Marx didn’t know shit about medicine

            So there I was half-naked on a hospital gurney wearing nothing but that ridiculous shift they love to give you. I firmly believe that the reason for this garment is to prevent you from having freedom of movement. I mean who is going to be gallivanting about the hospital scenery with their ass hanging out? Me that’s who! Especially when I am drunk and can’t feel any pain. Fortunately SSG C was there to keep me mainly under control. From his account the conversation went a little like this :

Me : “What the fuck happened?!?!”

Emergency room medic : “Watch your language!”

Me : “Fuck you!”

C :  “You got drunk and fell off a balcony. The nurse says you should lay still because you may have hurt your spine.”

Me : “Is Knuckles ok?”

C :  “Yeah he is over there getting worked on now. What the fuck are you doing I said stay put!”

Me: “I’m fine. What the hell is this? They catheterized me? Take this thing out!”

C : “I am not touching your fucking catheter shitheel. Lay back down!”

Me : “I’ll take it out myself….. (snore)”

Moments later ….

Me : “What the fuck happened?”

(repeat around 20 more times)

            While this was going on they had at some point fitted me and Knuckles while cervical collars to immobilize our necks. The problem being that the pinhead medics switched them around so that I had this *huge* collar in which my head lolled about like a spring topped cat toy and Knuckles was strapped into a collar so tight that he couldn’t even blink without raising the blood pressure in his massive melon like head.

            The doctor working on knuckles decided that he could not be given any medication because he was still drunk and it might be dangerous. This meant that the repair of his nose would be done sans anesthesia. My doctor on the other hand decided that my random blathering on about “What the fuck happened?” Was too annoying to continue so he gave me enough Demerol to kill John Candy.

            As the doctor prepared o repair my friends face he explained to him that the wound would have to be cleaned with Lidocaine first. Lidocaine as some of you may know burns like cayenne pepper when applied directly into a wound and is normally used with a nit of local anesthesia. Not here me buckos! The squirted that wound right up causing Knuckles no small quantity of discomfort especially when it started to seep right into his eyeball. This brought about some serious invective directed mainly at the lady irrigating the wound. When SSG C head this he immediately went and tried to calm Knuckles down. This simply prompted Knuckles to start cursing in Arabic which made little difference since the lady herself was an Arab. SSG C cautioned Knuckles to shut up because the lady seemed to understand him in either language. A true red-blooded male to the core Knuckles only response was the inquire, “I can’t see much, is she hot?”

            It was time to stitch up the wound now and Knuckles supply of bravery waned a bit. He told SSG C that he was very afraid of needles and asked if SSG C would hold his hand while they stitched it. SSG C stuffed down the amusement of being asked to hold the hand of this bearlike man and held his hand as asked. After the procedure was finished Knuckles solemnly asked SSG C to never tell anyone he was scared. There was no way he was keeping that tale secret though (male bonding being what it is).

            Throughout this entire ordeal, there was never an X-ray taken of knuckles whatsoever. They did not even X-ray me until the next day! By this time Knuckles had been by to see me and told me that they were releasing him that same day to go home. I was still pretty out of it from the heavy dug cocktail that Doctor Feelgood was continuously ordering dripped into my veins so nothing about the conversation seemed odd. The next day however Knuckles called me to see how I was doing and I noticed that I could barely hear his voice and that his words were slurred. I asked if it was the meds that he was taking. He explained that he had been given no meds and that the reason his speech was all distorted was that it hurt to open his mouth ans that his front teeth were chipped. I told him he needed to go to the dentist and get that shit fixed before they got infected.

            When he arrived at the dentist they asked what had happened and were appalled that there was no X-ray already done on him. As soon as the film came out it was apparent that his entire upper maxillary plate was free floating and had broken in several places. A specialist plastic surgeon was finally called in and he did a whiz bang job of peeling off Knuckles face, screwing his skull back together with metal plates and then sewing his face back on leaving only the tiniest of scars across the bridge of his nose. In fact he did such a good job that Knuckles looked better after the surgery than he did before! The doctor roundly lambasted the physician who had “cared” for Knuckles at the ER and told him that if he was a civilian it would have been an open and shut case of malpractice. Unfortunately for Knuckles he was not a civilian.

            There were no repercussions for the doctor in question, no procedure changes made to address the totally different levels of care he and I received, and no inquiry made as to why I was given draconian pain control and he was given none. Frankly I have decided to blame Muggaz.