Turn Around

Back to hospital

Some days you wake up and something doesn't feel quite right. Like your head is burning. Maybe the piled up doona overcooked you a bit. On Tuesday my hot ear¹ registered 38.6C. So following my infection response protocol I headed back to Emergency sooner than expected.

One of the peculiar things about my hospital is the security that results from melding old and new buildings. If I take the new entry route, the signs deposit me inside the rabbit warren of the aging Emergency Department, unable to reach Reception without being swiped out the very doors I was supposed to be swiped into. I can't help but feel deceived. Suitably disoriented, it's time to start filling in all sorts of forms. Like much of my life, straight out of Kafka.

Fortunately I've already achieved valued customer status so it didn't take long to be attended to. Lots of staff remembered me from last time. I'm on day three of IV antibiotics so far, and might be discharged tomorrow depending on blood results. No nausea or unusual pain or shivers. No new procedures necessary. Just the now familiar scans and daily tests, with a lot of waiting for results.

The infection may have originated when fluid below the bile duct traveled upwards via the stents. I'm reminded of the holiday when raw sewerage started flowing up the bathroom and laundry floor wastes. Going the wrong direction down what's supposed to be a one way street. I decided then and there not to become a plumber, or a gastroenterologist for that matter, although my job like all does deal with a lot that is figuratively similar.

My temperature has fluctuated a bit, but mostly remains in the normal range.

There's so many clichéd songs about feeling hot, or that use fever as an allusion to intense passion, which have nothing to do with my state right now. Today’s understated song from the great Hank Williams instead draws our attention to a cowboy and his donkey plodding through the hot desert, evoking an increasing sense of thirst. But their desperate search for refreshing water is a metaphor for the spiritual one seeking hope, salvation and eventual relief, including from the hard journey itself.

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God

Psalm 42:1

1. https://youtube.com/watch?v=mD95BLpEUcE