Frantic messages
I keep frantically try to get dear brother involved in a texting conversation but he is he obviously preoccupied with his family and Sunflower is going for mammogram tomorrow and is nervous which makes me nervous so she went to bed. I'm waiting for food. Nothing grand or lab orated but I did promise myself I oils not do this again and here I am. I am lonely and so very sad and I just don't have anyone to talk to. It's hard on a loner when the loner actually needs someone and find himself or herself alone. Alone takes on a completely different meaning.
God damn its cold outside. Won't just won't let loose of us this year. I want the weather to change so bad so I can get this wheelchair rolling on to some Mother Nature. Take my camera out and capture the world coming back to life just as I am coming back to life. Of course the creators and gods and goddesses have something else in mind. An indoor polka party!! Fuck I hope not.
Got a deep pain in my left leg. It's a pain hooked to the ground with long tentacles that reach to the core and send the pain and misery of the history of the ages going through my leg and burning back down into the earth meting the floors and walks and shattering all the windows and I raise my arms and scream out, crying, whispering, at last acceptance.
Getting where I can pretty much take care of myself except for a couple things and sometimes waiting for the aides and nurses can be unbearable.
He's always listening to religious stuff and out of nowhere he will go "you know Mike Jesus was a cool dude. I love Jesus. I love you Mike. You know Jesus sometimes tells me to kill all you mother fuckers. I just figure he's been in to that crack again."
Of course I made up the last part. Or did I?
Waiting for the delivery. I'm waiting for the package to arrive. The driver knows my first name. I always me sure he is take care of. Drivers are good to have around.
The haunting period is late at night or early in the morning. It's all how you look at it. The building is filled with the growls grumps and whispers for days gone by. I can hear the wheels of my chair rolling Dow those hallways. I am the observer the ghost who haunts you and who haunts me. Sleepless brings on many demons but in a place like this the demons are more frightening than the others because these demons are real. The demons here are broken sick and crippled spirits who have a reason for vengeance. When the healthy light spirits come through those doors the spirits come in droves to receive just a second pf that precious light of life. Don‘t let that angel of light come in during the haunting hours. We have a room ready for you.
Sucking on sugar free candies.
I had Sunflower get a stash of sugar free candies so I could keep my mouth busy but to also offer to the nurses and aides something to suck on instead of bad coffee or a carbonated cans of pop.
I 'm done with pop. I let my addiction take over the other day and drank a seven up, four diet Pepsi and there may have been a diet Mountain Dew in there. Let's just say I paid for it with bloating and terrible leg pain that lasted a day and a half. My legs were swollen and the only thing that was going to make it ok was abstinence. Been two days and I already feel more human.
Today has been a day of contemplative thought. I don't think the feeling of sheer terror that this just might be it doesn't leave completely. Even my very strange roommate will show moments of wanting to flee but it never lasts long. He is supposed to leave Thursday and go home till Monday. It will be interesting if he does.
I sit by the big glass doors that look out over a meditative garden of sorts. It's covered with snow right now so we aren't allowed to go out. Man this winter just won't leave.
I finally decided to call it quits for the night. Waiting on an aide to go through the ritual of bedtime. I believe with all my heart the ritual is a part of all of these facilities. Doesn’t matter where the place is located they all follow the same pattern.
There is one aide out of all of them that is a jewel ready to be plucked from the dirt in the ocean and marveled at because of its sheer beauty. She is overwhelming. She physically takes my breath away. She is a secret to most. I love secrets.
Just like an aide she takes care of me, cleaning me and changing me but there is a real sense of love and caring in wanting to make sure all of my needs are met. I know she does this for all of us but she does her job in a way that makes it feel like it is just for me.
"I know she's married. I'm not stupid. I am only make believing".
Dialysis this morning seems more stupid than most days. I hate dialysis. I don't think there is ever going to be a day that I don't hate this way of life. It's one of those things where it is told to you that you have to do this for a specific amount of time. But this.
No not dialysis.
This will be for the rest of my god damn life.
I got so tired of waiting on someone to come and take care of me that I called heartland and told them I was a patient and that they needed to get someone down here. Of course no one has come down yet. We're talking over an Hour now.
I don't think I am unreasonable I just want patient care especially when I look at what this is costing.
I've got food coming also. That's all I need is to have the aid washing my ass when the driver shows up.
Nursing homes are places of death.
I don't know if all nursing homes suck. I do know this one can really suck at times.
