Blue Star

By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Making Way
For Christmas my head exploded. An abscess between my left eye and brain threatened both and hurt like hell till they gave me morphine. Then I could even endure Ohio State winning in football as much as I still could see on TV.
Next dawn, Sunday, I was in for emergency surgery, but the CAT Scans my surgeon needed, so he wouldn’t cut blindly to save me from blindness, weren’t yet. I laid on my gurney and watched fellow pre-Yule celebrants wheeled in and out.
As I clutched the stuffed kitty my daughter had given me for assurance, the scans came in, anesthesia was given and I was out.

Tick, tick, tick …
First I heard the clock, then pried open my lids to see sun setting over the Winter Solstice. Fading light through 5 p.m. sixth-floor windows showed bare trees and snowy hills I recalled from cross-country ski treks with women I dated when 30something, but now I was in a room contained by spaghettis of tubes and monitors.
Nurses proved my heroines and heroin. My wife came with my cell phone, found left in my car hiding in plain sight, en route to her nursing job on the hospital campus elsewhere.
“WTF?” she said, looking at my swollen half-shut left eye. “You look like Quasimodo.”
“Thanks dear,” I said and called Publisher Mike to say story drafts and pictures were largely ready to be laid out for tomorrow’s pre-holiday early deadline, but I’d be laid out in a hospital bed instead.
“Drafts aren’t finished products,” I said.
“What is?” he asked. “I’ll ask Matt to lay it out.”

Tick, tick, tick …
Life was passing without my participation. Hospital meals made for drug-addled diabetics don’t get the due they deserve. I grew starved for any stimulation.
The omnipresent TV played reruns of OSU winning — “Nurse,” I begged, “when are my next painkillers due?” — action-crime shows — every action’s a crime — Burger King commercials, cheesy Christmas promos …
“Just love that vanilla yogurt,” I told my nurse. “What? I can’t get more?”
My pump ran out of insulin, so, with my refill supplies left at home, the hospital took over. Now at least my blood sugars could run wild.
Then another reprieve: The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, played in Boise before maybe 13 shivering fans, entered Overtime Presented By Cheez-Its. Jesus hadn’t been reborn yet ,but it did beat the Buckeyes and B.K.’s “Have it your way” jingle echoing in my ears.

Tick, tick, tick …
Sleep’s asylum was interrupted by doses of sleeping pills as prescribed, then, as they double-whammied me, the 5 a.m. nurse asking what I would like for breakfast.
“Coffee, vanilla yogurt, oatmeal with butter and brown sugar packets. Can I get OJ too?” I asked.
“Brings your carb count too high,” she said.
Returning to sleep’s vivid blankness at least was intoxicating.

Tick, tick, tick …
Breakfast came on a tray I could roll near enough my chin not to spill too much oatmeal on my gown, which kept unsnapping and falling down due to weight of the front-pocket gizmo the tubes flowed into, plus I couldn’t see to tie drawstrings behind my back.
I asked a nurse tech to help me with it, then was able to prowl halls and peer into other rooms, nurses’ stations and windowed lounges overlooking more winter-scapes six floors up.
The sun popped out and my left eye watered from it. Back to bed.

Tick, tick, tick …
Daze passed. The Holy Days hadn’t started, but healing had. I felt grateful for family, friends, fellow workers, living and what the stuffed kitty had to see.