Fear of Cytotoxic Venom and Vicodin

3:30 am - Saturday - July 12th - 2008

“Can you drive a little faster? I can already feel it…”

“Baby, I don’t know where the fuck the hospital is.”

“Dobson past Pecos, we’ve crossed the building hundreds of times.”

“Okay… Just sit back, hold onto the ice pack and stay calm. If you panic the venom will probably spread faster”

After driving five miles from the house to the hospital, not counting the manic steering manuevers necessary in driving through hospital parking lots, I was dropped off at the Emergency Room entrance. I told her to go park the car, I had called the E.R. on the way and somebody inside there was waiting for me. Walking quickly toward the atutomatic sliding doors, I saw the attendants and nurses making their rounds, unconcerning me - me with my ziploc bag full of ice which was nearly melted, palmed in my right hand, applying direct pressure to the back of my neck. I made eye contact with the man behind the counter and started the addmitance before I was even standing at the desk.

“Scorpion sting to the back of my neck, what do you think?”

“Oh, that sounds painful… What’s your name?”

“F-U-H-R-M-A-N-N. Yeah, U-H-R….M-A-N-N….Alex…”

“Ok.. And you’re birthdate?”

“Ten, Five, Eighty-Nine. No allergies, no booze, no drugs… I’m at my peak…”

“Ok then, do you have an adequate healthcare provider?”

“Yes.”

“Doctor’s name?”

“I don’t know, I don’t go see anyone, I said I was at my peak…”

“Yeah, you did… Alright, about how long ago were you stung?”

“Eh…5 minutes ago…”

“Fifteen minutes ago”, she was made her entrance.

“FIfteen minutes ago”

“Heh, funny how fifteen minutes feels like five minutes when you’re in a hurry”

“Yeah, hilarious… I was a little panicked, I have to admit, but I feel oh so much better filling out paperwork”

“Uh-huh. Well, it’s just one page… Could I see your finger real quick”

“Yeah…. What about anti-biotics or anti-venom. It’s on the back of my neck, the spinal column, cortex, brain? Those words mean anything to you?”

He fit an electric device to my left index finger over the counter, it began buzzing and emitting high pitched siren like sounds. He then began assembling a cheap paper/plastic wrist band with my name, birthdate and GPS tracking number printed on it. I was now in the system. The device began beeping as a red light started blinking on the inside of the mechanism, he removed it and pointed to a room accross the hall. There was a lush, dark green chair sitting in the middle of a small office with an assortment of hugely impressive medical and surgical equiptment affixed to the walls and towering over the chair.

“Take a seat in there, the doctor should be in momentarily. Just try to stay calm”

“I am calm, very calm, you’re just too calm”

I sat down in the chair, an attending doctor came in and sat down across from me in a similarly colored seat. He asked me all of the same questions, filling out his chart. He took my blood pressure, checked my temperature, shone a light in my eyes, asked me to stick out my tongue and instructed me to follow his finger with my eyes. No problems. A male nurse walked into the room, asked how they would be treating the patient. When the doctor didn’t answer the question, he walked out to the hallway and made a phone call….”Yeah, where do you want the scorpion sting? Ok… Hahahaha”. I wondered what was so comical. He walked back in, by know the preliminary tests were over and the doctor was explaining to me what they were looking for: excessive salivation, rapid eye-movement (my vision would blur) and slight muscle tremors. Wonderful stuff, doc. He finished the spiel by stating that it was un-necessary to apply anti-venom or anti-biotic treatment since this wasn’t an intense sting and I hadn’t yet been infected. My question to him was why wait? He said something about timing. Right. He motioned to the half-asleep intern standing in the hallway and said he would take care of me from here on out. After he escorted me to a private hallway with all of the patient rooms divided by cloth and willpower, he left and I hadn’t seen him again.

I did, however, come to speak with three more nurses, or medical specialists, drug peddlers, etc.Each of them took down the same information I had just given out, except for the scanning of my health insurance card which would propmtly be billed - so I was informed. One lady asked what I was doing at the time of the sting.

“Watching television, sitting on a very uncomfotable chair watching t.v. in my living room. I had just scratched my neck, when I moved my hand down moments later I felt a sharp pain. Needles. I know what needles feel like. I stood up and tthrew my shirt to the ground and walked into the bathroom, inspecting my neck awkwardly in the mirror. There was a red dot swelling up. I knew without any implicit evidence that I had been stung. I walked out into the living room, picked up my shirt and shook it out. The fucker landed on the floor and crawled away….Oh, um, probably inch and a half long…Yeah, it feels very strange. I felt mildly feverish before but I think that was just my mind processing the shock… Yes, I like performing my own brand of psychotherapy everyday in the mirror. Pain? Probably two to three… Well, I don’t need the pain meds, the ice pack is working fine, I would like some anti-biotics though… Yeah, ok, that’s what the guy said earlier. Ok, thanks…”

I sat there. A doctor brought me another ice pack and informed me that they would be keeping me for another forty-five minutes, if I still felt okay I could leave with a script for some pain killers and have to meet with a doctor for check-up within a week. I insisted that the meds weren’t necessary but nevertheless, these were doctors of medicine and they make some money out of writing these ’scripts. A nurse brought me two tablets of Sufentanil. Goddamn short acting/lasting analgesics. Curious though how they prescrbied me a bottle of the cadillac of pain killers. Granted not high-strength dope, but a name brand opioid.

