Rehab

Rehab

(looking out car window)


American flags on main street telephone poles

Local asparagus.

Waterfront homes for sale

Wine tasting and vineyard tours surrounded by squat manicured grape vines in line like soldiers in drill.

America the beautiful

The second time in rehab

Why do you think you need a brain scan?

Because I've been nauseous for four months and I looked up on line that chronic nausea is a symptom of a brain tumor, Doc.

Perhaps you feel the way you feel because of your drinking and addiction to xanax.

No way

OK we will scan your brain

Good

There is nothing wrong with your brain.

Really that's good news.

So why am I nauseous all the time then? It’s driving me crazy. I am crazy.

Nausea is a form of pain

No kidding

The nurses tell me that you are on the pay phone all the time calling your office and that you have a legal pad with you making work notes all day and that you have been sneaking over to the other side and getting caffeinated coffee.

Nobody told me I couldn't go there

I can’t sleep at night because my room mate has been snoring for two days straight. He hasn't woken up for days - they say he was on a crack binge and that's why he's been sleeping for two days straight.

I tried to sleep in the lounge by putting two chairs together but I never got to sleep.

I think you should take Prilosec for your stomach and Zoloft for anxiety and stop calling the office.

(out the window)

Ferry to shelter island

Local corn and fresh broccoli

Long island clams oysters and sea bass

Sound beaches ferry to shelter island orient point four miles

My new roommate had to be strapped down to his bed because he was going through vicodin withdrawals.

The heroin addict girl I played cards with in the lounge was caught smoking in an unused room and cautioned that if she was caught one more time that she would have to go.

Another girl joined us. She still had heroin in her veins but knew that in a few hours that she would get cramps and be throwing up all night. She was right. I heard her all night.

I got about an hours sleep and woke up and told the night attendant that I was dying. He said all I can give you is Maalox because you are a drug addict so I said give me the Maalox but I don't want to go back to my room- I want to stay here in your office. He said what I can do to help you from sitting behind his desk doing paper work. I said that I just want to sit here in front of you - and then I started to shake and cry.

He said fine you can sit there

I said thank you and in his white nurses uniform he looked like an angle to me.

(Morning)

Boats headed out thought the inlet and into the Atlantic. The water looked greenish and translucent and refreshing. It was sunny outside the window.

Soon after things got real bad and they gave me my own nurse to hold my hand and walk me up and down the floor to assure me that I was not dying and she said that most people coming down from drugs all think that they are dying. I listened but told her that I'm really dying. She patted my hand and told me that she had been where I was now.

I told her that nobody has been where I am and that the brain scan must be wrong and that I have a brain tumor and this is why I am why I am.

She squeezed my hand tightly.

(random thoughts )

Lobster dinners half priced. Mothers day memorial day. Fathers day and the forth or July.


So many young soldiers cut down in wars before they could live life. How can that happen? How do families deal with the picture of a child who never grows up? Always our baby boy for all eternity. I must call the office.
Those soldiers - What terror. American flags on poles and apple pies and fireworks

Wake up
I'm up
How do you feel?
Nauseous
How could that be you have not even been awake for five minutes?
Give me Maalox
No more Maalox get up and walk
I took a one hour shower and shaved

The nurse said that I look better today and had good color.

I thanked her for holding my hand and assuring me that I wasn't dying.

(More random thoughts)

What happened on the faraway battlefields? How do the families go on? All those pictures frozen in time.

Sometimes in that hospital - I could not stop crying.