....While you were sleeping...
00:06 AM 12/02/97
It was hard, hard, hard getting out of bed this evening. My poor body wants more time to heal, but it will have to wait... duty beckons. I will only have to do this one more time after tonight... for a week, anyway.
I'm in luck, finally. The Number One physician is on in the ED tonight, which means that I won't be nearly so busy. Well, that's generally what it means, we'll soon see. He is on tomorrow again, so, if I'm lucky, I will have some time to heal while I'm on the clock, and not run my ass off the way I have for the past five nights. I'm getting too old for this... have I mentioned that before?
Also, my left hip and leg have been bothering me a lot more lately, probably from pounding the floors so hard. At first, a couple of years ago, I thought it was arthritis; then I thought maybe a pinched sciatic nerve; right now, I think that it might be arterial insuffiency. At any rate, I'm going to make a doctor's appointment this week, have him check my leg and my cough and take off a mole on my neck that I've had forever.
This mole on my neck is one of those wart-like ones, and I can remember my first haircut, when the barber asked me if I wanted him to cut it off. He asked me just to get my reaction, and he was pleased with the result:"Don't you cut my mole off!" I have uttered this phrase to every barber I've ever visited, and I even say it to myself when I'm cutting my own hair.
Well, I'm tired of it! And I can get it removed for free, and it's one of the main reasons that I can't wear necklaces. I've got a couple of necklaces that I'd like to wear, and with my mole gone, they might not irritate me so much.
The first time that I was thrown in jail was in 1969, October, I think that it was. I was leaving a party, and I was very drunk and I'd been smoking a little bit, too. Yeah, it was October, it was a halloween party... anyway, after I had gone about a block, I realized that I didn't have my seat belt on. I was attempting to put my seat belt on when I drifted over the center line and totaled a 1968 Pontiac parked on the other side of the street. I was going about 40 MPH, and I hit the windshield pretty good. My car, a '59 Anglia (British Ford) was a total wreck. And I really loved that little car, too... I had covered it with bright bathtub stick-on flowers, the paint was a cream color.
This happened about 02:00, and there was no one around, so I went up to a house and knocked on the door and had the lady that answered call the police. When the cops arrived, they called an ambulance too. So, I went down to Sante Fe Hospital, where I worked at the time, and got my face sewed up. I had split my upper lip, and I never could whistle worth a damn after that. While I was there, I called Bob Burke, who worked with me and was a good friend at the time. Bob knew a lot of the cops, and he managed to talk them into just giving me a ticket for driving left of center... I was really grateful to Bob for that. However, they made me stay in jail all night anyway. I was in the "Drunk Tank" with a few other drunks, one of them sleeping in his own vomit. (well, I assumed it was his...)
I had just gotten out of the army, and I was saving money to go to college. I had about $3,000.00 saved up at the time. Well, one of the ways that I was saving money was by not buying car insurance.
So, there went my savings, and my chance to go to college, too. After that, instead of saving money, I spent it all on whisky and various other amusing substances. I did go to college part-time during the evenings for a while, until I had a philosophy class where I couldn't stand the professor. Instead of dropping out, I just quit going. And that was the end of that.
Jail: take number two: will happen sometime in the future....
This was a totally amazing night... I had only five patients between 23:00 and 05:00! I feel reprieved... but I should not feel that way too soon, I still have tonight to go. But after the last week, any relief at all is very welcome. Anyway, tonight was a nice, leisurely night, the kind that make me so glad that I work nights!
More tomorrow.... after the wisdom tooth comes out!
The cold creeps in gradually, each successive layer surplanting the last, each successive layer minutely colder. The roots, deep in the good earth, are unaffected. The flow of sap in the trunk and branches is stifled. The last leaf trembles in the gusting winds.