Of Vomit, Fire Water, and Hospitals

Typing this right now is really difficult, so I'll start off by telling you why. 

I just managed to burn both of my hands with boiling water.  How? 
I was making pasta, a simple enough task.  ...But sometimes, with my arms the way they are, my hands give up and I drop things.  This time, that "thing" happened to be a pot of boiling hot water.  I effectively poured it all over my left hand, made a horrible noise, then tried to catch it (I don't know why) and wound up pouring the rest on my other hand and wrist. 

...Ow my fuck nuts. 

It's particularly uncomfortable because I managed to hit my RIGHT wrist...  The one I use for writing and drawing...  The one that is already in worse deformity-related shape than the left...  Yeah.  That wrist. 
On the other hand, it hit my fingers, which sucks, but sucks the most on my ring finger.  This is my derpy finger.  The top joint can straighten, but not on its own (meaning you can push it straight, but it'll limp back to crooked) and will actually ache to the point of me feeling nauseous if the top joint gets bent too much. 

Fingers bent:

Fingers straight:

...YAAAYYY lets make something icky that much worse with FIRE WATER. 

Of course, as it turns out, I can still pick things up just fine.  That's how screwed up my hands are normally. 
I'm going to take this as "Yay, I have super powers" rather than "WOW I'm so broken."

This morning wasn't much better.  I finally got whatever my boyfriend had. 
Last night, my hip was killing me, but I figured that's kind of normal, as I need to see a chiropractor for that. 
...But then around 2:30AM, the pain shifted to my stomach, and I vomited everything ever, on and off, for three hours.

I also managed to stab myself in the right wrist with a knife from the dish rack, attempting to put shit away.  ...Again. 

So, good morning! 

...

It served to remind me that when I'm sick enough, all dignity goes out the window and I tend to just stop caring who or what sees me vomit and/or shit myself.  I'm sure my mother has some allergy related horror stories involving me. 


Which leads me to the following memory to tell you now:

I was in a hospital getting some oral surgery done.  ...I don't remember which surgery it was, as I've had so many that most of them just kind of blend together now.
I think of this as a very good thing.
It may have been the posts for the dental implants?  I don't know.  Doesn't matter. 

Either way, I was terrified, and I always respond really horribly to laughing gas.  It makes me flip my shit and start crying hysterically, feeling like I'm about to die.  Instant panic attack. 

Mind you, when going under, I'm not that much better. 

There's a famous story about when I was getting my eyeteeth taken out and my canines dragged with a chain in their place, where just as I was about to go under, I begged to see my family one last time.  I wanted to tell them that I wasn't angry for having me go through this horrible, scary procedure.  Unfortunately, they popped in just as the drugs to put me under took hold, so all I said was "I hate you!  I hate you all!" while sobbing, right before conking out. 

...So!  Back to the other surgery. 

Again, none of these were THAT bad that I couldn't have just been numbed up, but with my anxiety issues and paranoia and severe nightmares...
Just knock me the Hell out, okay??

So, after this particular (something front teeth related) surgery, I was flat on my back on the gurney, still pumping sedatives through my blood, and woke up to my own moaning, gasping for air.  Had I been more conscious, I would have said, "Hey, could one of you nurses please prop my head up a little?  I'm having some serious trouble breathing and it's scaring me." 

Instead, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't speak from being all drugged and numb, and so I just continued moaning. 

Instead of saying, "Oh shit!  She needs assistance!  I'm so sorry!"  The nurses yelled at me to shut the Hell up.  Niiiiiice bedside manner, bitches. 

So, at this point, someone a bit nicer comes over after hearing the commotion, helps me out by putting a pillow under my head, and tells me my parents want to see me.
...In my brain this happened right after I got yelled at, like she had come to rescue me.  It was apparently a long time after the bitches went away.  Oh well. 

In any case, instead of saying "I want to see my parents", I just kept on asking for my at-the-time-boyfriend. 

I imagine that would suck for a parent. 

I was in and out for a while.  I briefly remember seeing my boyfriend of the time and my parents.  ...Then, I was told to get up, and a nice lady was helping me.  The problem was that I was in a little hospital gown and the curtain to separate my side of the room from the creepy old man next to me was pushed open. 

I attempted to grunt that I wanted it closed or that my ass should be covered in some way or that in general I was just exposed and helpless and everything was horrible...

I failed.

Now, in order to let me leave, they had to know that I had peed to some extent.
...Hooo boy this was complicated for my tiny drug addled brain. 

See, she put this thin rope in my right hand, and I'm right handed, and the toilet paper was on the right side of my body.  She told me that if I dropped the rope, she'd know I'd keeled over and she'd come in to make sure I was okay.
...Well, I wasn't about to fall over or die, but I sure as Hell couldn't figure out how to get that rope into my left hand, or how to reach over to get the toilet paper. 

So, I dropped the string and happily touched the toilet paper.  I distinctly recall feeling proud that I had made it so far, like I had solved some very intricate puzzle. 

Well, thinking I had fallen and couldn't get back up, Super Nurse came in to rescue me.
She looked at me.
I looked at her, confused.
She put the rope back into my hand.
I looked at it, then attempted to explain the problem to her, but she was already gone.

I'm not sure what happened next.  I must have done something that was close to peeing by myself, as they let me out... but I don't really remember anything between that and going home. 

