Doodling Past the Graveyard - Part II

Doodling Past the Graveyard - Part II

     I don’t wanna go into the maudlin details of what it’s like to spend a month of your life literally in a bed 95% of the time. Always cold. Having trouble eating. Requiring help with showers and other bathroom duties. My visits for paracentesis and dialysis were fun, much-needed little trips away from my room.

     I spent over a month in the hospital having never gone outside. It was a cave. And I had totally forgotten about doodling. Many tests were being run on me over and over and over again. Various procedures were done to figure out just how bad off my liver was. Turns out my kidney was just as bad. I needed to receive a double transplant. Doodling wasn’t exactly on my mind at that point. Later I discovered doodling definitely was still there.
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     I was approved for a double transplant. But, there was a snag. They initially put me on the list near the very top, but then had to take me off because I developed an infection. It took about a week for the infection to subside. And then everything happened pretty darn fast! I was on the list again and within a day a donor was found! The following day I went into surgery.

      The surgery lasted about nine hours and it took me quite a few days before I was somewhat back to normal. The surgery and everything involved with it took my personal level of weirdness up about five notches. I have always been a funny and weird guy around my friends. They always expect me to do odd little things or make odd proclamations about whatever in the world the topic of conversation in any given moment was. They would’ve been astonished at my level in the hospital. I remember bits and pieces of many things. Most of what I know is from the people around me, including the doctors and nurses. It was funny how they started telling me after several days, “Oh, you seem like you are doing a lot better.”  

     You see, I had crazy dreams that bled over into my waking life in some ways: fishing for the most beautifully grotesque fish on a reality TV show with David Lynch lurking in the shadows, directing the show. One of the nurses being the Incredible Hulk made of shards of glass. Babies being fertilized and raised by computers inside human beings who had to wear mesh metal nets for some weird incubation purposes. I remember these dreams vividly because they happened in real life. Not. That’s how messed up my head was from all of the medications. One doctor came up to me several days after the surgery to check in on me. He said that I had told him that David Lynch had ruined my life.  
 
     “No! No, he didn’t. He’s one of my artistic heroes. I look up to him. I can’t believe I said that. I didn’t mean that. I swear.” Anybody who knows me understands my reaction. My creative juices (which I already had a bunch of) were flowing like crazy until I/the drugs finally settled down.
 
     When I finally shook that trippyness off and became more coherent to others -- as well as to myself -- I realized I was alive thanks to the most generous donor in the world and an amazing hospital full of incredible doctors and nurses and support staff.
 
     I had to spend the next nine days in the hospital ensuring it would be okay for me to be released. Many tests again, my diet was monitored, I had to learn how to take a shower sitting down. I was evaluated for my mental and emotional health. And of course, I had to go through physical therapy. Finally, I was released…on…the 21st of September. Ba-dee-ya! Yes, I remember that night well.