First published on my old private blog on March 14, 2012. Perhaps even worth the repost. Hey, I have to have something to link people to, right?
I have recouped this a few times, but in incomplete and perhaps diminished form, We shall now hear the tale of how and why I was unexpectedly hospitalized for a few days – and what shall follow.
Technically this story begins some time ago – perhaps a month or two. I remember last year seeing, perhaps, the signs. Or maybe it was just the damn kebab pizza.
Water became greatly desirable; so did urination. I was, in fact, aware that these were likely to be signs of what was to come. But what the fuck, I was living crash and burn – maybe I still will be for now.
And then, things took a strange turn. I weighed myself and realized I was down to a surprisingly low weight from my previous result. Which admittedly was a long time ago — I just did it for the hell of it. I started drinking fuckloads of sugar, losing appetite crazily, being nauseous… This could possibly side effects from other medication, though. And I lost 5 kilograms in 5 days.
Shit was getting nasty; I felt weak, drained. Well, more drained than usual. I pored over the side effect papers for my medicine. None mentioned sudden weight loss as a side effect, but one said to be careful if you had such a symptom. I called a medical helpline, explained symptoms, called the local care station. Explained symptoms.
I was then told to go to another place, a… “close-emergency” which wasn’t very emergent. I realize emergent does not mean that. Fuck you.
For some reason they must have thought I am under 20, because despite looking at my passport they charged nothing. The waiting room was indicated.
Waiting waiting waiting; waiting, waiting. My name called. Shown to nurse’s room, explained symptoms. Went to the lab (no wait!), quick blood sugar test. Shit was high (which we found out after a surprisingly short wait), they told me to go to the hospital. Emergency and shit.
Well not that much, we took a taxi cause apparently they are faster than the hospital transports and cost the same. Arrived. Took one of them queue tickets.
Waited.
After a not that long wait, I went into the reception area. A nurse came in, told me to meet me at a corridor. I was directed onto a bed, and into the emergency room.
I wonder if this text is too sparse on details, scents, whatever. Well fuck it.
Needles. Fuckloads of electrode patches on chest. Drips. Scared, progressively less scared – needles do not, really, usually, hurt that much. Rather quickly, needle to my right wrist. Artery. Injections, tests. For another catheter, my veins were apparently rather difficult to spear though: they tried like, five to seven times. Then, finally, success. No, I am not shitting you about these numbers. I will say this though, they did spear me rather fiercely sometimes. I looked away, closed my eyes, and visualized a candle flame. Ish. Tried to feed the pain into it, didn’t really work but honestly the pain after the first sting, which almost always hurt, was often quite dulled by this. I obviously picked up this technique from the Wheel of Time books. Always wanted to try to put it to practical use.
An aside about that: they said that focusing on a happy memory was good several times. My answer is generally “I don’t really think I have any”. This is somewhat wrong, the main issue is that I simply cannot get into those memories much. Perhaps I am just generally depressed most of the time or something, even though I feel nothing of it at times. If I did attempt to invoke it, it would shatter way before the flame does.
I was wheeled out of the ER to a lesser ward where they could still monitor me closely. I was introduced to a doctor who would again attempt to insert another catheter, I think about ten times. Painful times. Arm, wrist, hand, even my foot two times (I was given local anaesthetic for some of these. But you see, the anaesthetic needle must still go in). They eventually stopped trying for that night after like ten times.
As I listened to the doctors and nurses talk at night, the person doing the stinging did commend me somewhat hushed – I really don’t know whether or not patients are to hear these discussions, but I listened in on any I could and extracted various info from it. For example, a doctor dissed them somewhat about them giving me too much of a disgusting liquid I was given for potassium deficiency known only as kaios – apparently I had gone alkaloid, aka my pH was highfuck. I also heard that they had no places in the other wards quite often.
On the second day, the nurse said ‘lo, do you want anything to eat?’ and there was one cheese sandwich. Well, after the insulin shot to the stomach. I’ve forgotten when now, but I did get to know I had diabetes type 1 at some point. Which was the reason for the shot. I also had to drink a fuckload of kaios, a most disgusting potassium replenisher. The next day was much the same, except I also wanted and got lunch and dinner. They were “ok”. And on the night after that second day, I was awake and resting, but listening as was my habit then. This is when I heard the doctor-diss.
Also, they put a tube in my dick. It was actually rather comfortable after the pretty damn painful insertion to piss effortlessly into a bag, I must admit.
I’m sorry, the narrative is kinda shitty here. Needs restructuring and shit, but fuck it.
After that diss, I was put on a potassium chloride solution. When they popped it into one of my right arm’s catheters, it hurt quite a lot pretty soon. Left wrist, slightly better. As time progressed the pain became a constant undercurrent and it forced me to keep my left upper arm in a certain position or suffer more pain near instantly, effectively crippling it for most activities, even grabbing things from the bed-side table. I took the pain like a man, or whatever. I might even have slept that night.
The next day came, and it seemed the staff were almost in a hurry to get me up and running again. I was introduced to the amusing procedure of removing an artery catheter which involves a fairly minor pain, a wad of paper, and a motherfucker pressing pretty much as hard as he can on the area so it doesn’t bleed everywhere for around a minute or two. Before long, I had only one catheter left in me – the godawful potassium. Yes, the one down my dick went too, with a sort of whip-like pain, but at least it was fast.
I was finally able to move. And so I wished to wash myself, and indeed there was an adjacent room designed specifically for this. One drip still trailing me, I pushed it and myself into the room, organized stuff for a bit. Took a dump of truly epic proportions. The pain from the drip was there, and when I started walking around a bit more, it got strong – strong enough to make my vision flicker (and almost, almost technicolor fade-out) and make me think “oh fucking shit, I better press the alarm ohshit ohshit”. I eventually managed to move around two metres to a chair and sat down, sorta relieved to be alive. I waited til staff checked on me, because I couldn’t reach an alarm button from my position. They turned off the drip. I showered. For a motherfucking age-long time, and damn it felt so good it was the best thing ever oh god.
I emerged and quickly was shown a team from somewhere. They discussed moving me to an outpatient program; I agreed. I was left fighting the pain from the last drip for a while – then a nurse took it off before it was quite done mercifully. Thank you nurse. Soon enough I was being moved to the outpatient program’s rooms on a truck (a strange truck indeed. I am not sure what to call it, but it transported me and my stuff through the corridors of the hospital and eventually I arrived and was given a tour.
And then I did shit, mostly involving how to stab myself efficiently. Oh, and another person was there with me for most of the time. She was female, and I first misjudged her age as 15-18. Hey, she was kinda flat chested fuckyou, anyway she’s probably 21 now. Or 22. She is actually very sweet, probably not my type but currently a friend, especially in the diabetes adventure.
I got to go home in our car; parents picked me up.
Stabbed myself in various ways as advised. Nothing more of interest to report.
#storyofazakaslife
Disearnestly Disearnest 
I will buy 10 copies of your autobiography.
I will sell 10 copies of my autobiography. :makina: