Chest Pains

    I was having a heart attack and my phone was nowhere to be found. I crushed six aspirins and poured the dusty substance into a cup filled with Ketel one and some kind of raspberry cocktail mix leftover from the last party I had. This is the reason doctors never ever recommend "self medication" as opposed to prescribed medication.  I could already hear the paramedics laughing at me when they found the vodka and the aspirin bottle tipped over on the floor next to my almost lifeless body laying on the kitchen floor. "This guy is a real d********g," they'd say about me. "He overdosed on aspirin. Well f**k it. Let's give this a*****e another chance at life." Then they'd pick me up and take the gurney down two flights of stairs. By the time they get to the bottom, they'd already have gone through my wallet and curse me some more because they'd be nothing there to "thank" them for the extra trouble.

  "What the hell?" I thought, as my body hit the floor. "How did you f*****g get here?" was my second thought, as I made eye contact with my new best friend, my cell phone, whom had tried to kill me only an hour ago by hiding from me. I dialed the three magic numbers and waited to hear the blessing from my new God. "9-1-1, what is your emergency?" she asked. Never had a woman's voice sounded so beautiful to me. "No one ever told me God was a woman" I said. She either didn't like the comment or had heard it one too many times to acknowledge it, because she repeated the question with a more authoritative shout.

   The ambulance ride is somewhat fuzzy.  At the time, I couldn't remember much of it. The bits and pieces I did remember, were mostly of the paramedics going on about what they were doing later on that night and how dumb I was for actually calling 9-1-1 for such a stupid reason. When we got to the emergency room, after checking my vitals, they put me in a wheel chair and just kind of forgot about me. I sat there picking my head up from time to time, somewhat embarrassed because by then, I had figured out on my own I didn't really have a heart attack. Maybe I was too young to have one, but these chest pains wouldn't go away. It hurt when I bent down, it hurt when I breathe, it even hurt when I sat on the couch and got up. I started thinking about my options, I was stuck in the hospital twenty minutes from my apartment. I think it was called West Medical Center or something along those lines. I live in the west side of town, so that name seemed to fit perfectly. Not only that, I recognized one of the nurses there, a heavy set woman, the same one I encountered my last visit to this hospital a year ago. I had a kidney stone then. I remembered her scrubs and those annoying fingernails with designs that I had only seen in stripper's hands before. Maybe she had another job since she was complaining to another nurse about their salary in comparison to the amount of work they do every night. She walked towards me. I pretended to be out of it to avoid exchanging words with her. "Sir, I'm going to wheel you over to our collection office where they'll need to see your insurace card and driver's license." She said to me. I knew there was nothing I could do about it, since she immediately grabbed the handles on the back of the chair and started pushing with ease. Seemed to me she had done this many a time before.

    Once there, I was greeted by my God. Now, I'm almost positive this lady was not the same lady from the emergency line, but their voices were almost identical. She asked how I felt, and before I could say anything, she said "that's great you're feeling better" and continued to ask for the documentation I needed to provide to, as she put it, "make my stay comfortable and efficient." That was a load of bullshit. All she wanted was to make sure that I could pay the costs. I'm never going to forget that. Mostly because, as soon I got my thoughts together, I decided on getting the f**k out of that place. After my failed attempts to flirt with her, my best friend, the nurse, came to wheel me to the area where they left the non-emergency patients. She closed the curtain and before walking out told me to wait for the doctor, whom, depending on any incoming emergencies, should be able to see me in a matter of thirty minutes or so.

 

   What else is there to do but wait. And I waited. I remembered the whole kidney stone incident. I sat in the emergency room for three hours before they took me to the magical curtain area. By the time the man nurse came in throught the curtain, I think it was a good thirty minutes later, my pain had gone down a bit. I told him the pain had gone down. "Are you sure?" he asked. Which puzzled me at first. "I can give you something that'll take care of the pain right away. You're still in pain, right?" He said to me as he slapped his arm with his right hand. "Yes, I'm still in so much pain." I responded without hesitation. Lucky for me, I didn't see him anywhere. I didn't expect him or his $153 pain reliever to come and rescue me tonight. 

   The doctor walked in and brought me back to reality. He asked the usual doctor routine, "how are you feeling?" "How long have you had these chest pains?" I told him I felt better, because I did and told him the chest pains had begun about a month or so ago. That was a lie. Of course the doctor tells me that I didn't have a heart attack. "You're much too young to have a heart attack sir." He was young for his age, I guessed it a twenty five or twenty six. I was never good a guessing peoples age, but I could tell his mother was proud of him. And now, recently gratuated from med school, him and his proud parents, he didn't even bother to read my name off the chart. He kept calling me "Sir." It was obvious our age weren't too far apart. These people must be having a laugh at my expense in the break room. "You're ok." He said and walked away. I knew I wasn't having a heart attack. Well, I didn't at first, but I had an idea that if I was to have a heart attack, I would not be able to actually analyze the situation. But I rode it out to see how far I could go. Sitting there, I began to remember how expensive medical care is. After a few minutes of waiting, I got up, picked up my clothes, got dressed, and started walking towards the exit. I saw the doctor on the way out, but he either didn't care to stop me, or didn't see me. I'm sure there were people whom had real health troubles under his care. Outside was dark, but I could tell it was about maybe three in the morning. I was always good at telling time like that. There were three cigarettes left in the pack, I smoked one, then lit up another one.

"These f*****g chest pains just won't go away." I said to myself. Finished the cigarette and flicked it to the street. I saved the third and last cigarette for when I got back to the apartment.