Notes from the hospital

For those of you who don't know, I crashed hard on my skateboard last weekend. It was raining; it was dark. My girl was out of town, gone for some kind of reunion in the mountains of Moravia. My internet had been out of service for a week, and I had decided to head down to a cafe to get some work done.

The fall seemed so docile - one minute I was skating through the dark square, and I just sort of tipped over. I didn't really even have time to throw out my hands, I just sort of - fell over. At first, I thought there was no chance of injury - I hadn't even fallen hard enough to break the skin. No such luck. I managed to fall on the most vulnerable part of my body, my left collarbone, which I broke when I was much younger, in a wrestling match with my father.

After lying on the ground for a few minutes, my initial diagnosis was that I had a dislocated shoulder. No problem. Someone would pop it back into place, and maybe I could still make last call at Propaganda. In any case, I needed some help... I'm now reminded of the scene in Run Lola Run where she mentally scans through anyone who could help. Mom? No help, don't want to worry her. Vendula? Help, but again, don't want to hear her worried. I called Radko, who I haven't talked to in awhile, and told him I was in need of help.

Was I expecting the cavarly? Maybe. At least, "you need me to come down there?" Wat I got was "Ok, there's a hospital within walking distance. Walk south." Sometimes these things happen. Sometimes no one is coming to help. I sucked it up, grabbed my laptop, decided to sacrifice my skateboard (I couldn't carry both), and walked up to the hospital.

I found the hospital, but the emergency room was really not well marked. I began to wander the hospital, crying out piteously for help (Potrebuju pomoc). I recevied some vague directions, quite a few cold shoulders, and actually a few giggles. I couldn't believe it. Maybe I wasn't bleeding enough for them, but it seems to me folks in Prague would just as soon kick you as help you. Such is city life, I guess. One just can't risk helping the wrong person...

Digression: there's many ways in one's head to forgive humanity. We all do it, mostly in order to be able to forgive ourselves our own transgressions, probably. "How could it have happened," we wonder - about the holocaust, wars, whatever. "I'm not like that." Yes, most likely, you are. You (and when I say you, I mean me) are capable of all sorts of things, including but not limited to: theft, deception, murder. The world needs a fucking 12 step program. And you know what the first step is? "1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable."

Anyway.

I found a vaguely-likely looking section of the hospital. After "mluvite anglitcky? (you speak english?)" and "potrebuju pomoc," a large, warden type shooed me off to wait somewhere. I sat down next to a kid who obviously had quite a few mental problems. He was licking a packet of instant espresso paste. "Speak to me!" he said. "I speak English!" Ok, fine.

"Are they going to help me?" I asked.
"What?"
"Are they going to help me?"
"Where are you from?"

Sigh. I made small talk with the kid for awhile, bummed him a cigarette, and rephrased my question in the best Czech I could muster. I could never quite understand the answer, but it became clear enough that I still wasn't in the right place. So I waited.

Eventually, a small, spiky haired woman came out, and spoke to me in English. Again, when visiting a foreign emergency room, I advise you to cry, yell, wince - anything you can do to indicate pain. In my case, no one had any idea of just how much pain I was in.

"You have some sort of pain in your shoulder?" She asked.
"No, it's, dislocated."
"Oh, my god."

I'm still sort of in love with that doctor. She rushed away, coming back 5 minutes later. "Here's the problem, " she said to me. "No one here will relocate your shoulder, because you have no insurance."

"I can pay."

Magic words in Czech hospitals. I think I heard the verb "Zaplatit" (to pay) more than any other word.

So I eventually saw a doctor who spoke English, got some X-Rays, a shot for the pain, and unkindly disabused of the notion that I had a dislocated shoulder. Nope, what I had was a triple fracture of the clavicle, requiring surgery. The head of surgery, a stern man who spoke no english, tried for awhile to put the bone fragments back into place by hand, but had no luck. It would be full-anathesia surgery, for tommorow, complete with metal plate and screws in the bones.

