tomorrow, maybe the day after. I’m going to prescribe some additional pain medication for that. If it’s not enough I want you to tell us, okay? Just tell the nurse and they’ll get hold of us.”
He was talking baby talk now, slow, one word at a time, like I was a child, or stupid.
“All right.”
“You have a good day now Mr. Hansen.”
The others nodded their heads and smiled.
“Thank you,” I managed.
[JUNE 2, 1999]
It was late morning. I was able to sit up in bed slightly, propped up on some kind of foam pad. The television was on. It was utterly banal and even made me sick, the soap operas and talk shows. These shows and the advertisements, and their evident success, were constant reminders to me that there were a great many stupid people in the world. Our economy was dependent on them. It seemed a sick way to run an economy, to make it reliant on what people wanted instead of what they needed, but whatever. It wasn’t my idea. I’d done my part to work against it. And yet, despite my nausea the television was strangely mesmerizing. It was that or watch shadows creep across the wall.
A man entered the room, wearing a lab coat, a doctor, but colder than the others somehow, very neat and clinical. There wasn’t even a wrinkle on his outfit.
“Hello Mr. Hansen. I’m from psych.”
Oh great. A shrink. How long this will take?
“Can I talk to you for a little while?”
If I say no he’ll just come back later.
“Okay.”
He pulled a chair next to the bed and sat down. He whipped a pen out of his jacket pocket, settled a clipboard on his lap and gave me a big smile.
“I’m going to ask you some questions. Is that okay?”
“All right.”
“Okay then. Here we go. How are you feeling?”
“Okay.”
“Just okay?”
“Yeah.”
He wrote a few notes on the pad, his pen making scratching sounds.
“Are you ever depressed?”
“No. Not really.”
“No?”
“Well, sometimes, I guess.”
“Umm hmm. And what happens when you get depressed?”
“I dunno.”
“You don’t know?”
“Mmmm. I feel sad, I guess.”
“I see,” he said, jotting down more notes.
“And what do you feel sad about?”
I wasn’t going there, and remained silent. He looked at me, but I feigned tiredness and eventually he let it go and moved on.
“Do you ever have feelings of worthlessness? Hopelessness?”
Geez. These guys with their trick questions.
“No, not really.”
He paused, for a minute.
“Do you ever have thoughts of suicide?”
I knew THAT one was coming.
“No, not really.”
“Are you sure?”
“No. Not really.”
“Okay. Do you know that you have a drug problem?”
Wherever did you get that idea?
“Yes. I know.”
“You know?”
“Mmm hmm,” I said, matter of fact.
“And how did that start? Your drug use?”
I wasn’t going there either. I could have, if I’d had the energy, but at the moment I was tired. There was no way he could understand, anyway. If he could, he wouldn’t be here asking these stupid questions.
“It just did,” I said.
He paused, thinking, plotting a counter move. It was like chess, he was trying to figure out how to ‘get me.’
“Are you interested in drug treatment?”
“No, not really.”
He paused again. He didn’t know that he was dealing with the Gary Kasparov of junkies.
“Why not?”
“I tried that. Long time a
go. Didn’t work.”
I had to be careful, if I said the wrong things they would lock me up. But I wasn’t crazy and there was no way they were gonna get me to say I was. That’s where it all starts. Those people from the twelve step meetings defined insanity as making the same mistakes over and over and expecting different results. I hadn’t made a mistake, I’d made a decision, a rational one, based on a preponderance of evidence. I had known what I was getting into, known that it would end badly. Either way, no one was going to lock me up. No one was going to convince me I was ‘sick.’ I would either make it out of this mess, or I wouldn’t. I would figure out how to live, or not, and if I couldn’t, then I would go back to dying. Simple as that.
“What do you mean, it didn’t work?”
“Oh, I dunno.”
“You don’t know?”
“Mmmm.”
He went silent, looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to say more.
“I have to want to quit.”
