“YOU PICKED ORANGE” by SSK
Chapter 30
“The Ritual Began. Then Began Again”
“And Again.”
On day two, Sunday, of Kimit's incarcer.... oops, new “place of residence”... things began to happen.
Someone just forgot to tell Kimit's body.
After K got trucked to the Asylum, err, HHC, (yes, I am aware that I am repeating myself: I am just reminding you guys, and myself, what happened) wearing only a hospital gown, with NO seat belt, and no way to stabilize himself except grab any and everything he could with his left hand, was, when we got to the Asylum, to projectile vomit all over Brillo Woman and Gay-But-Not-Guy. That was perfect, but I had no idea how bad his night was going to be.
After I'd seen him safely into his new room on Friday night, and bed (with Brillo, having changed clothes, bobbing around the room, swearing that K would “have this two bed room ALL to himself, no matter how long it takes, no one will ever be put in here with him,” lied Brillo Head Lying Liar Bitch) I had to go home and take care of our furry and feathered friends.
Kimit went on to puke ALL NIGHT (and no one called me). When I got to the Asylum on Saturday, Cruella really had an orgasmic moment when she told me that FAMILY MEMBERS had to make the decision to send a patient to the ER
Thank Goddess, K's newest MRI showed the bleed in his noggin had shrunk a wee bit, so good news there. And I had my first ever truly disgnosed panic attack, and not, chas v'chalilah, a stroke or heart attack or bot flies chewing through my muscle tissue. (It could happen.)
So, on that same Saturday, back to Hellcare (or The Asylum: there were not only physically injured people at this place, lemme tell you. One woman, who could not walk, but had the voice of Brunhild and the temper of Lear, was constantly charging around in her wheel chair bashing into people, trumpeting her speen, and zipping off again. Fun times!) we went.
Now: what do the suppose Cruella (his nurse) decided Kimit had to start doing on the day after he had been sent back to the hospital because he had been moved in a bus, with no seat belt, in a chiffon hospital gown, and no one sitting with him to either physically or emotionally support him?
She decides it's time for physical therapy!! The nursing assistants (Clowns) dashed into the room, with the new, Shannonized wheelchair, all smiles and I'm pretty sure I was the only one who heard Krusty the Klown's music playing in the background, but then again...
It took the Clowns about 20 minutes to get him into the wheel chair, strapped in, his legs positioned properly, and all the while K roared like King Kong denied access to Fay Wray.
And then, a new face appeared in the throng. Some tiny little guy. Joe. Head of Physical Therapy. I could have blown him into another state with a strong sneeze. Joe was also from the Philippines, and Joe was pert near impossible to understand. Joe was also, like the first guy who showed up on the Fourth Floor of Home Hospital, Gay-But-Not-Gay. He had a wife, who was there a lot, wandering around the Asylum, her arm linked through his, and out to here pregnant. I always wondered how the impregnation happened, cause this guy was not on the heterosexual team. I say this not to make any ny judgement of any sort of hetero or homosexual people: I don't care about anyone's sexuality. What I am saying is this:
We were surrounded by liars. Knowledge like that wakes you up in the middle of the night, soaked in sweat and petrified about what the new day might hold.)
Joe, who could not go 90 pounds even if HE were soaked in sweat, observed Kimit in his wheelchair. He looked and he peered and he cocked his head from one side to the other.
He then said that Kimit was not well enough to be in Physical Therapy yet, and he left.
And guess which nurse was in the room when he said it? Yep. Nurse Ratchett (who I have just this moment decided could also do good to the name of “Cruella”, so that's what she'll be for the next two weeks (and this patient/ward exchange could have been a number of things: because she just couldn't take any more of ME, or Lori (because she saw that Cruella loathed me, and was therefore neglecting Kimit) nudged her out, or the stories that were making their ways around the Asylum about her being a fucking bitch got to her, but she went away at last, and we got Lori. Yay!).
So: Sunday, two days after K had been deposited in this Jane Eyre nightmare of a place, and the clowns had taken so much time to find the right pieces for his chair, and then Joe the Creepy PT announced that K was not well enough for PT (even though he'd been STANDING at Fourth Floor Home Hospital, but, honestly, he had not yet been trounced and bounced TO Hellcare, and then sent BACK to the Asylum).
Cruella was displeased by this pronouncement. She had wanted PT for Kimit. I, who had seen the dynamic difference between Home Hospital's PT floor, and this pond scum of morons and fuckhead PT people, did not want it either, and was very pleased that K could just stay in his wheelchair and get more acclimated to his new physicality.
Cruella was NOT well pleased. I got what I wanted. Cruella saw that I had gotten what I wanted.
She was not well pleased.
As that day wore on, and I fed K his lunch and dinner, and then left to take care of our animals, it became days wearing on, and going from me feeding Kimit, to me helping him feed himself with his left hand, although I still did all the cutting. I began to feel something like a teeny tiny continental shift of power. In my direction.
Cruella's days as my husband's “caretaker” were numbered. And she knew it.
Because Lori had decided, with the consultation a physical therapist who was NOT Joe (all right, they weren''t all "Clowns", but I shall leave out the names of those who were), that it really was time for Kimit to go from being wheeled around the Asylum, to help get his equilibrium back. (Equilibrium! That's the word I kept reaching for when I was telling the tale of K's first night at HHC, what with all the vomit and nausea; his equilibrium had been getting a serious workout for the first time in two 1/2 weeks.)