CHAPTER NINE
IT WAS a dream, or maybe it was reality. To this day I don’t know. Dreams and reality can get confused at times, until you wake up.
It was during surgery that it happened. I perceived myself to be awake. I was strolling around the hospital. No one saw me when I strolled down the halls. This might have been because I was looking down at them. I was walking above them, or so it seemed. There was a bandage on the back of my head.
I recall looking down at the doctors just before departing on my exploration.
I was thinking about this as I regained consciousness in the intensive care unit. That’s when the true reality set in. I’m laying here with tubes coming out of different bodily places. And the smell was terrible. This tube in my nose was full of foul smelling gas. The taste in my mouth was dreadful. As for the bladder? Well, that damn nurse should have let me go earlier when I was hoppin’ the fence.
“Nurse!” I yelled, “Nurse.” I remained there for a long time wondering if they were all out to lunch. I saw activity but nobody looked my way. I hoped I was awake and not making all this up in my mind.
Finally, a nurse came in. “You’re awake. “What can I get you?”
“How about a bedpan? And a toothbrush to get this terrible taste out of my mouth?”
She started to pull the white canvas curtains around me for some privacy and was about to go when I interrupted her. “And hey, do you think I can get rid of this tube in my nose? It stinks.”
She smiled and walked away.
A few minutes went by and she brought one of the items I had requested. I was having a little trouble with it though. I had never used one of these things before. It took several minutes before I could relax enough to go. I was a bit shy, and being caught with this fu