“Ahhh,” he said, nodding his head, “and you don’t?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure???”
“Nope.”
“What do you mean you’re not sure?”
“I dunno.”
He wasn’t going to let this one go, not going to move on until I said something, explained myself.
“I just need a good enough reason.”
He crinkled his forehead, confused. Apparently, I wasn’t showing the requisite level of anger, toward myself or anything else, for him to easily classify me. He was probably expecting one of those guys who blamed all their problems on the world or other people, probably expected to hear me whining about my terrible childhood, some story about an uncle who shtupped me in the ass when I was six or how my parents beat the crap out of me every day, someone from a broken home, horrible conditions, grinding poverty or some such. None of those things were true. I’d had the best parents a kid could hope for. They hadn’t gotten divorced, hadn’t fought much. We hadn’t had a lot of money but I’d been given everything I needed. I’d chosen the path I chose because the world was painful and absurd and I couldn’t figure out how to live in it. I had tried, for years, and I had many skills and talents and strengths, but none that had been able to help me navigate the bizarre world around me. I seemed to have an uncanny talent for being good at things that didn’t pay for shit. Except selling drugs. That was the truth of the matter. I wasn’t sick. I didn’t have a disease, not like cancer. I deserved no sympathy, no pity. I probably didn’t even deserve the help I was getting. I’d never had any patience for other people’s madness and bullshit, so I had no right now to expect any for myself. But they seemed determined to ‘help’ me and now that I was trapped here there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it.
“Sometimes it takes people many tries to get clean,” he said, “it rarely happens on the first try.”
I knew that, but there was no way I was going to become one of those chronic relapsers, one of those people who fuck up over and over, getting their loved ones hopes up only to dash them again, wasting their money, spreading their madness and pain all over the place. It’s just messy.
“Do you think you’re in denial?”
“Denial? About what?”
“Your drug problem. The seriousness of your condition.”
He was getting a little exasperated.
“No. No denial.”
“Are you sure?”
“No. No denial.”
“Do you still want to do drugs?”
“Mmmm, sometimes.”
“Sometimes????” he said, starting to lose patience.
“Yeah.”
“You realize that it would probably kill you.”
“Yeah. I’ve heard that.”
He didn’t like that one, I almost went too far.
“We can set you up with drug treatment.”
“No thanks.”
“Really?”
“No, that’s okay.”
“It doesn’t have to be inpatient. You could do outpatient if you get back on your feet.”
“No thanks.”
“Are you sure? It might be good for you. Give you a chance to clear your head.”
“No, that’s okay.”
He looked at me like I was mad. I lay back and stared at the ceiling. I could hear his pen scratching on the clipboard. There was a bit of tension in the air now, he was irritated that I wouldn’t submit, surrender. I’d hidden it well, the thing that these shrinks and counselors could never understand. I was essentially dead and I just wasn’t sure I wanted to live. I’d tried to find happiness, some kind of purpose, some direction, but at some point my life had been taken over by a kind of inertia. It was why I’d chosen the path I had, because any path, even the wrong path, was better than no path. Any story is better than no story. It was better than the abyss. I had caught brief glimpses of life, experienced a few wonderful moments of love on that path. Before that, there had only been nothingness.
He finished writing on the clipboard, placed his pen back in his shirt pocket, took a deep breath and, shaking his head, stood up and smoothed out his coat.
“Okay Mr. Hansen. Take care,” he said resignedly, still shaking his head.
“Mmm hmm. Thanks,” I said.
[JUNE 3, 1999]
Oh no, not again. Can’t they just leave me alone? Here he comes, striding through the doorway, an exaggerated spring in his step.
I’m half dead and they’re pushing their crap. Fuck. Holier than thou. Walk on water. Son of a bitch.
“Hi! How are you doing? My name’s Steve.”
Stairway to Heaven. Bull fuckin shit.
His face loomed over me, glowing. I said nothing. He looked toward the window, where sunlight sliced in through the blinds.
