I'm Dying...Officially---by Rey Don'tSay, Saturday Sad-sack
How’s that for a catchy little non-manipulative title for a wee bitty blog piece?
While I have no pretense of taste or manners in my writings and dealings with the world. (See Anyone who knows me!) My attention-grabbing headline is true. As true as can be. Honest, not fake news, true. Well...maybe just barely.
(Ha ha! You’re too far away to throw tomatoes at me!!)
It is fairly seriously true that I’ve had a crap week. This open wound I have and the trying to take care of it has taken a lot of time and energy, most of it wasted. I’m sickly, poorly, weak, and energy zapped. I float in and out of sleep spells for a few minutes with aplomb. I’ve been dealing with high temps and fever--at times. Plain extra-strength Tylenol has worked assiduously.
As bad as all that sounds, I’m not talking about that at all when I talk about ‘dying.’ I have no idea about my exit from life's journey just as much as you don't know about deaths for yourself or the people you know, most of the time. You’d think having incurable cancer which already paralyzed most of my body leaving said body half-functioning enough to be susceptible to sickness and near death-inducing infections, gives me a clear lead in the race to the finish line. (Do I really have to brag about EVERYTHING?)
You see, this week, the home nursing agency office, called my M-F excellent home nurse, who does my bowel care and also the cleaning and dressing of that butt wound from hell, and told her “Your patient, Mr. Refugio, is dying.” Sadly, they were serious. The sad part is not the dying, but that they WERE serious.
This freaked my capable and friendly long-term nurse the living hell out. This was definitely news to her, and when she next saw me, it was hilarious news to me.
After giving me the best surprise belly-laugh in a while (mercifully pain-free, this time. Did I never tell you that laughing too hard can trigger my spasms and send bolts of pain through my body, usually in my abdomen? You know your joke has scored when I’m writhing and sometimes screaming in pain. Unfair as fuck. I used to be known for my laugh. Sigh. Laughter is not my best medicine. It can hurt!), my nurse and I pieced together what happened.
When my nurse asked the agency where they heard this from, they said they were told about my demise-ing by my bath aide who works for the same agency. She’s a very nice lady who takes care of me three times a week and gives me bed baths now as I can’t get up to take a shower for the injuries the transfers do to my open wound. She also does some dishes and house cleaning, and she mops the floor, and she’s the best one we’ve had in this position, gratefully.
But she’s only been with me since August so we’re still getting to know one another. Still, I was fairly surprised to hear that she was behind my dying. When I next spoke to her and asked her about this, she was equally aghast at what the agency was saying. She said she had been talking to a nurse, a different one than my home one, in the agency and had been trying to report about my butt wound and the sad state it appeared to be in, hoping to get more higher-up nurses to come evaluate the situation. And she mentioned, “And he even said he’s dying a couple of times.”
For some reason, the nursing bigwig focused on the word “dying.” And thus passed it on to my daily nurse and thus I’m OFFICIALLY dying. It’s on the books. HA!
You need to understand that I, in fact, did tell my bath aide I was dying. When I feel like crap, it’s a standard response to “Hey Rey, how’re you doing?” “Oh, I’m dying…” I’m loads of fun in person. I overuse the phrase or something similar 20 times a day. Cleo has to hear “I wish I were dead” so often he’s made it a drinking game. But I don’t do it only for medical things. I spread it out to all my petty misfortunes. Why is this so hard to do? I just wanna die!
No, it’s not healthy. Yes, I don’t mean it. I think I do it as a strategy to deal with how dire a lot of things with me really are. Keeping death around keeps me less surprised, or some such silliness. Or I'm just crazy. I have a black heart and I’ve never been able to change it. Eh, c’est la vie.
So when my bath aide heard me saying I was dying and I looked and felt like crap warmed over, (I was oblivious to how hard I was selling that line to her at the time) I think it stuck with her and she passed it on, in an attempt to get me more care. She doesn’t think I’m dying. I still complain too much! Ha!
I’m not in great shape. But I’m not dying. Only on paper. For a day. (As far as I know…)
So you see, I am, or was, dying "officially." What?
Man, the troubles my big mouth gets me in!
Hug yourselves.
Rey Don'tSay
While I have no pretense of taste or manners in my writings and dealings with the world. (See Anyone who knows me!) My attention-grabbing headline is true. As true as can be. Honest, not fake news, true. Well...maybe just barely.
