Don't-It-Yourself-Er

There was my body, exposed to the night air, breeze blowing against my bare skin. My black hoodie with the enraged Pillsbury Dough Boy saying “Don’t Fuckin’ Poke Me!” was bunched up beneath my head, my left hand clasped my father’s Stanley Powerlock 25-foot tape measure to my chest, its cold metal heaviness slowed the beats of my heart. My pants rolled down to expose my pasty skin from seven-and-five-eighths inches below my navel, my pubic hairs displayed for the whole world to see. But no one was looking, no one was there.

My androgynous companion smiled, saying now is the time, no more delays. Saying, you can do this, I believe in you. Saying, you have to work fast, you won’t make it.

Nodding was painful, but they understood. The hardness of the recycled plastic bench against my back was my only support. And it would be my stage.

No one ever tells you that one day you might shoot a needle into your epidural space, pierce the ligamentum flavum which holds your vertebrae together at the back; but don’t pierce it too much, don’t paralyse yourself, don’t leak cerebrospinal fluid everywhere. And it’s harder, much harder, when you can’t even see your own spine.

“Is that high enough yet?” I said to my androgynous companion, my arm was twisted like a chicken wing behind my back, my hand tingling and twitching as I tried to guide the auto-injector needle to the right destination by feel alone.

They shake their head, saying, it’s too high, you better lower it if you don’t want to end up paralysed.

Slumped over, my spine bent separating the bumps in my back—my lumbar spinous processes—I count down two vertebrae, or was it three?

“How is that now?” I said, not sure if my companion had enough surgical experience to rely on their opinion.

They shake their head, saying, it’s ok, but you aren’t in between the vertebra, find the gap above, or the needle will bend and break in your bone.

My finger slid up, and fell in to a fleshy space between the hard bumps of my third and fourth lumbar vertebrae (I hoped), and I placed the point of the auto-injector beside my fingertip, and my hand shook, and my finger turned purple and swelled from straining to grip and my finger was nothing but pain and sweat and I’m going to slip and I have to do this, and I pull the trigger and I scream.

BRAAAP! The smell of rotten cucumber turned to yellow goo filled my nostrils as the offensive gas fought for freedom from between my buttocks. The needle did not go in, my index must have slipped aside. I locate the gap again between my lumbar vertebrae, position the needle, and pull the trigger once more.

Don’t Fuckin’ Poke Me!

“911, what’s your emergency?”

Suppose you’re having a real emergency, a real Jesus-fucking-Christ-snorting-coke I’m going to die emergency.

“My belly hurts so much I can’t move.”

My apartment was a mess, but it didn’t stink; no scrap of food was wasted. Empty pizza boxes counterbalanced the drained wine bottles throughout my apartment. My fingernails still tasted like cheese and bacon and greasy cardboard, after stripping those boxes.

The voice of the dispatcher blurs and blends with the background noise from his desk, a funk thump of 1970s bass and exaggerated moaning, and I’m listening like I’m underwater, and he asked again where my pain was.

“The pain is three-and-a-quarter inches to the right of my belly button,” I said, “and one-and-seven-eighths of an inch down towards my foot.” The cold metallic edge of the tape measure against my smooth skin soothed the pain, if only for a few seconds.

The fake moaning gets louder and faster, and that poor actress sounds like she’s going to choke, and the dispatcher says some other bullshit.

“55 hours,” I said, as I checked my watch, “and 23-and-a-quarter minutes, but it’s gotten much worse, and last night I couldn’t even sleep at all because of it.”

“Ok…that’s very good,” he said.

But it wasn’t very good, not at all.

“We should send an ambulance, but they are not covered by the government anymore,” he said.

Even if it was a hundred bucks, I don’t have it.

“It’s $5,000,” he said, “with a $1,500 surcharge for after hours service. But most private plans cover…”

No insurance, no car, so fuck that, I was walking.

Don’t Fuckin’ Poke Me!

Hospital administrators think they’re so smart with their overpaid consultants and their “calming colours”, like these beige floor tiles that don’t even soften the cement, and the pink flamingo painted walls.

But you know what their clever colour schemes can’t hide? The smell. The whole damn hospital smells like two parts putrid flesh, mixed with three parts bleach, mixed with one part disappointment.

“Stop trying to kill me!” I half asked, half shouted at the intern as he mashed his sausage-sized, steel-reinforced fingertips, approximately two-and-a-quarter inches diagonally down and to the right of my navel. With my tape measure trapped in my pants pocket, I was forced to rely only on crude estimates.

“Sorry.” He was oblivious to his role in my current suffering.

“You should ask for a refund on your medical degree.” The deep pain inside suggested my colon was intent on eating its way out of me.

“I’ll have to ask the surgeon what to do next.” He probably had to get a permission slip for every test, for every referral, for every bathroom break.

“And is the consult with the surgeon covered?” after the ambulance fiasco, I assumed nothing. He walked away; when he returned, I was informed that the surgical consult was not covered.

Of course.

“So, you think my appendix is infected and about to burst?” Lifting my head to talk was getting too painful. The intern with the sausage-sized-fingertips grinned. Maybe not the best reaction for something that might kill me?

“And diagnostic imaging isn’t covered, so you aren’t really sure what’s going on?” I said.

He paused, then nodded, his lips twitched and jumped.

“And you are certain that my appendix will kill me when it blows?” I said, trying to stare a hole through his eyeballs.

“That’s correct, unless the diagnosis is wrong, but we would need imaging...”

The tape measure was calling out, wanting to feel the crunch of his skull breaking against its steel frame.

“And even though the surgery will save my life, it’s not covered anymore,” I said, looking at the ceiling so I wouldn’t have to see his stupid grin.