“Gosh it’s a beautiful day.”
Like I would know anything about that. He gave me the Smile. And the Nod. His teeth were bleached.
“Have you heard about recovery?”
Oh, crap. Here we go. This’ll be even worse than the shrink.
“Have you heard about AA? The twelve steps? They can change your life.”
Steps, schmeps. Step off.
The only steps I was going to take were the ones to get this guy out of here. There was no telling how long he might drone on if I gave even a hint I was interested. I lifted my head slightly, but I didn’t look at him. It took all my strength to talk.
“Yes I’ve heard about recovery, and yes I know about AA, and NA, and yes, and yes,” and the steps, and blah blah blah. Magic Carpet Ride my ass. Should I start singing the Twilight Zone theme now?
Smile.
Is that a real smile? Or is your face just stuck that way?
Where do these people come from? Do they have some button down in the ER, some red button they push when a junkie shows up? That sends a signal to The Room Full of Smiling People where they man phones and dispatch Smiling Guys in beat up old American cars? Is there some network that alerts them? Like squirrels with radios up in the trees? He was going on about his cousin now. “He was so messed up, and now...”
I don’t give two shits about your cousin, pal. He could sprout wings, go flying past the window wearing a halo and I wouldn’t give a damn.
Maybe it was a default mode? I imagined putting fish hooks in the corners of his mouth and attaching weights. It was just not normal.
Say head cheese.
I wish I had more energy, I’d let him have it, tell him to get lost, tell him to shut up, tell him that Smile makes me want to puke. But I was too fucking tired, and he seemed nice enough really, despite everything. Probably just brainwashed. Not his fault.
“I’ll think about it,” I moaned.
Finally he stopped talking. I struggled to turn away from him, making like I was going to sleep, hoping he would go away.
It was the next morning, I think. I’d fallen asleep as it was near
ing sunset, the room had been getting darker and now it was bright. There was a machine next to my bed, sitting atop a little cart. A dark haired man was standing next to it looking bored. Gretchen was there as well, fiddling with the machine, untangling a bunch of color-coded wires.
“Good morning,” she said, smiling.
“Mmmm. Yeah, hi. What’s that?”
“You’re getting an EKG,” she said cheerily, “an electro-cardiogram. The doctors have detected something with your heart. It’s probably nothing to worry about though. Just a precaution.”
She attached little round sponges to my chest, attached some leads to them, then ran wires to the machine. She told the man that it was ready, and he pushed some buttons, then looked out the window. It took a few minutes, and the machine spat out a sheet of paper. The man looked at the printout and his face changed from boredom to confusion, or maybe concern.
“Get the attending doctor,” he said to Gretchen urgently.
I vaguely remember having this test done before, somewhere, sometime, some place. The way his face changed triggered the memory, but I can’t place it. The attending doctor showed up and the man gave him the printout. I managed a few words, “What’s going on?” He looked at me and said, “It looks like you’ve had a heart attack.”
“What?” I said.
“I can’t be sure, but that’s what it looks like,” he replied, “I’m going to order an ultrasound, just to be certain.”
They sure were putting a lot of effort into saving me. I feel like telling them it’s not worth it. Life, death, whatever. Shit happens. Game over. I burned the candle at both ends and now there’s nothing left. I hadn’t expected to come out of it unscathed. I hadn’t expected to come out of it at all. But somehow I had survived. I don’t know why. I had an impossible time with life before and now I’ve lost a part of myself. Not some vague thing somewhere inside me but actual physical flesh and bone. Gone forever. No amount of wishing, or praying, chanting, swinging crystals, aromatherapy, downward sloping dog or leafy green vegetables was going to bring it back. Not even if they were organic. Some wounds are too deep. Some wounds can’t be healed, not really, not to their previous degree of function. With some wounds, the best you can hope for is scar tissue, a kind of tissue that has no feeling, no elasticity, no beauty, and poor circulation.
