The Cod God Be Sicketh-Part 4

This is the last installation of The Cod God Be Sicketh. It’s a bit long, but bear with me.

Monday 5/23 The Light at the end of the tunnel

Today started off kind of sucky. Last night they put my morphine on an automatic drip so I wouldn’t have to wake up in pain, press my button a few times and then go back to sleep. It was a sound theory but the result was me waking up feeling like shit. I was dizzy, had a headache and just generally felt like terrible all over almost like I had the flu. It took almost 3 hours to snap out of it and start feeling up to my normal level of shitty-ness. Mental note: we won’t be doing that again tonight.

The day did begin to look up when my new doctor (my doctor’s office rotates who does rounds every week) came in. I had known her for some time stemming back to one time when my daughter was ill and she was the attending physician at the hospital and I was impressed with her. Her only drawback was that she looked like a giant hippie scarecrow.

She came in bearing good news. If, and that’s a big if, I could tolerate a more advanced liquid diet today I could try real food tomorrow and then possibly go home.

Hey, I was all for it. Bring on the shitty soup and some disgusting plain cream of wheat! Yeehaw! It sounds like filet mignon to me right about now.

Just so you know, this is what my food consisted of this day…

Breakfast- chicken broth, lime jello and coffee….the only problem(s) being that I don’t drink coffee and I can’t stand lime jello, so it was one steamy cup of salty water that smelled like sweat (insert joke here)

Lunch- I got to order this one from a special and boy, did I go all out! More salty chicken sperm water, surprisingly tasty chocolate pudding and an Italian Ice….I bet this is how Trump eats

Dinner- Boy-oh-boy was I going all out on this one!…cream of chicken soup, cream of wheat, more pudding and two 8oz diet cokes…well, diet shasta’s..nothing but the finest for me, don’t you know

After surviving that assault on my taste buds and barring an unforeseen disaster like Friday’s escapades, I should be pissing and moaning from my own bed at this time tomorrow.

You can almost see the excitement building on Missy’s face…or maybe it’s horror. I think I just saw her slip the doc a fifty-spot to keep me in for a few more days, but I can’t be too sure.

Well, time to go off to bed and get one more day closer to breaking out of this joint.

Tuesday 5/24 Freedom!

Today may be the day, baby.

After a restless night of sleep despite 10mg of Ambien, some Atavan and copious amounts of morphine, I awoke at first light. (Ok, I lied about the morphine. At this point I was trying to use as little as possible so it wouldn’t look like I needed it for pain. I didn’t want to give them any excuse to keep me around any longer than absolutely necessary. I actually had a 12-hour stretch without using any at all, so that was good.) Unfortunately, first light was around 4:30am and the cafeteria didn’t open until 7am.

After unsuccessfully trying to trade some of my unused morphine for a donut, it quickly dawned upon me that I wasn’t as special as had they led me to believe. I was actually going to have to wait until 7am like everyone else! What gives? I’m special, dammit! My mommy told me so. So what if it’s the little-yellow-school-bus kind of special? When you’ve lived my life, you have to take whatever you can get.

Anyways, I had to sit back, relax and wait for the bewitching hour. Unfortunately, the hours between 4 and 6am are the worst couple hours of TV programming known to man. After sitting there and flipping through the channels a few times, I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to be getting very much relief by continuing to do so. So, I shut the TV off and sat there staring at the clock for what seemed like hours (it was actually more like 3 minutes).

Speaking of time dragging, I swear that they must slow down all of the clocks in hospitals. Well, at least this hospital that I am being held prisoner in. 90% of my stay consisted of suffering through seconds that seemed like minutes and minutes that seemed like hours. Whether it was while waiting for pain relief, some food, or waiting for my jackass doctors to come in, it all crawled along like Doug Mirabelli trying to leg out an infield hit.

Anyways, I waited with baited breath (and morning breath) for the magic clock on the wall to strike 7am so I could order up some slop, scarf it down and bounce on up outta here, yo.

Around 6:30, I dug up the menu from under the pile of shit that had accumulated on my nightstand beside the bed. Now, being the graceful ballerina-type that I am, I immediately

knocked everything all over the place (including the phone) and woke up all of the old bastards within a 100-foot radius. I almost felt bad there for a minute, but then I figured that they had kept me up by snuffling and snorting all week and were due some retribution. All’s fair in love and tipping shit over in hospitals, right?

Back to breakfast…

After some deep meditation, soul-searching, and listening to what my heart was telling me…

(retch)…

(gag)...

(barf)…

Heh. I almost got through some of that weird new age; touchy-feely crap for a joke but even in jest my stomach couldn’t take it.

What really happened was that I had chosen a cinnamon and raisin bagel because it was easy on the stomach and I didn’t want to have any complications like the infamous “scrambled eggs incident” of ’05. Not only that, but the doctor had said that the sooner that I ate something while having no complications, the sooner that I could hightail it out of this hellhole….and I was all for that.

When the bagel arrived, I jumped on that bastard like David Wells on a greasy pork chop. It was dry, slightly burned, and tough as hell. At one point I thought that it must be some sort of misplaced medical waste or that a janitor must have lost his rag mop and it had found its way onto my plate.

Anyways, I sucked it up, powered my way through that culinary disaster and sat back waiting for the warden to process my parole papers.

