Worthless Goddamned Cripple

While I crept out of the coma I discovered wires connected to strategic areas of my body that fed vital signs to a bank of monitors. An IV tube, ready to administer real medicine, pumped saline solution into a vein in my arm. Some nurse had jammed a tube leading to a pissbag into my urethra.

You haven’t lived until you’ve dealt with a plastic tube sprouting from your wally. I’m aware of guys that shove foreign objects into their urethra when they masturbate. On that note, I’d like to point out that some men get their ya-ya’s out when humorless buffoons wearing leather costumes plunge large needles into their testicles. 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 »

I’m annoyed but mildly amused when slow-witted asshats assume I’m retarded and speak freely in my presence. They delude themselves into believing that I can’t fathom their piddly conversations.

While I was stuck in the warehouse I scheduled a dentist appointment for myself. The staff could only be bothered with the needs of near-death patients and then only to head off criticism from the chronically bitchy head nurse. The nurse on my floor heavily sighed at the inconvenience of doing her job, then scheduled a ride to my dentist with a Medivan. Medivans are designed similarly to the vans intended to augment handicap accessible public transit but are dispatched exclusively for transportation to and from medical appointments. Use of medivans for any other purpose is officially prohibited. more »

Before the American medical system unceremoniously dumped me into the warehouse aka convalescent home, I endured close to three months in a rehabilitation hospital. Instead of giving me appropriate care, the staff dealt with me like I was a retarded animal. I expected shabby treatment from the naïve CNAs who considered themselves “health care professionals” as if making beds and emptying bedpans are specialized skills. But the reasonably well-educated therapists that should have known better also patronized me to an obscene extent. This occurred at the tail end of the twentieth century in a modern medical facility located in a major American city. In retrospect I’m surprised they didn’t recommend that I be bled by leeches. more »