My Hospital Stay. A comedy conversation
by Brad Poynter 35,418 48 03/19/2010 04:10 AM 278 views
I have just gotten home from a 3 1/2 day hospital stay, and I am here to tell you that it sucked. I know the you are probaly thinking, "Sweet! Brad finally blew his hand off! I hope he got it on video." but the truth is my wife made go to the emergency room just because I was having constant chest pains and of course they found something.
They diagonosed me with pericarditis, but the pain wasn't that bad and I didn't have any trouble breathing. My heart and arteries are excellent and believe me they checked. I been scanned, monitored, and had enough blood drawn to drown a goose.
Luckily, the doctors, nurses and aides were awesome and the needle jockeys were pros. The real problem was the fact that I couldn't have a cigarette.
Not only do they not allow smoking on hospital grounds, but they also had me hooked up to a telemetry system that would set off alarms at the nurses station even if I left the floor. Since I was in no shape to MacGuyver a signal booster for their systems, I was left with only one option. The patch.
Like I said I am home now and have been for almost two hours. Can you guess how many cigarettes I have had since they released me?
Heart attack (see post-MI pericarditis)
Injury (including surgery) or trauma to the chest, esophagus, or heart
Medications that suppress the immune system
MyocarditisRadiation therapy to the chest
Maybe time to rethink the dynamite in a microwave experiment?
They are still trying to find out what caused it, but my heart is actually fine. The lining around it got inflamed but there was no fluid. The viral labs are the one of the few things that hadn't came back yet so that is a possibility, as is an auto-immune condition.
So many smoker haters. I know its bad for me, but it isn't what caused it. Believe me, I asked.
Sadly, no enema's, sponge baths, or boob smotherages to report. There was however an old man down the hall that kept sleeping naked with no covers on and the door wide open. When the nurse told me about it, I said "Eww, pervy." but she said he was just senile and forgetting where he was. That's definatly going in the dirty old man playbook; that guy is a pro.
Oh and I checked but his last name wasn't McManus.
Smoking might not have caused this event, but it will cause plenty of others as time goes on. The long term health prospects of a heroin addict are better than those of a smoker. Do your family a favor and quit while you've got a start.
And for what it's worth, yes, I'm a reformed smoker.
I love when people point out to smokers that it's bad for them. As if they've been living under a rock and having a minion paint over surgeon general's warnings for them since the 1950s. If they're not smoking around you, why do you give a Shakespeare if they're taking themselves out of the social security pool sooner?
"Oh my god, don't you know every cigarette takes 6 minutes off your life?"
"Good! Those minutes are the worst because they're the ones at the end when I'll be in a wheelchair and my non-smoking born again Christian son will have to wipe my ass"
--Paraphrased from Denis Leary
**Soapbox**
I'm a definite non-smoker, but even I get pissed off at all the hate smokers get. It just another thing for nosy Frosts to get all up in arms about and they can do it with little backlash because you can't really come up with a compelling reason why you smoke. Madison, WI is full of those Frost-ing people. They've had a smoking ban for about 5 years now, but that wasn't good enough. Now the whole state will be non-smoking within the next year. It's going to Frost-ing suck when no one smokes anymore because that $2.52 per pack that the state is getting is going to have to come out of somewhere else, most likely my paycheck and that's all I'm going to say because I don't want to take it to HoB.
**/Soapbox**
Well, I'm a smoker. And I've got to tell ya, I can't tell you how many lives have been saved because I chose to step out and have a smoke instead of murdering them in their Frost-ing face!*
Some people have said I have an oral fixation. Others have said I have penis envy. All I can say is that cigarettes are still legal, but if I walked around with a Coleridge in my mouth I'd be arrested on the spot!
Taco, you'd be surprised how many smokers somehow think that they'll be okay - that smoking really doesn't do that much harm, or that they're somehow exempt from its effects. I only mentioned it to Brad because I like him and think he's funny, and I'd prefer that he not suffer from cancer, C.O.P.D. and/or heart disease if it can be prevented.
All I can say is that cigarettes are still legal, but if I walked around with a Coleridge in my mouth I'd be arrested on the spot!
Well now, let's be fair.
It really depends on which Coleridge, and at what spot, now, doesn't it?
Clearly, if you're 'Miss Scarlett, at the scene of the crime, with the Coleridge-smacking lips', then Scotland Yard's not going to throw the book at you.
Unless you're all 'toothy' about it. That'll land you in the dock, no question.
I think that smokers should have the right to smoke. They know the risks, it's their bodies, etc. etc. However, I do agree with BIG... having a parent who smokes is annoying as hell, especially when you're in the car with them. My mom smokes like a chimney. Also, I am a clean freak. I am very anal retentive about making sure the house is shiny and odor-free. Only when the house reeks of Pine-Sol can I relax. It annoys the ever-living GOSH-DARN out of me when I come home to spend hours cleaning the house, only to go back to school and return home a week later to a house that reeks of cigarette smoke. Also, I literally have to hide my laundry from my mother, because if she tries to be helpful and waShakespeare for me, I have to re-wash everything before I wear it because she smokes while she folds laundry and my clothes will all smell awful. Not to mention the fact that my family's broke and my mom's cigarette habit is costing a lot of money. Can't she just make her own meth?