(Ha ha! You’re too far away to throw tomatoes at me!!)
It is fairly seriously true that I’ve had a crap week. This open wound I have and the trying to take care of it has taken a lot of time and energy, most of it wasted. I’m sickly, poorly, weak, and energy zapped. I float in and out of sleep spells for a few minutes with aplomb. I’ve been dealing with high temps and fever--at times. Plain extra-strength Tylenol has worked assiduously.
As bad as all that sounds, I’m not talking about that at all when I talk about ‘dying.’ I have no idea about my exit from life's journey just as much as you don't know about deaths for yourself or the people you know, most of the time. You’d think having incurable cancer which already paralyzed most of my body leaving said body half-functioning enough to be susceptible to sickness and near death-inducing infections, gives me a clear lead in the race to the finish line. (Do I really have to brag about EVERYTHING?)
You see, this week, the home nursing agency office, called my M-F excellent home nurse, who does my bowel care and also the cleaning and dressing of that butt wound from hell, and told her “Your patient, Mr. Refugio, is dying.” Sadly, they were serious. The sad part is not the dying, but that they WERE serious.
This freaked my capable and friendly long-term nurse the living hell out. This was definitely news to her, and when she next saw me, it was hilarious news to me.
After giving me the best surprise belly-laugh in a while (mercifully pain-free, this time. Did I never tell you that laughing too hard can trigger my spasms and send bolts of pain through my body, usually in my abdomen? You know your joke has scored when I’m writhing and sometimes screaming in pain. Unfair as fuck. I used to be known for my laugh. Sigh. Laughter is not my best medicine. It can hurt!), my nurse and I pieced together what happened.
When my nurse asked the agency where they heard this from, they said they were told about my demise-ing by my bath aide who works for the same agency. She’s a very nice lady who takes care of me three times a week and gives me bed baths now as I can’t get up to take a shower for the injuries the transfers do to my open wound. She also does some dishes and house cleaning, and she mops the floor, and she’s the best one we’ve had in this position, gratefully.
But she’s only been with me since August so we’re still getting to know one another. Still, I was fairly surprised to hear that she was behind my dying. When I next spoke to her and asked her about this, she was equally aghast at what the agency was saying. She said she had been talking to a nurse, a different one than my home one, in the agency and had been trying to report about my butt wound and the sad state it appeared to be in, hoping to get more higher-up nurses to come evaluate the situation. And she mentioned, “And he even said he’s dying a couple of times.”
For some reason, the nursing bigwig focused on the word “dying.” And thus passed it on to my daily nurse and thus I’m OFFICIALLY dying. It’s on the books. HA!
You need to understand that I, in fact, did tell my bath aide I was dying. When I feel like crap, it’s a standard response to “Hey Rey, how’re you doing?” “Oh, I’m dying…” I’m loads of fun in person. I overuse the phrase or something similar 20 times a day. Cleo has to hear “I wish I were dead” so often he’s made it a drinking game. But I don’t do it only for medical things. I spread it out to all my petty misfortunes. Why is this so hard to do? I just wanna die!
No, it’s not healthy. Yes, I don’t mean it. I think I do it as a strategy to deal with how dire a lot of things with me really are. Keeping death around keeps me less surprised, or some such silliness. Or I'm just crazy. I have a black heart and I’ve never been able to change it. Eh, c’est la vie.
So when my bath aide heard me saying I was dying and I looked and felt like crap warmed over, (I was oblivious to how hard I was selling that line to her at the time) I think it stuck with her and she passed it on, in an attempt to get me more care. She doesn’t think I’m dying. I still complain too much! Ha!
I’m not in great shape. But I’m not dying. Only on paper. For a day. (As far as I know…)
So you see, I am, or was, dying "officially." What?
Man, the troubles my big mouth gets me in!
Hug yourselves.
Rey Don'tSay
It all comes back to haunt/taunt you! Better than biting you in the arse at this time. I’m *so* enjoying getting inside of head in your Saturday diatribes. Keep ‘em coming!
ReplyDeleteThanks Janet. My butt's been spanked enough, you're so right.
DeleteI know it can be a surprise sometimes to find out that someone was actually listening, and with a serious ear, no less!
ReplyDeleteLooking back on this, I'm glad to both see the reports of your dying were greatly exaggerated, and that they may have helped get you more proper attention for that wound.