Worthless Goddamned Cripple

Questionably skilled but consummately arrogant MD’s descended on the warehouse every couple weeks to examine residents. They depended on the charge nurse behaving like a shameless lickspittle, scampering behind them and juggling charts while they made their rounds. When the duo entered a room, the nurse informed the preoccupied doctor of the occupant’s condition and its progress or deterioration. (There’s nothing quite as pathetic as a wide-eyed simpleton striving to gain the confidence of an uninterested taskmaster.) While the nurse groveled in the background and scribbled notes, the doctor examined the resident and intermittently deadpanned statistics and generic comments. They both usually ignored questions posed by the resident. more »

The warehouse should have retired Miss Witt like state governments should revoke driver’s licenses issued to dazed coots who imagine they’re driving a bumper car when they get behind the wheel of their Olds. Though the aging CNA maintained good intentions and a friendly demeanor, her job performance had slowly but steadily degraded. Mr. Gold, the kewpie doll-sized administrator interpreted any questioning of Miss Witt’s abilities as a threat to his authority.

New patients regularly arrived at the warehouse from a hospital. The hyper-stupidity of the administration undermined efficient communication between the warehouse and the hospital involved, and a considerable number of ambulance attendants and cripplevan drivers were thieves. more »

CNA’s indifferently accepted that some residents pissed onto the linoleum floor while lying half asleep in their beds because they were too lazy to get up and baptize the porcelain catchall. It never crossed their pea-brains that such a resident might be wildly ill-bred. Most parents teach their small children appropriate toilet habits; therapists were supposed to teach such skills to absent-minded patients. But the therapists often sloughed the responsibility off on the charge nurse, who delegated it to the CNA’s. The dullwitted CNA’s proved themselves incapable of any action beyond summoning a member of the housekeeping staff and telling them to mop the floor.

To be fair, it was hard to tell at first glance who suffered from physical dysfunction and who chose to conduct themselves like a fucking animal. more »

Read Part 1
Because most licensed doctors recognize a dead patient as a potential lawsuit, they initially performed a tracheotomy on me. I remember during my time in the ICU when I wore a string like a choker around my neck. (I’m sure there was more to it, but at the time it seemed just a string.) An either overzealous or incompetent nurse had tied the string too tightly and it mercilessly dug into the nape of my neck—I host the permanent furrows that prove I’m not whining like a drama queen. I literally couldn’t make a sound, much less complain. more »

I have no problem differentiating between hallucinations and factual events that occurred in my post-trauma surroundings. Though I had a flimsy grasp on reality immediately after I surfaced from the coma, the fleeting moments of lucidity proved themselves wildly enhanced. And my intuition had kicked itself into ultra-high gear.

A silent ambulance obeyed speed limits while it carried me from the intensive care unit of a standard hospital to a rehabilitation hospital where the thickheaded staff would try to subjugate me for the next three months. My faceless doctors had assigned me to a high-ceilinged three-bed ward. (During the course of my stay they would twice order me transferred to another room.) more »

The warehouse administrator, Mr. Gold constantly proved himself an amoral subhuman. He had gained the physically and mentally infirm residents’ trust by tacitly claiming to have earned a degree that made him a medical doctor. In fact some community college had merely awarded him a certificate that qualified his sawed-off shyster ass to work as a garden-variety pharmacist. He might not have even done that—I don’t remember and anyway I knew him to be a pathological liar. more »

Read Part 1
“Caring staff” — One of my roommates, a friendly and gentle middle-aged man, suffered from Elephantitis. He harbored an uncommon variety of the disease that merited his lecturing at out-of-state medical schools. Classic Elephantitis causes extreme swelling of the victim’s limbs or genitals; my roommate’s manifestations weren’t readily visible. Though his body remained normally proportioned, his unique version of Elephantitis had rendered him legally blind and extraordinarily weak, and had usurped control of his bladder. Unsteady on his feet, he shuffled like the Mummy after downing a handful of Quaaludes. He spent his last days confined to a wheelchair. more »

In the weeks following my release from the warehouse, I discovered that various administrative secretaries had wildly fucked up the paperwork associated with my case. This came as no surprise given the treatment I received while a resident. Faced with the almost impossible task of lighting fires under unconcerned asses, I phoned the warehouse office several times and attempted to perform the administration’s job for them. Whenever a clueless staff member answered the phone and put me on hold, I heard a pre-recorded advertisement for the warehouse. more »

An orderly working at the rehabilitation hospital welcomed me by suggestively rubbing my anus with her finger while she gave me a shower. She so much as admitted that her diddlng had nothing to do with hosing me down. more »

When I came out of the coma I lie strapped to a treatment table in the intensive care unit of an urban hospital, unable to move or speak. I possessed a vague instinctual understanding of my condition and surroundings, but my perceptions were filtered through a haze of dream-like subjectivity. Any grounded impressions flickered in and out like the light from a bulb being screwed into a live socket.

I also felt like I’d been clobbered at length by a sizeable army of frenzied baseball bat-wielding yahoos. more »