Across the small hallway from me was a woman, her drapes were closed but I could hear everything that was happening. She explained to the doctor how severe her pain was, for some reason I don’t think he was buying her scheme:

“I don’t know, like, two nights ago I woke up and my back area was killing me”

“So you went into a private practice urgent care clinic, correct”

“Yeah”, she said it in such a sloppy, apathetic way.

“And that’s where you obtained the vicodin”

“Yeah… I took two tonight… A vicodin and a demerol at eight and another vicodin and demerol at midnight… That’s just a few hours ago, the pain is coming on strong, it just hurts so bad”

“That was four pills, ma’am, not two… Ok, we’re going to get you to take some X-rays. We’ll see what’s bothering you, keep you for a few hours and if the pain gets worse - we’ll see what we can do”

The doctor left then brough a wheelchair back fifteen minutes later, during the last thirty minutes I had been sitting there, the woman had been moaning, saying aloud how much the pain hurt (at first I thought she was talking to herself, but she was actually speaking to her inaffectionate husband who hadn’t made a sound the entire visit) and groaning. She sounded like a faker, trying to con the croaker for some good ‘ol smack. Well, she probably got it. I don’t see why not, she hadn’t broken her character once suffice it to say she hadn’t broken any bones either, which I heard about.

Later I was given my prescription and a handful of informative papers, I signed several documents and was allowed to leave.

I would like to mention how bizarre it feels to be stung, let alone in the neck. It tingles for 2-3 days and feels like venom. Something I truly hadn’t imagined in such a supremely scary way. It’s unbarably uncomfortable to remove the ice pack for more then thirty seconds, the tingly sensation is far to powerful to be taken alone. If you see one, kill the motherfucker, because it doesn’t deserve to live.

The Apocryphillian Swan-Song

“Και εδώ κάθομαι σε ταπεινό κοσμώ, Λόρδος OH στη δουλεία σας…”, the theologian pressed his face down to the cave’s floor. He practically kissed the rocky dwelling, releasing the sorrows and hatreds that existed beyond the cave. He knelt in foetal posture, vertically but never horizontally. His eyes closed. His solemn brow furrowed by the serious devoutness  he extended to his God. The cave was dark, as it normally was, but especially so on this moonless night. Within the cave, foot steps away, were his modest belongings. A simple satchel containing writing utensils, a woolen blanket, and seldom other items.

“And here I sit in humble graces, Oh Lord in your servitude…”, he prayed this prayer every night. He never awaited nor anticipated a miracle or sign like many of the callous multitudes had required. He never second guessed his Lord, God in Heaven.

When it happened it struck him solidly. Boldly. Jolting. Awake in phantasmagorical oblivion. His eyes remained closed as he seemed to eject physcially from his body. The nightmarish wonder with a taint of bliss. His stomach knotted with mindless inquiry. What was this? As he slowly peeled open his eyes the bright splendour of fantasy overtook his senses. Blinding brilliance. Everything he could make out as a physical apparition appeared shadowed by luminous clouds of swirling violet and obsidian glass. The sky cracked again and again in unmerciful bursts of crystalline explosions. Matter was no longer apparant, he could not view his hands or body and the weightless gravity in this expansion of dimensions seemed wonderful to the point of absurd. Dreams. Would it have been blasphemous for this disciple to fall asleep?

“This is no dream! This is not perilous slumber. This is, John, the New Awakening”

“Behold! There are sights and visions, otherworldy to you and incomprehensible in your frail moment. It is with the utmost care and understanding that I vest this magnanimous responsibility upon you. With what you shall view, make precautionary note to warn the seven dismal churches of their great mistakes and terrible wrongs. They have sinned against Me and they must know of the great wrath I will have upon them!”

Wide eyed. Tears dripping, dropping, dripping, dropping down his face. He feared knowing the inevitable doom that lurked over humanity. He feared what formed in front of his eyes… The coming times, the end of times.

“You shall experience the last four years of primal existence. You shall witness the Rapture and Tribulations, the overwhelming deaths and catastrophes that will ensue upon the sinful, blemished creatures that remain. After all have perished, and after all have been judged, and after all of the pious have been exulted unto the heavens, beyond the stars they shall live in New Jerusalem. The calloused, the degradates, the unholy, and the blasphemous shall perish forever. That old serpent coiled throughout their inferno, a dirge anthem be played upon all of the hideous souls, melancholy and relentless torture.”

