A Pain in the Neck

The doctors have been trying so hard to get me out of the hospital but the bacteria in my blood would like to stay. So far (knock on wood), I haven’t heard anything about my blood cultures, and no news is good news. If nothing grows, then I can get a PICC line in my arm tomorrow. There’s talk of release tomorrow. Maybe Sunday. A lot of things have to align for these things to happen, including getting my blood counts up. We’re already talking about trying to get my mom back out here another weekend when I’m not in the hospital, but based on this year, it’s hard to say when that would be.

Today was mostly a day of waiting and hoping nothing would happen on the blood culture front. Tomorrow, hopefully I can get the PICC line. (I can get one 48 hours after there’s no sign of infection.) Here are a few random things that happened:

Since I’m here all day and have a long medical history with which to regale future doctors, sometimes they ask if I’m OK with medical students asking me questions for practice. Today the student listened to my belly with her stethoscope and told the teaching doctor that it sounded “like birds chirping.” My bowels are a little more active than average, but they’re much more quiet than they were on Monday, when they were so loud the doctors could barely hear my heart over the ruckus. Apparently, bowels that are obstructed or that aren’t working very much are very quiet with some tinkling sounds.  I thought bowels would sound like a group of middle school boys making fart noises or a bubbling, festering swamp. I had no idea that bowels were so musical.

I called my insurance company about getting a wig, because I forgot what I was supposed to do after I started the Kafkaesque process of obtaining one. I found Aetna’s preferred wig distributor and then a local shop, and I thought my doctor is supposed to do something about pre-authorization. I told the representative on the phone that I was calling about a wig, and he really seemed to not know what a wig was. He initially tried to send me to pharmacy but then I realized if he’d asked me if it was medication, and I remembered it’s classified as equipment. During the rest of the call, he kept calling it equipment and at one point, he said it was part of a machine. “It’s a wig,” I said a few times. It didn’t matter that he thought it was a cog or something, because it didn’t affect the procedure I am supposed to follow, but it was weird.

My mom and I were talking about games, since we were playing Cantankerous Cats, which a friend had sent to me earlier this year to pass the hospital time, and I remembered the hospital recreation center. I’d forgotten about it since I was on isolation restrictions until yesterday. It was a beautiful day today, and I thought we could get out of the room and into the sunlit lounge. When we got up there, I realized that there is an outside roofdeck area with tables and chairs. It was pretty full since it was a nice day, but we found a few seats and at least got to enjoy the outdoors a bit. Today we were supposed to go to the Met so it wasn’t quite the same thing, but it was nice to get outside. Some people had cookies and fruit, so I think I missed some sort of snack hour, though some people brought food with them. I’m glad I remembered the lounge in time to get some sun, and hospital gown tan lines are probably OK this year since the “cold shoulder” look seems to persist for another summer season.

Something sad happened on the rooftop though. A carpenter bee had been buzzing around, probably attracted by a wooden pergola. I was telling my mom that carpenter bees burrow into wood but they’re pretty docile. We have some in our community garden, and they are enormous but fairly gentle giants. Suddenly we heard a stomp and a sad buzz. Someone didn’t like the bee buzzing and swatted it down and killed it. I was so sad. The poor bee was actually just minding its own beeswax. Male carpenter bees don’t even have stingers. It was such a sad and pointless death. It reminded me of a poem I read at some point recently: “Allowables” by Nikki Giovanni.

I killed a spider
Not a murderous brown recluse
Nor even a black widow
And if the truth were told this
Was only a small
Sort of papery spider
Who should have run
When I picked up the book
But she didn’t
And she scared me
And I smashed her

I don’t think
I’m allowed

To kill something

Because I am

Frightened

—Nikki Giovanni

Cancer. Cancer should be killed, but not carpenter bees. I have no deep parallels to draw or comments on meanings of the poem. I just don’t like the killing of carpenter bees (or spiders, if I can help it), though I’m not a homeowner so their wood burrowing doesn’t affect me. Still, I’ve come to enjoy their companionship in the community garden as harmless (to me) bees, unlike the some of the ground bees, who can be real jerks. Also, I think people should know more about the benefits of opossums, who are misunderstood.

The last thing that stood out for today was that I have been spying on my cats with my cat cam. Yesterday, my mom asked me if I wanted to say hello to my cat Ziggy, and when I said hello, he rubbed his face against the phone. He’s such a sweet cat and a complete ham. I watched him today on camera run into the room, and then does his thing where he pretends to find something on the floor. (This is a new ritual that seems somewhat related to his beloved “I got you” game, where he jumps out at you puffed up like a Halloween cat and then runs away, wanting you to chase him and then eventually get him and pick him up and cuddle him.)  Today, before my mom headed back to the apartment to feed the cats, I watched the bon vivant, Lux, march over to his food bowl, look at its empty contents, and then head over to the door and look at it for a moment to see if someone was arriving soon to feed him. He then sauntered off in disgust.