The rest of my stay was a drug-addled four days, and exists as fragments in my memory. I'll present them this way, not only because it's how I see it, but because it's a lot easier than narrative story-telling, which I kind of suck at.

- The first nurse I met was perhaps the most unkind person of all in this story. She was angry from the start, and eventually made me scream loudly (and needlessly) in pain as she yanked my arm to put in a sling.

- My roommate spoke fairly good english. The poor soul had been hit by a car while working as a bartender in the Canary islands. He had been in bed for 6 weeks, and had another 2 weeks to go before the surgery on his back would take place. I was amazed by his outlook, which was really not bad considering the situation.

- My boarder, Oisin (previously unmentioned in this web log, an Irish busker who I have given a couch to sleep on to) came to visit me, as did Vendula. I am eternally grateful, and we spent the time in a small room smoking cigarettes and cracking jokes. It's hard to even express how much this meant, and it's a harder debt to repay.

- The nurses became really fascinated by me once they realized I had a Czech girlfriend, although only one of them became friendly; I was not particularly nice to the other one... Vendula was visiting, and the nurse was hovering annoyingly in the room. "Leave, " I said, trying to put on my best "I know you don't understand, but I'm saying something nice" smile. "Leave now. Go." I was just trying to be funny and alone with Vendula for awhile, but I think she understand a little too well - she jabbed me hard in the ass with a needle later that night.

- I made a friend or two in the smoking room, which overlooked a beautiful section of Prague. An old lady with varicose veins and some sort of leg injury, who stroked my face and said "mlady, hezky" (young, pretty). An old man in a wheelchair who I bummed cigarettes to, and as a going away gift gave me a German sanitary napkin he had ostensibly been carrying for 10 years.

- Czech hospitals are every bit as depresssing as one would think - but not any more so.

- I had an IV drip the first day after surgery, and I wanted to know what was in it. "co to je?" (what is it?) I asked the nurses.
"Saline solution?"
No response. Apparently, saline doesn't translate.
"Sul a voda?" (Salt and water?)
The nurses were amazed that I knew.
"jste doktor?" (You're a doctor?)

- I wasn't really able to get any clothes on for a few days. On the second day, I was at the sink, getting some water, with my hospital gown hanging open in back. Turning to go back to bed, I realized that the room had silently filled with about 15 people of the hospital staff, who were preparing to talk to each other about my case. I smiled sheepishly and made my way back to bed.


Anway, that's enough for now. Here's what I took away:

(1) Metal plate in the shoulder.
(10) Pills of an opiate nature, that the nurse slipped on leaving.
(1) Hospital bill to the very cheap tune of $1,500.
(1) Really really ugly and fairly impressive scar.
(1) Good arm.
(1) Arm in a sling.
(?) Unquantifiable changes in my hope for humanity - some love, some bad.
(1) Realization I was in love. For better or worse.

errrrrrrr

Ok, there may be those of you who find this post too hippy dippy.

Trust me, I am among you.

=============================

I wish I was a millionaire, and could keep a flat in Prague, a flat in Paris, a flat in New York, a flat in San Francisco.

I wish I was numb, so that I wouldn't feel this pain I know is going to hit me.

I wish I was more cynical and callous than I am, so that I could stop kicking posters of George Bush.

I wish I was European, preferably French.

I wish I could think of a nation on earth that hadn't commited great sins against man.

I wish I could really fall in love.

I wish I was home.

I wish that I never had to go home.

I wish that I could help everyone who needs help; barring that, I wish I could help my friends. Barring that, I wish I could help my girlfriend. Barring that, I wish I could help myself.

I wish for three more wishes.

I wish for all my desires and hopes and prognostications to be swept away like sand in a beach house, leaving only my skate board, my sore throat, and my habits.

I wish for an end to this wishy-washy maudlin feeling that takes control of me after a few glasses of red wine.

I wish for all my desires to take control of me, and let me live like the animal being that I am.

I wish that i didn't have a crush on the waitress at the restaurant where I write this.

I wish for an end to paradoxes, pain, and my seeking of hopeless situations.