The Tale (or Tail) of the Monkey

Please could I have regular insomnia instead of having it tied to an event?  A year ago, I was in the immuno-suppression wing at Avera McKennan (after a $3,258 ambulance ride from Pierre under the influence of lovely quantities of morphine).  I’d had a very high fever, and my labs were totally out of whack (my MELD had jumped to 20+), and I was having bad headaches.  They called in a neurologist with the worst bedside manner ever.  I told her I wanted to see my own neurologist since he was also affiliated with Avera.  She just blurted out “oh, he died.”  Umm, thanks.  I didn’t realize that Wal-Mart did the physician training in bedside manner.

 

She sent me down for an MRI.  To the MRI lab which was closed for Labor Day weekend and only had some dim passageway lights on.  Ever seen Flatliners?  They take people to the deserted basement to do experimental medical procedures on them.  So the tech put the head-immobilizing “Jason” mask on me and handed me a thingy to squeeze if I wanted out.  She slid me into the tube.  She never said “keep your eyes closed.”  Squeezed that thingy so hard it almost exploded in my hand.  I made her take me back upstairs.  The neurologist decided to give me some kind of med that she didn’t run past the transplant surgeon first. 

 Thanks to the pharmacy not listening to me about one of my prescriptions, I had begun slipping into another encephalopathic bout.  Add freaky med.  Result equals delusions.  Dobbie (from Harry Potter) was hiding under the bed and only popped out when I got up to go to the bathroom then disappeared back under the bed.  I became agitated.  The Estonian nurse thought it might help to calm me if she spoke to me soothingly in her language.  Wrong!  She instantly became the German version of Tokyo Rose, there in the VA hospital to hurt the other veterans.  I am not a veteran, nor was I at the VA hospital of course.  I knew I had to go for help.

 

Earlier in the day, they had disconnected all the tubes and such, although the IV line was still in my arm.  So I put on my traction socks, and my robe, and stealthily (or so I thought) left my room and made a break for it.  I went down the hallway I thought the ambulance gurney had come in through.  Guessed wrong.  Nurse Ashley saw me and tried to stop me and have me sit in a chair in the hall.  “No, the bad peoples will see me!”  I kept walking.  She guided me into a conference room and tried to get me to sit at the table.  “No, they can still see me!”  So I sat on a chair in the corner, by the coat rack, huddled behind some kind of projector thing (I think).  She called the doctor to find out what he wanted to do.  The Estonian nurse came in with a pill.  “No!  She’s one of the bad peoples!”  They assured me she was not and got me to take the pill.  I would not go back to my room because Dobbie was still in there.

 

So I got to go sit at the nurses’ station in a comfy chair, looking at magazines (because reading didn’t make sense at that point), and eating cubes of red jello.  Drat Wal-Mart for discontinuing carrying the Winky sugar-free black cherry gel bites!  After a while I was tired and went back to my room.  This is the part that is still a bit fuzzy.  Somehow I became convinced that the reason they had taken me to the MRI lab (a/k/a experimental medical procedures area) was to give me a monkey liver.  I could not be talked out of this.  Even the next day, I was still convinced.  I argued with Dr. A that if they used pig valves for heart replacements, they could easily use monkey livers.  He assured me they didn’t use pig valves, and couldn’t use monkey parts, but if they could, there would be an endless supply and therefore no need for waiting lists.  I guess I finally believed that.

 

After returning home several weeks later, I was greeted by my staff giving me monkey bandanas, texting me monkey pictures (I told you I would get even James), and eating bananas at their desks.  So much love and support!  To this day, I detest monkeys.  Their looks, sounds, nasty bug-infested fur.  I have, however, decided that the classic old sock monkeys are cute.

 

A good portion of last summer has returned to my memory, although not all.  And it possibly never will.  I’m just grateful that memories from prior to that seem to have almost fully returned.  There are still occasional blank sectors on the hard drive of my brain, but I hope that’s just because it was something that I should have deleted anyway.

 

So now you have it.  The full story of the monkeys, or at least as much of it as I can recall.  Or have been told.  For now, I’m just trying to stay healthy so I can put off the transplant as long as possible.