Three sleepless days, pain meds and wine makes Jill a raving loon.

A loon who suddenly finds stupid shit reasonable. Like...today it seems like a totally bitchin' idea to post a questionnaire on my site as an ersatz bio. You know the kind..."If you could have been born at any point in history, when would it be?" I detest questionnaires as a rule, but they are strangely compelling, like tabloid headlines at a checkout. And I don't know about you, but I can't NOT read them. I can't turn my attention away from a page of someone's innermost thoughts any more than I could a story about Lisa Marie's drunken lesbian forays and debaucherous pill-popping adventures, or how her new album was written by her father posthumously -- transmitted to her producer via seances conducted by Billy Ray Cyrus. Like, hello? must- read- that... But compelling or not, posting a hundred questions and answers is kinda gay, but then again, so am I. So there.

So I was rushed to the hospital Monday morning with the symptoms of a heart attack. So there. (Look, I don't know why... the phrase is just stuck.) I had been having severe chest pain for about 24 hours which ruled out gas and ulcerous nonsense and such, so I called my doctor (who was surprisingly friendly for being dragged out of bed at a quarter to seven on Mother's Day). She demanded that I head to an emergency room that instant. "The Golden Rule: never mess with chest pain..." she said in easy to swallow bumper sticker form...she suggested St. Vincent's because they take the poor unwashed masses without health insurance, like me. Now the Good News: It turns out I was not having a heart attack but have somehow wound up with condometroflamaflamadia, or whatever, which is essentially a hernia between your ribs. The severe pain and breathing trouble was not my heart or lungs, but my lungs pressing against herniated rib-muscle tissue. This is better than a heart-attack. But I was kind of hoping that my lungs were messed up somehow. I've been looking for a reason to quit smoking, more like, wondering when some medical problem would force me to quit smoking, but according to the doc's at St. Vinnies my lung X-rays showed airbags as pink and pretty as a damn carnation. I quote, "For a heavy smoker, your lungs are surprisingly healthy". So there. I was sent home with a script for anti-inflammatories and some literature on spousal/partner abuse, the leading cause of this particular malady in women. My partner does not and did not abuse me, but I was very thankful and happy that they asked ("did you suffer a fall, or blow to the ribs recently?") and also provided me, privately, with information, contacts, and phone numbers of how to get help if it were so; all in a nonjudgmental, non-confrontational way. Rock on groovy ER folk.

Speaking of abused spouses, my poor boyfriend has had to try and study for finals during all of this hubbub, in between being awakened from a dead sleep by the screams of the woman laying next to him...all because she simply turned over. And I'm being slowly driven mad by late night/early morning television. And I just want to DO something. Anything. Bend over and pick up a sock. Lower myself into the tub. Do 'The Swim' to the second side of Mesopotamia. Breathe deeply.

So I'm a bit loony and high and pissed and bored. So there.

Posted by Antigeist at May 13, 2003 01:10 PM