An
experience from my life is my last time in the hospital when I was receiving
chemo. The room, painted a pale, washed out yellow, seemed even smaller than
usual. Under the nauseating smell of hand sanitizer I could smell the stench of
sickness. The bed felt like I was lying on rocks. The lights, though bright,
seemed dim and unwelcoming. It felt like the movie version of being in the
hospital, hopeless and dreary.
I had to
check in to the hospital at nine in the morning. They showed me which room I
had and said that they’d be back around 12. In my room, I could see the pale
winter sunshine trying to reach my bed through the window. The purple pleather
couch sat empty to the side of the room, waiting for someone to come visit and
to sit on its forlorn seats. Across from my bed a computer was hooked into the
wall, flashing the same message across its otherwise blank screen. The bathroom
door had a schedule and a place where they can list what restrictions each person
has on it from when each patient had a schedule and many restrictions. On the
opposite side of the room from the window outside there were three smaller
windows looking out towards the hallway. The door, next to the hallway windows,
was a pale purple and had three different shaped windows through it. Overall
the room was very hospital generic both in colors and style.
Noon rolled around and in the nurse
came carrying seven bags of chemo. She unhooked my IV, which led into my chest,
and connected it to my last first chemo. As soon as she started the pump it
felt like ice sliding through my chest. The time crawled by; all I could hear
was the vroot-vroot of the pumping machine.
The first
few chemo’s weren’t too bad, only ten minutes each, it was the last three that
were awful and drawn out. Each took at least an hour to pump at the fastest
rate possible. All I could do was sit and try not to dwell on the fact that I
was slowly being poisoned for my own health.
After all
seven chemo’s had been slowly pumped into my body I was finally allowed to eat.
I ordered a cheeseburger and French fries from the kitchen. When it arrived a
half an hour later it smelled like someone had dumped hand sanitizer over it.
The smell of the hand sanitizer made my stomach start doing somersaults and I
instantly lost any appetite I had before. I picked at my burger for about
fifteen minutes before finally giving up and pushing away the now cold
cheeseburger.
After
trying to read for around an hour I decided to try and see what was on the
small T.V. After flipping through all of the state channels I finally managed
to find Law and Order on one of the few channels offered. They must have been
having a marathon because I watched Law and Order until around ten when I
decided to try to sleep.
While
trying to fall asleep I could hear the calm commotion of the hallway. The
nurses walking, the food carts rolling, the trash being removed by men in suits
so that they wouldn’t potentially get any traces of chemo on them, and finally
the steady thrum of the machines pumping things into people. It was a
depressing mixture of sounds to lull me into a troubled sleep.
