Before you listen to this audio, let me tell you a story…
Almost exactly one year ago I was in and out of the hospital battling kidney disease; not a chronic problem, but a functional problem that would leave my right kidney unable to drain properly. One can imagine what happens when a kidney cant empty- it swells, and it hurts, and it forms kidney stones (You’re probably like “wtf” right now, but trust me, this will make the audio that much better).
February 2012 was the culmination of my illness and in the middle of the night my kidney ceased to function completely. “I think I have to go to the hospital again,” I said to my girlfriend. The pain got worse, indescribably so. My sister helped me to her car and we all sat in silence staring out the window. I bit my lip trying not to panic.
I was admitted almost instantly - my lab tests were pretty bad and there was a possibility I would soon find myself on a dialysis machine if they didn’t improve. I was wheeled into the emergency room. Some nurse, or maybe an EMT, or maybe just some random guy, then tried to start an IV in my arm but messed up. I started spraying blood everywhere (in his defense, I think he was new, and my big veins are good for training).
Covered in blood, in severe pain, with my sister and girlfriend both genuflect at my bedside holding my hand, I prepared to wait out the inevitably long and morbid night. My surgery was not for another week. I had to just take it. We all grew silent and sadness washed over…
Until they wheeled THIS guy into the stall next to me. It did not matter that I was literally dizzy in agony, feeling as if my guts were trying to escape my body, and had pain radiating from my testicles up to my eyeballs. Or that all around me was a grotesque scene of drying blood with a morose backdrop of moaning emergency room patients… The second this man started talking (and this continued exactly like the recording for hours), we all started laughing.
Quietly at first, snickers under a smelly hospital bed sheet. Then full glorious heaving laughter… My kidney started to drain a little, JUST enough so that they did not have to stick a very large needle in my back. Thank you “I got to poop” man. Thank you. Wherever you are today, may your bowels be flowing far more freely than this night.
(also thank you to my sister, @missdrumz, for having the wherewithal to record this)
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