some days all i do is watch the sky.

as i sit here with what was once an empty document in front of me, i look as a clumpy strand of hair falls into my sightline that hasn't been washed for nearly five days.
i don't really get much more raw than this in a lot of regards.

there's a hospital bracelet on my right wrist, beside a "you can do this" bracelet and a threaded friendship bracelet from a kid at work.
the words I WILL FIGHT written on my left arm in permanent marker--an encouragement. a mantra from the something corporate song 'watch the sky'. hope. a medical id bracelet.
residue from medical tape. needle pokes. a red bruise turning purple from a failed iv line.
still wearing the same clothes i went to the emergency room in.

i spent the better worse part of yesterday in the er. and angry.
wondering why the fucking doctors can't fucking communicate with me.
why my ultrasound results weren't clear . . . and nobody told me.
why i do exactly as i'm told, take my pills exactly as i'm told, and still my hemoglobin drops from 83 to 64 in less than three days. in just over a month since my last blood transfusion. why i do everything i can regardless, as i feel my body compensating for this drop, feel my heart rate start spiking. ending up at triage with a heart rate above 150. waiting less than five minutes to get in for an ekg. with blood drawn and iv fluids started within the hour.

forced into a gown with some argument. the doctor with cool shoes and an insane ability to check my pulse effortlessly is taking care of me. matt the awesome nurse holding my hand while he drew blood and got my iv going. dr cool shoes lets me put my t-shirt back on instead of being stuck in the gown that could fit three or more of me inside of it. get transferred to observation for a transfusion with a hemoglobin of 64. greeted by the orderly who teaches me how to use the light and ties my call button up to my bed. make the acquaintance of mohammed the awesome old dude across from me. iv flushes, test dose of blood, my mom leaves, the rest of the unit of blood, more saline. ask the nurse to disconnect me again so i can walk to the bathroom untethered, she gets me to stop by the nurses station on the way to flush my iv. i'm low maintenance. mohammed goes home. old lady enters. end up disconnected for an hour--they're short staffed and inserting a picc on a guy with a spinal cord injury who came in with what sounds like a wicked uti. old lady tells them she has to go to the bathroom and they subject her to the bedpan, where for an hour she proceeds to fall asleep repeatedly and tells everybody who wakes her up she's "not done". i talk to her daughter who is stuck standing outside my little curtained world for an eternity. gary the orderly comes by again, whose name i thought was larry for quite some time. he brings me some shitty hospital food, adjusts my bed, and removes the sat probe for a bit. eat some shitty hospital salad and a shitty hospital dinner roll. save some crackers in a package. eat chips--i mean, what the hell, they're just dumping a ton of saline into my body anyways, what's it matter if i eat a bunch more salt.

watch the dear jack documentary on the ipad, which is becoming a tradition in these stints in the er. blood pressure cuff just remains around my left brachium, sat/hr probe just stays stuck on my finger. open my mouth for the temperature. i could do it asleep at this point. roll onto bag two of blood. my mom comes back and heads off to buy me iced tea and chocolate. my heart rate is still too friggen high. finish the bag of blood with a heart rate of 120. that's the last time it's checked. a half hour for a blood draw turns into an hour. an hour for results turns into more than an hour. my hemoglobin is back at an acceptable 86--three points higher than it was monday. release.

this morning, i wake up the first time feeling fine. i wake up the second time feeling sick. an hour later i am so nauseous that i stumble to the bathroom and throw up. i feel a bit better for awhile and then the nausea starts creeping up. i fight it for awhile then finally eat something. my heart rate is still high, but i don't feel as sick anymore. pizza is the cure.

call an on-call nurse named gail. she triages me over the phone, and determines i'm not sick enough to need to go back to the er, thank god. i'm told to follow up with my doctor on monday and call back if my symptoms get any worse. my friend steve chalks it up to all the foreign antibodies coursing through my bloodstream and tells me that how i'm feeling isn't uncommon--three months, seven units of blood, severe bleeds and hormone pills--my body has been through a lot.  my heart rate is still high but levelling out, i'm still exhausted.
but
i'm blistered but i'm better -- and i'm home.