To my surprise, she loped in (the new doc is a biggun) a little bit before 9am. After a few quick words, she gave me the green light to take off…after she processed some papers. There’s always a catch.

After she galloped off to (presumably) process my papers, I eagerly phoned Mrs. Cod at The Cod Estates to have her send the chauffeur over to pick me up. But to my surprise…no answer.

I don’t think that Mrs. Cod had properly thought this through. She knew that I was getting paroled today, but she wasn’t answering the phone. You don’t mess with a man’s freedom, dammit!

I called back.

Still, no answer.

I was getting a bit perturbed at this point. I may have mumbled something to the effect of being slightly disappointed that she wasn’t answering the telephone. Some people two floors down claim that they may have heard a colorful word or two emanating from my room, but I think that they had me confused with some other raving lunatic in a Red Sox hat.

Third call….jackpot!

Apparently, Mrs. Cod was enjoying a leisurely nap along with Emmy-Cod. Well, I call it a nap, she calls it sleeping.

Anyways, I passed along the good news that I was getting out and asked her to hustle her butt over to the hospital as quickly as possible. She asked what the rush was (what the rush was? You spend as much time as I have spent in the hospital over the course of my life and you’ll understand why I hate them so much and can’t wait until the moment that I can leave from the second that I step into one) and I said that it was because the doctor had already left to do my paperwork and she just had to be almost done. She agreed, we hung up and I started to get ready. I got dressed while a nurse had to ask me yet more questions and fill out even more paperwork…

Sign here. Initial this. Hop on one leg. Stand on your head. Who was the 1^st player to hit 40hr and steal 40 bases? What color belt should you wear with a blue suit?

While I was finishing up that nonsense (it was Jose Canseco, by the way) Mrs. and Ms Cod came rolling in to drag my sorry ass home. I was ready to go, but still no doc. With nothing else to do but wait, Mrs. Cod wandered off to get a coffee and Ms Cod got comfortable with me and watched some TV…for a while.

Now, I had mentioned earlier how time goes slow in this hospital, but damn….it was much worse this time. I was sans all IV’s and hospital garb while just sitting there looking at the clock every 3 seconds. Every poor nurse that wandered by my now-untethered ass was unceremoniously interrogated as to the whereabouts of my Big Bird-like doctor…

Me- (to some chick walking by) Hey, where the hell are my papers and/or doctor?

Nurse- (looking confused) um…what?

Me- have you seen my doctor?

Nurse- uh, I’m not sure

Me- what do you mean you’re not sure?!?

Nurse- (looking for security) I’m not sure, I don't work on this floor

Me- (all huffy and puffy) well, do you think that you could find her?

Nurse- Sir, please, I’m just visiting a friend right now

Me- So? You are a nurse, aren’t you?

Nurse- Sir, I’m just passing through

Me- Well, I’ve been waiting for…HEY! Come back here!!

Well, maybe I didn’t say all those things and I wasn’t that much of a dick, but it sure would have felt nice. I know, I’m getting soft in my old age. (no, not in that way Bob…they have a magic little pill for that now)

Ole Doc-Sea biscuit came trotting in at 11am, a tidy two hours after she went off to fill out my paperwork. Someone must have given her a fresh feedbag of oats or a nice carrot to chew on and she got distracted for a while.

After grabbing my papers and trying to boogity-boogity-boogity (that’s for you NASCAR fans) my ass out of there, she informs me that she’ll give me the rest of my paperwork after the nutritionist comes in to talk to me about what my diet should be at home. Fuck me, back to the bed and crappy sitcom reruns.

Another half hour passes and the nutritionist wanders in to tell me the keys to a long and happy life. Her pearls of wisdom about what my diet should be (that I just had to wait for) were to stay away from fats and eat lots of fruits and vegetables.

Wow.

The Dali Llama and Ghandi have never spoken more powerful words.

Well, that’s 5 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.

Mr. Ed then scurried in with the rest of my paperwork and a fistful of prescriptions. The Cod Gal took her cue and went out to pull the car around because it was pouring rain outside and she was parked across the parking lot.

After staring blankly at Mr. Ed trying to get at the peanut butter on the roof of his (her) mouth for a few minutes, I think that I heard those magic words.

Can it be?

Am I really free to go?

I am?

Yeehaw!

Let’s jet, little Ms Cod. We have a car waiting outside.

After hopping on the elevator and half-running outside, I get out there and I can’t see my car. All I see is Mrs. Cod standing in front of a black and white Dodge sedan.

I flash her a quizzical look, then we load up my stuff and drive away in silence.

After several minutes…

Me- What happened to the Cod-mobile. The caddy. Where’s the fuckin’ caddy?

Mrs. Cod- I traded it..

Me-You traded it? You traded the Cod-mobile? For what?

Mrs. Cod- A microphone.

Me-…ok, I can see that.

We then stop in traffic at the Memorial Bridge where a barge is starting to go under and the bridge is going up to make room for it.

Mrs. Cod- You don’t like it?

Me- (slowly turning to look at her) No, I don’t like it.

Mrs. Cod- Ok.

She then shoots out around the car in front of us, floors it and jumps the now-open bridge.

After successfully landing on the other side of the bridge…

Me- It’s got good pick-up.

Actually, Mrs. Cod drove our minivan the few miles home and I stretched out on the couch.

The End.

- Cod