What's upsetting is that I have a lot of stories like these.

About My Parents

Some may wonder how I wound up this way.  It was a combination of many things, I assure you, but I'm sure a hefty hunk of it comes from the fact that I was not only born from my parents, but raised by them.

They sing together and everything.  Honestly, watching them together over the years gave me higher expectations than any Disney movie. 



The following are a couple of tales from my parents.  Little bits from the way my mom tells it and little bits from my father's version smooshed together, makes for a conglomerate of awesome that probably doesn't really resemble what actually happened at all.

There’s an old picture of their chorus…  Everyone was supposed to be wearing black pants (black skirt for girls), a white shirt, and a black tie.  You can pick out my parents rather quickly, as my dad is wearing a paisley tie, a shirt that’s something other than white, and blue jeans.  My mother?  Her skirt is just a liiiiittle too short and she’s got a big honking Minnie Mouse bow on her damn head.

While my father was quick buddies with the entire wrestling team in high school (just in case), his real love was the theater.  He and my mother were in musicals together.  Yep.  High school.  Yep.  Disney or what?

Around this time, he looked over to see my mom.  She was surrounded by her friends (mostly gay men) and he decided to give it a shot.  She said no.  In fact, the story goes that when he said “Want to go on a date?” she laughed right in his goddamn face.



My father taught me the art of determination.



He’d ask her, she’d say no… Eventually he said “It’s okay.  You’re gonna marry me one day” and she LAUGHED forever.  (Can you tell which parts my mother told me?)



One day, she had left a book at school   Being the adorable obsessive stalker my father was, he trudged through the snow for who knows how far to give her the book.  My grandmother said, “You should go out with the boy”, and so she finally agreed to a date. 

 My mother had a few other prospects at the time, and my father was not necessarily top of the list, but he had set about to change that.  

A few dates and some songs later, she was hooked.

They were, again, in shows together.  He sometimes had to play her father… which is awkward… but they would pass notes to each other down the chorus line.  As his name started with G and hers with S, you can imagine how many other people probably read a lot of shit they did not want to know.



When college happened, they were spending less and less time together.  My mother decided that, maybe, they should break up due to that.  My father decided “I know how to fix this!” and asked her to marry him. 

 She said she’d think about it.



Well, she didn’t want to give him an answer over the phone, so she went on an adventure to see him in person!

She reports that she ran out of bus fare along the way…
 Which lead to hopping on a friend’s motorcycle.



Yeah.

The problem was, my father was sitting there expecting a call.  More than that, he was pretty much assuming that the love of his life was going to say no.  As such, he had a friend over to comfort him when he got the bad news.  This was made complicated by the fact that his “friend” was a hot red head named Ester.


My mother was unamused, standing in the doorway.  She took the ring off of her finger.  My father says, to this day, he can still feel where the ring bounced off his cheek.

Ester drove my mother home.  “You know, we really weren’t… I mean… He’s not even my type… Umm… Awwwwkwwwwaaaarrd…”

Some time past.
My mother, being a woman, wouldn’t answer his calls.  Her friends would answer and say she was busy.



My father was not having that shit.

He sat in the lobby of her building holding a small Donald Duck.  My mother, being completely obsessed by all things Disney, sighed and let him speak.



“His friend is outside” said my father.


She opened the door, and sitting before her was a three foot tall Mickey Mouse, with ring in hand.

They were married in Autumn. 

…That sounds pretty, I know.  The problem was, it was the 70’s.  My father was not the style guru he is today and my mom was… My mom.  Her favorite color is orange.  My dad being color blind probably didn’t help the situation.  Otherwise, he can be quite the savvy fashionista.  

My father wore a crushed brown velvet suit.  He had facial hair at the time and he was not a light man.  My father… Looked like a bear.  A dirty-hippie, song singing… bear.

 So, yeah.  That's the kind of love story that any relationship I ever have will need to live up to.  Fuuuuuuuu.

Here are some others as they have been told to me over the years.
My father vs driving (as told by my grandmother):
She says that one day, when my father was a budding teenager, he came back from practicing his driving.  He had the steering wheel in his hand.

My father vs the newspaper and the microwave:
It had been raining.  Normally, when it rains, the newspaper is put into a little newspaper condom to keep it dry.  This rain must have been unexpected, however, as the paper was damp.
My father decided that the fastest way to dry the newspaper would be to put it into the microwave.
He was smart about it though, and very proud of himself at the time.  He would stop it every so often to make sure that it was drying, but not on fire.  He'd check it, then put it back in.
Content that it was done, he tucked the paper under his arm and walked up the stairs to the bedroom, pleased in the knowledge that my mother would soon come after with his "personal tea".
As my mother tells it, as soon as my father opened up the paper, the inner part hit oxygen and burst into flames.

She, without much expression on her face (as if to say "Yep, saw that coming...), tossed the iced tea onto my father, putting out the flames.  She says she then turned around, without a word, and went down to get him another cup of tea.
I'd like to think that she checked to make sure he was okay... or something?
I wish I could say that this was an isolated episode, but there was also a "paper towel vs toaster oven" incident that was quite similar. 
...This is also the same man who dropped the same fishing knife into the same toe twice, about a year apart.  However, he is a very intelligent man, despite these moments.  Really, it just makes him all the more interesting.