Chapter Seven: Murphy Must have been Thinking of Nick When He Wrote Those Laws
Scene One: One hour after concert
There I was all comfy, warm and sleepy. Why couldn’t they have left me alone? There must be some rule in the medical profession about not letting patients sleep for too long. Suddenly there was a bright light in my eyes, and I was cold. Very cold. Someone had pulled away my covers, and too my great embarrassment was stripping off the rest of my clothing. I won’t even take off my shirt for a photo for heaven’s sake, much less get naked in a room full of total strangers. The total strangers did not take my feeling on the subject into account. I thought they would at least stop at the underwear. I guess they were not brief fans. To top it all off the room was a crisp minus 30 degrees, which doesn’t give any part of your body much room to make an impression, much less an important one.
My shivering must have melted their cold hearts because someone got me a gown. A gown that wouldn’t have gone around AJ’s waist, and wouldn’t have reached Howie’s knees. Therefore, I was still technically nude. At least I got a blanket, though I swear it was thinner than the hankies Kevin used to wipe his lilly-white nose on.
I have seen ER, so I was prepared for quite a bit of yelling and carrying on, of which none occurred. If I had puked blood it might have excited them, but all I received was hushed voices that rivaled Brian and Howie’s bathroom argument. I wish I hadn’t thought of that because it made me think of Frank, and that make me think of what I was wearing, and you know how my mind works. Needless to say my blood pressure did a little dance, which set off one of the what-seemed-like sixty-five monitors I was hooked into. This upset a nurse, who called a doctor, which led to all types of hideous things, most of which are better left unsaid. All I can say is I have no idea what one’s anus has to do with an upset stomach, but I’ll just bet Kevin could tell me, him having such a vast knowledge of being “retentive”. On the bright side I expanded my vocabulary. Next time we are on MTV watch me buzz in with the correct answers! “What’s the most painful thing man can endure? A catheter? That’s correct Nick, for 1000 points!”
About this time my IV infiltrated, which for those of you who are laymen, it meant they needed to start a new one. For me it meant I was in the hands of medical personal who couldn’t get their feces collated. Sorry, Brian and Howie won’t really let me cuss.
I decided to skip the suffering sequel and passed out during this IV, which overall was the best choice. I woke up warmer under a thicker blanket, with the lights lower (they were only using 4000 watt bulbs now) and Brian by my side. I could hear Kevin off in the distance, giving someone what for. The what for recipient turned out to be my doctor, who returned with Kevin, and news. As it turns out I was glad to see Kevin, but not quite so happy to receive the news. I needed a “scope”, and even being as blond as I am I had no illusions that this was simply and severe eyeglass problem. No, it seems that a scope is a tube with a camera attached to its end that is pushed into your stomach by way of your esophagus. The idea of having tubes running in both ends of me simultaneously was not something I was looking forward too, but I was given few options. The next was exploratory surgery, and just the word surgery alone is scary enough, but exploratory? I had one of my vivid mental pictures of the doctors bending over my gutted carcass, “hey, what do you think this thing is? The stomach? No, can’t be, it’s too small. The liver? Gee, I always thought the liver would have onions on it.” and so forth and so forth and so forth.
I agreed to the scope for several reasons. Number one, I would be unconscious, and as I have already explained (and as I think you can see) my life just runs more smoothly in the un-awake stage. Number two, I really did want to find out what was causing my problem. And number three, Kevin and Brian threatened to kill me when I initially refused. Not that they were mean about it. Brian just pointed out that as I was going to be stupid and stay sick, which would most likely lead to my death at some time or another, why not just let him take care of that now? Kevin just agreed with Brian to avoid making him any crazier, because who wants to do that? No one, that’s who. Brian is just too nice a guy to upset, which lead me to think of the fact that it’s not quite fair. I mean AJ and Howie wallow in their quest to tease, and therefore upset Nick. Maybe I should start whining now and avoid the Christmas rush.
Scene Two: The Next Morning
Before the scope I had a gastric empty study. I thought it sounded redundant as I spent the entire night emptying my gastric tract, but my doctor insisted. Also Brian and Kevin were within ear shot when “we” (Everything in hospital terms is plural. “We” do everything, though as far as I could tell I was getting the short end of the stick.) discussed the procedure. First my stomach needed to be empty. No problem there. They placed me on a stretcher (by this time I was in a regular hospital room and bed) and took me to radiology. There I was given a treat, a scrambled egg and one piece of toast. I was suppose to eat the egg and toast doctored with radio-active dye. This would show up on the x-rays as it passed through my digestive tract. I had no problem with the procedure until the technician brought in the dye. She was wearing lead gloves, and removed the dye with a long pair of tweezers. Then she injected the egg with the dye.
“Here you go Mr. Carter, eat up!” Eat up? You want me to eat that? You won’t even touch it without lead protection, and I’m suppose to put it in my mouth? Now I know we eat some strange things in our travels. I have had food I cannot identity, and food I could but wished I had not. But never, never, have I needed Superman to stand between me and the kryptonite.
“I’d like to speak to the doctor, please.” No sense in being nasty. After all, she was the lady in charge of the radioactive stuff!
“Dr. Monsour is not here Mr. Carter. He will make rounds later in the day. Here you go, let’s (Man, I was going to develop a split personality.) put the head of your bed up. Good, now here’s your egg.”
“Um...I really feel nauseous, I don’t think I could keep this down.” Excuses, excuses.
“Mr. Carter we gave you something in your IV for that, so there will be no problem. Now, here you go!” Man she was perky. Enough that I was grateful for the tummy medicine in my IV. Even I can take only so much sugar.
“Well...” I wasn’t convinced I wouldn’t be poisoned. After all this nurse could be an N’sync fan.
“Mr. Carter, are we trying to be difficult?” Trying? No. Being? Yes, “we” were. Or at least one of my personalities was. I just gave her my puppy dog look, hoping for the best.
The best turned out to be Kevin and AJ, who had been lurking (waiting is not really a good word to describe what AJ does) in the corridor in case the tech needed backup. These guys know me too well.
“Nick, what’s the problem.” OK, I’m 19 years old. If I don’t want to eat a damn egg, I shouldn’t have to eat a damn egg. I was going to tell Kevin that too, as soon as he was in another state from me. I wanted to tell him something, but was afraid that if I opened my mouth I would bawl. So I simply crossed my arms and gave one of my famous pouts. That should work.
It didn’t. Or maybe it did. I should have specified what I wanted it to do. What it did was push Kevin over the edge. He leaned in with that “don’t ’ you DARE give me any trouble” look he has perfected over the years, and let me have it. “Nick, you are really sick, you could have something serious. I am not trying to scare you, I know you must be scared to start with. Brian is freaked, he is down the hall climbing the walls. We’re all worried, AJ and Howie didn’t even go back to the hotel to sleep last night. Fans are freaking out the hospital staff, sneaking in with in ways you can’t even being to imagine. They are worried as well.” His voice dropped to a rough whisper. “Nick, we want you to get well. I know this is scary, but you have to let the doctors take care of you. We’re all here, no one is going to leave, we care about you bro. We will make sure everything they do is on the up-and-up. OK? Everything is fine. So do this, OK? No more problems, no pouting, no more making the staff find one of us to talk you into something. Because, I swear Nick, if you do, I WILL DRAG YOUR ASS OUT OF THAT BED AND BEAT IT WITH THE BUCKLE END OF MY BELT AND I WILL LET THE ENTIRE STAFF WATCH! Got it?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Here baby, eat your egg.” I did.
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