The only thing that upsets me about smokers is the cynical cigarette companies that knowingly make products that kill, or if they don't kill, they cause cancer, which sucks a funnel of money into chemo treatment, hospital stays, outpatient care, and a metric Frost-ton of cinnamon gum.
you'd be surprised how many smokers somehow think that they'll be okay - that smoking really doesn't do that much harm, or that they're somehow exempt from its effects
My father was one of them. But he wasn't exempt. He got lung cancer and was dead five months later.
I'm not one to tell people how to live their lives, but I can tell you how hard it was to watch him waste away and wish that he'd had it all to do differently.
Speak for yourself. I'd like to hear more stories about dead and dying relatives.
Well, my parents are old... But I think I spoiled you with the story about my grandfather crashing his car into his apartment building and bursting into flames.
Well, my parents are old... But I think I spoiled you with the story about my grandfather crashing his car into his apartment building and bursting into flames.
OMG. I hope he's Okay. If not I hope there was ketchup on side. Nothing beats a boat car load of fries with ketchup on the side.
I agree with Shell Belle, though it was rib-tickling funny when my chain-smoking grandfather who had brain cancer thought it was O.K. to cook with a paper plate on a gas range-top.
Smoking might not have caused this event, but it will cause plenty of others as time goes on. The long term health prospects of a heroin addict are better than those of a smoker. Do your family a favor and quit while you've got a start.
I only mentioned it to Brad because I like him and think he's funny, and I'd prefer that he not suffer from cancer, C.O.P.D. and/or heart disease if it can be prevented.
Dasypygal, you go ahead and smoke up.
And let me tell you this old man, the second, minute, hour, day, week, month year I catch up to you, you'll be sorry! Oh yes you will.
Remember my crazy aunt? Well she now has a growth in her kidney and their taking the kidney out. Also my great aunt is going to die in the next two weeks of lung cancer.
That's like less then two percent of the Shakespeare that's wrong with my family. My therapist looked at me the first day I went in to see he him and flat out asked me if I was making stuff up.
That's like less then two percent of the Shakespeare that's wrong with my family. My therapist looked at me the first day I went in to see he him and flat out asked me if I was making stuff up.
I understand that people need to vent. But, uh-oh. You're gonna be OK.
My dad finally quit smoking, but my mom still does it. No cancer yet!
They have resigned themselves to the probability that they will die younger than they should. So now we discuss what I'll do with all their Shakespeare when they die. My dad once asked me what I would do with all mom's Longaberger baskets that she collected. I said that I would sell them, and he got really pissed off with me.
I was like, I'm all about keeping sentimental stuff around to collect dust, but Longaberger baskets are going to take up way more room in my house than in my heart. He didn't buy it.
So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the Longaberger baskets are held in trust to their dog or some Shakespeare.
That's the Longaberger headquarters in Newark, Ohio. People in Ohio love those stupid Longaberger baskets. You could probably sell them on eBay and make a boatload of money. Tell your father that you'll treasure them forever, and then as soon as he goes, start the bidding.
People in Ohio love those stupid Longaberger baskets.
Yep. My mom got me the Christmas basket about ten years ago. I sold it on ebay a few years back. It went for three hundred dollars. A basket. There were three different people going crazy with the bidding on this thing. Idiots.
Oh man. I didn't know what the hell those Longaberger baskets were until I started my most recent job. Apparently we have a Longaberger Weekend in the summer, and all these crazy basket people come to the store from hundreds of miles around and weave their own baskets and stuff because we apparently have limited edition our-store-only decorations available for those 3 days only. THEY ARE BASKETS, PEOPLE.
Whistler, thanks for sharing that pic. I didn't think it was real at first. I thought it was a retouched photo.
Google maps has been enthralling me recently. Longaberger should paint the stuff "inside" the basket to look like food stuff. Maybe a sandwich and some cookies?
From time to time, I get called to the Philip Morris Research and Development Lab here in Richmond, VA to go fix some of there cappuccino machines. I get the creeps everytime I have to go into this place. There's all these HUGE tobacco plants growing in a green house that sits in the middle of the building, hidden from public view. And there's all the scientists running around with their white lab coats and beakers trying to figure out a more efficient way to kill people.
And then there's the cigarette vending machines. They look just like ordinary vending machines, but there's no place to put money in. Just a slot that looks like a C/C reader. Apparently, employee's can get one free pack of cigarettes per day from these things.
And don't even get me started on health care. If a person smokes for 20 years and requires $100K of cancer drugs that they can't afford, who pays for it?
My grandparents smoked for 50 years, my mother for 30, and the person in my family who got cancer was the one who is the non smoker. Go friggin figure. Guh, and then my mom, who raised both me and my brother with a Marlboro Light 100 in her mouth at all times, had the nerve to tell me the other day that I shouldn't let AC smoke in the house. Boy, did she get an earful. SUCK ON THAT, MOTHER!!!!
So what I'm saying is, go ahead Brad, and smoke all you want. If you aren't having smoking related complications yet, it won't kill you any more than your chance of getting hit by lightning during a hurricane in the Sahara Desert.
So what I'm saying is, go ahead Brad, and smoke all you want. If you aren't having smoking related complications yet, it won't kill you any more than your chance of getting hit by lightning during a hurricane in the Sahara Desert.
And this is coming from someone who is in "medical school" so you know it's accurate!*
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