Now you would think that this excerpt would have me lamenting the fact that I missed my little boy. I did…terribly. But it is not. What do you do for twenty four hours a day besides lay in a somewhat comatose state? Well, you sleep the best that you can, especially when nurses are coming in and out of your room every two hours. You can try to converse with the wonderful friends that come to visit you. They mean well but at the time it was so exhausting. I did really appreciate it. The visits at that time were short but sweet. The phone calls that were coming in at the time were fielded by my wife and were also short but sweet. I usually would get a call from my store for a quick briefing or question. They were also wrapped up as soon as possible. I really didn’t have the strength or wherewithal to handle too much. The battle was still raging on in my body and the effects of the chemotherapy, steroids, anti- rejection drugs, etc. were daunting.
So what else do you do? Of course…you watch TV. A lot of TV. And more TV. That’s what you do in the hospital. All day, all night, whenever I was awake. It was white noise. A distraction from the constant pain and monotony. The channels were meager and the content the same. Nothing compared to todays standards. Netflix? I wish. There are many things that can trigger me and the “PTSD”, as I call it, from my time in the unit. One of the biggest is the smell of the antiseptic soap that was in the dispenser by the entrance to my room. So distinct was the smell, that to this day it hits me like a brick to the face if it’s near. The doctors and nurses used it on their hands every time they entered or left my bubble. It is burnt into my olfactory sense like a bad tattoo.
Dr. Dave had given me the OK to start attempting to eat from a very rigid menu. If I felt like eating anything on the menu, I was encouraged to do so. The hospital dietician had stopped by to go over the choices made for me. No fresh grown food, no raw veggies and nothing that could expose me to germs or infection. Very bland and very boring. It didn’t really matter though. The sores in my mouth made eating anything a major chore. And a painful one. I also found out that when I did try to eat anything that chemotherapy destroys your taste buds. Everything tasted like shit! Horrible!
I probably had lost about twenty pounds so far. I was literally starving for something palatable. I wanted to be able to enjoy one delicious morsel of food. A piece of pizza. A donut. A cheesesteak. A hot dog. A hamburger. Some Bar-B-Q ribs. Some what do you say? The second trigger. That freaking Chile’s commercial for their Baby Back Ribs! I must have seen that commercial five hundred times a week! Every hour, every day. An all out media blitz! My mouth would water at the sight of those ribs, burgers and appetizers! I wanted to reach out and grab them from the TV! I wanted to eat! To most the commercial was just a catchy jingle, a call to arms to get to Chile’s to savor those Baby Back Ribs! For the many more years that it aired, when I heard it, it just took me back. An antagonistic mantra drawing my mind back into the bubble.
I Want My Baby Back. Baby Back. I Want My Baby Back,Baby Back. I Want My Baby Back, Baby Back. Like a broken record. Get the picture? You’re singing it in your head right now. Yep.
Next up: A Foul Mood and Another Aspiration