“But private health insurance still covers it,” said Fake-Doctor-Sausage-Fingertips.

My eyes rolled of their own will. “I have no health insurance, no guaranteed hours, no vacations, no sick days, and I just got fired for asking for a Saturday morning off to go to my father’s fucking funeral.”

Don’t Fuckin’ Poke Me!

Did you know how close the appendix is to the right ovary?

Was this operation going to make me infertile? If it didn’t kill me? I never wanted to have kids of my own—who would? They’re so needy, so expensive. Who wants to waste their years taking care of some whiny little human?

But I had two ovaries, and neither would be of any use if I was dead.

Two months ago, my biggest problem was that my right breast was one-and-three-quarters of an inch higher and seven-eighths of an inch narrower than my left. Even wearing a baggy sweatshirt, everyone noticed. Now I was exposing my breasts for anyone who might walk past my corpse before I rotted beyond recognition; I didn’t care anymore, the certainty of death made fear a waste of my last precious moments.

If I was going to die, I wanted my body to be seen, so every single self-absorbed, self-pitying asshole who came into that emergency room would see me bled and dead and wasted. Except no one was going to waste time trying to understand why a dead girl was half-naked at a hospital bus stop, especially a poor dead girl. No one would even slow down to read a sign explaining what happened if it was in flashing ten-foot-high letters.

Maybe it was the divine protection emanating from my line-drawn androgynous friend, but I could feel my legs and belly losing sensation, the muscles getting weaker and weaker. Time to slice.

Don’t Fuckin’ Poke Me!

Were they just going to let me die?

No. They gave me a government covered Surgi-Self kit.

“How does that work? Is some automated robot going to remove my appendix?” I asked. How was I hearing about this for the first time? Lying-ass politicians and their rich criminal friends never have enough, and they will steal from you until you’re dead, then harvest your corpse.

“No, no, no, that would be far too expensive for government coverage,” said the intern. “A Surgi-Self kit has everything you need to do your own operation, with step-by-step instructions.”

Unbelievable. “You want me to take out my own appendix?” I asked. “Right here?” Why wouldn’t his eyeballs melt with my high-powered stare?

“Actually,” said the intern, he wouldn’t look in my eyes, or anywhere near my face, “the government plan doesn’t cover hospital clean-up costs, so we would much rather you went home first. And if you have trouble with the directions, there is a support line you can call for assistance.”

An automated support line, with a two hour wait time.

Don’t Fuckin’ Poke Me!

The Surgi-Self kits were mass-produced for the world; the instructions contained no words, probably to save on translation costs. However, there were these helpful little pictures of all the tools and supplies, containing everything needed for do-it-yourself emergency surgery.

The instructions contained a line-drawn androgynous cartoon person who kept smiling as they first injected anesthesia into their lower spinal cord, used a laser scalpel to cut through skin, fat, and muscle, and finally sliced free and extracted the offending appendix. There was even a helpful “X” over all of the nearby organs you weren’t supposed to cut.

With the antiseptic (pre-packaged for your convenience) I cleaned my hands and belly, donned a pair of disposable gloves (good thing they didn’t break, there weren’t any spares), held the laser scalpel (for cutting and cauterising as needed), and with the vague instructions in my other hand, cut.

“AGH!” The scream was reflexive, it didn’t hurt; I only knew it was working because I could smell my burning flesh. It should have made me want to vomit, but instead I was strangely reminded of how hungry I was. I hadn’t eaten since before my appendix began trying to murder me. My skin opened and exposed the layer of fat below, then muscle yielded and split with the kiss of the laser scalpel, and my nose filled with the smell of bacon wrapped steak, succulent and sizzling. My fingers attempted to poke around in the new opening, and got stuck.

“Shit-Squirts!” I shouted at my androgynous paper companion. “Do something, please!”

They shrugged, saying, look at my hands, they’re small and made from paper, I can’t save you. They looked down, then back up, met my eyes, saying, Use your tape measure.

How was that aging metal…oh, I locked the tape measure with a half inch of overhang, reached into my self-inflicted-surgical wound, pulled, and freed my fingers. Grasping the laser scalpel once more, and using the tape measure as an improvised retractor, I cut deeper and wider and pried an opening, and fished.

And there it was. My fingers grasped and brought it to the surface, certain it was my inflamed appendix. I asked my cartoon companion, and they vigorously nodded their approval.

The laser scalpel cut away the offending organ, cauterised the attached blood vessels, and stopped the bleeding.

And the fear started to burn out. It was not my night to die.

The anesthetic was wearing off. It stung as the surgical glue rejoined my flesh, applying antibiotic ointment and the bandage was more intense than the entire surgery. I couldn’t walk, and prepared to spend the night, and maybe more, on the bench outside the hospital. At least it wasn’t supposed to rain for several days.

Bringing the instructions to my face, I gave my androgynous cartoon companion a kiss on the cheek. They deserved at least as much for helping save my life. They winked back at me, appreciative, yet embarrassed by my emotions.

Nothing left but antibiotics, pain pills, and waiting for my body to repair the damage. My real life was full of suffering, but it was chronic suffering, and it lacked any of the purpose, the excitement, or the satisfaction of saving myself from certain death.

Maybe I should go back to school and become a doctor?

Who needs school when you have practical, on the job, authentic life experience?

But what a rush it would be doing cut-rate, black-market, under-a-bridge and down-the-back-alley surgeries. I’d be a humanitarian, bringing healthcare to the needy and destitute, just like Jesus, and one day the world will be full of statues praising me for my good deeds.

And if those sculptors don’t get my features perfectly proportioned, I’ll be there with my tape measure, even if I have to shove it up their pee holes.