I've been waiting for an hour for an aid to show up. Nothing. Nada. Not even someone poking their head in and saying "hey sorry". They never under any circumstances say they are sorry. It is always the patients fault even if the patient lays in his own shit and dies.
Ice... As if it is the most important thing in the world. They wheel around their ice coolers and fill large Styrofoam cups with ice and pretty much force every patient to take of these cups and most of us do because they generally keep these fucking buildings unbearably hot year round.
Does it sound like I'm bitching dear brother? Well that is because I am bitching. The commercials are not right. These places are not extensions of our homes. They are not wonderful places filled with joyful happy people.
We are all pretty fucking miserable including most of the help. Oh every once in a while there is an evil monster that takes great pleasure in inflicting pain upon others but for the most part the help and the patients are miserable. Most of the time for these reasons. The place smells. The food is shit so it's the food that smells and we all spend too much time in shit.
Now go to OSU hospital. Place smells clean and wonderful. The food is out of this world and the doctor’s nurses and aides are absolutely wonderful. Of course OSU hospital is part of Ohio state university so it makes sense that their hospital would be the level of quality that it is. The hospital has completely changed my opinion and attitude toward the university.
I am not a fan of football. I am going to make an attempt for dear brother but I always thought that the university sucked because the only thing that mattered was football and well it's the truth but what the football teams funds are the rest of the college and this means that you have phenomenal people to take care if you. This I suppose explains the problem with most rehab nursing home facilities, funding especially nursing and aides or techs as Select Specialties Hospitals called them. This is why Baton Rouge Nursing Home and rehab in Lima Ohio sucked. It's why Select Specialties Hospital in Columbus is one of the worst places to go if you are sick and or poor and even though Heartland, where I am currently staying is better than the previous two mentioned they still suck In A lot of ways. You have a hand full of exceptional aides here and one or two good nurses and the rest just don't have what it takes and then there is the monster who is here. I can hear her outside my door right now.
Does the help suck for the same old American reason? Fuck yes! These facilities have CFO's and CEO's and C DICK O's or better put little dicks with big ears who steal all of the money to pay the help so these facilities are always understaffed or not staffed with qualified people.
We are however like a great big dysfunctional family that desperately try's to make the best of a bad situation. The patients, the aides, the nurses, housekeeping, the kitchen, maintenance and some poor ragtag pill popping boozer of a doctor who will gladly give you more meds.
I leave the last group for well for last and that is physical therapy. This department will be housed with some of the most eclectic most eccentric people on the planet and they may not get along with each other well but they do their patients right. They bring us back to the best health possible and do it in a celebratory way. They are always up even when they are fighting with each other or trying to figure which terrible good restaurant to order from.
We are brought here to die. Just a human junkyard of bodies all lined up. But some of us refuse to give up. It is not time and we rev our engines and spin our wheels and speed away for new adventures.
My god how did this happen?
My god how did this happen? I mean they have given me reasons why this happened but there are still those days when I am screaming at the sky HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!
They say MRSA, the new cancer like I just bought the newest and most stylish pair of tennis shoes and how do you like to be the new to cancer. Not a very hopeful fucking analogy.
I have finally come to grips with the reality of my situation and I am going to need assisted living for the rest if my life.
I am angry and I feel hurt and violated. I spent a year dancing with death and now that I am back to normal well normal minus being able to fucking walk and I am just as afraid of death as I was when it was right on top of me because no matter how close I got and even during those moments when I slipped over I was acutely aware of what I was leaving behind and for me it was the people that I truly loved and who loved me in return and frankly no one’s list is very big. That kind of love is so precious.
I am sitting in the hall way. I am filled with sheer terror. I can smell whiffs of the smell of his BM coming through the cracks in the door. Jesus I am tired of this shit.
The two Mikes living in the cage separated by the curtain. One is gorging himself whenever he can while the other is malnourished and feeling the edge getting so very close. Which one is right? The right hand of the savior.
Salt and sugar however will satisfy the vein to the soul of the real soul of the traveler riding his donkey to the windmill. Oreos and Lays Potato Chips. Man oh Mayan it's just like heroin.
As I sat at the sacred front window where people came to sit and contemplate I watched the tall man and the walking with a cane man and his friend which I don't remember any distinguishing characteristics. From behind came the duo of the lead man in the wheel chair being pushed in the wheelchair by the quiet man. They were all headed out into the night and the bitter cold headed to a specific destination where they were to partake of the wisdom smoke. I wanted to join them but it wasn't time yet. That wisdom is still with me and I will light my flame again soon yes soon.
cool peace
hippy mike
love
spirit
groovy times