He closed his eyes.

When he re-opened them, he found himself dressed in ash and soot. He was lying behind a trashcan in the downtown of Los Angeles, California. The year was 2008.

Explanations and Excuses

To whom it may never concern,

Alright, so you’re looking to read some of the stuff that may have recently been posted… I’m sorry, but we just can’t have that.

You see, I’ve finished with the initial Trilogy of stories that I will be entitling as ‘Pseudopsychosis’, a running title anways.. What I’m going to try desperately to get published. I don’t want to concern you readers with the miserable woes of what’s happening between now and publication time because, well, that’s fucking boring. I hate having to read through someone’s diatribe of how it’s not going well for them. I’ll save you from myself.

Bare in mind, I will be busy in these coming weeks, but I do not want to inflict any sort of pain on you because I can’t get you new stimulus. I’ll try as hard as I possibly can to keep new stories up and even those political and sociological rantings known only as Injustice For All. Which you can now easily navigate to be visit the sister site, The World: Insane. I’ll try to seperate my dualing egos as best as I can, we’ll see how that goes.

Thank you for using your heads and defying society by reading my shit. Remember that it’s essential to keep that brain running these days. You never know when it’ll come in handy.

Well, stay locked in… There’ll be new piecesup before you know it.  Just a raunchy, just as tender, and just as insightful as before. Maybe better.

This is Armaggeddon,

-Alex Fuhrmann

 

Mercy. Please.

On top of an already blemished day and fearing the worst possible outcomes for the rest of the week, I answered a phone call that I really never believed I would have gotten. It was my grandmother sobbing, going on about her husband’s lack of health and inevitable death. I know. It’s heavy. When someone comes on that strong, it’s hard to listen, especially when you’re the perverbial black sheep. Granted. I’d paid my necessary dues and left the more difficult and rather unapproachable dues well enough alone, but to be summoned like that was just a tad…well…trippy.

Out of the forces that inhibit the negative souls of that side of the family, I can safely bet they only called because he and I got along without a single confrontation of any nature. He was simple. Old timey and simple. I didn’t mind him one bit, still don’t, but it is with disdain that I felt it was correct to visit him in the hospital. I should’ve planned better, I should’ve known that a gathering of the calloused ones would show me how much they care.

Oh, Pariah, won’t you stand bedside.

Let us go on about ourselves as this man’s light and livelihood shrivel away, we’ll diminish his soul by talking about our triumphs and how sick he is. Truly sick. This could be it. Oh, Pariah, don’t you agree? Just look at him there, right in front of you, next to me, don’t you hear my god awful voice speaking of him but not directly to him? Yes. I sure am glad to have gotten here on time. The doctor told us everything.

That’s right, you carrion, pestilence ridden fools. Sweating while he looks around the room, his voice subdued by laughter and happiness. Inside he’s freezing and all you want him to hear is how lucky you are. Miserable Fuck. I can’t relate how badly drawn the ICU surgical waiting room was. All gathered around, his bed tilted upright like a chair. They all sat beneath and to the side, and as I walked in, they all started talking. Trying to get my attention. 

A new guest, he may be one of us.

I half-hugged and passed by, shoving their shaking hands away, and then to him. He was finally able to talk to someone who would listen. He spoke quietly and calmly, without hesitation over their loud voices. He asked me how I was. Worried. I’m glad you made it.

It was odd. Like I was the last puzzle piece, he’s aura glowed all of a sudden - so much so that it was making me believe that auras exist. He looked up through the ceiling, beyond plastered walls and the setting sunlight.

There was something archaic and artistic about the moment. I can’t place it, but the elements were there. Aligned.

Some fagbag nurse came in and made some jokes, he infuriated me. Join the party. Join us. The hyenas. He left soon but not before saying we had three minutes. The casual bystanders made their leave, one at a time. Each having a last, great sentence to lead them through the door.

You be good, don’t get out of that bed and start dancing around….   Fuck you.

It reclines and everything! Look at all those buttons, you’ll be up all night with ‘em…. He’s not five. Fuck you.

I love you but you gotta stop scaring us like this, rest up and get better…. Yessir Sarge. Fuck you.

I hope you can make it to my game…. He wouldn’t miss it for the world. Fuck you.

The most gleeful of all the happy dancers, my uncle, had been laughing and joking the whole time. He was like some monster re-incarnation of Gomer Pyle on speed.

I couldn’t stand it. Not when he threw up his arms and said good bye to everyone and made an exit worthy of some glamorous nobody, throwing his cape of the left shoulder and being whisked away on a magical drift of wind. I couldn’t stand it when my mother talked on about her plans and future. I couldn’t stand it when everyone was gone and I looked at him and he was tired. He couldn’t stand it either. And I don’t blame him.