This is a quick mid-day post to put down some of the fun things I said/talked about while detoxing and under heavy medication. Apparently when I'm on many, many milligrams of dilaudid, morphine, and phenergan I say some pretty out there stuff (and have lots of crazy batshit dreams but we'll get into those later.) Here are some of my favorites that come to mind:
"I am Harry Potter!" - according to Kelley and my parents when I was first being treated at Wentworth Douglas and in and out of consciousness it occurred to me that I was in fact Harry Potter. Which leads to my next lovable quote...
"I can apparate!" - Post-surgery at Lahey Clinic I was convinced that, like many of the wizards in the Harry Potter universe, I could magically will myself anywhere. This particular instance I said this to Kelley when she accompanied me down to CT scan. Kelley then rightly said to me, "Paddy, I watched them take you down here." to which I responded "No! I can apparate! I think of a place and I am here!" This wasn't an isolated instance and in fact it played a huge role in the many dreams I had pre and post surgery. I imagined I could whisk myself anywhere, though always still in my bed, and usually to places around the hospital. That was and is one of the most confusing things about piecing together what happened to me; a lot of my imaginary doings involved whatever hospital I was in (or some fanciful imaginary hospital.) At one point I dreamt I was in some alternate version of Dover and whenever things got too crazy or weird I would close my eyes and believe I would reappear back in the safety of my room. More on that later.
"Six six six! The number of the beast! Hell and fire were spawned to be released!" - Again, this was uttered to my nurses at Wentworth Douglas. Why? I have no idea. Kelley (mistakenly, sorry love) told the confused nurses who were laughing and had no idea what I was talking about this was a line from Spinal Tap when really I was spreading my love of Iron Maiden. Or something.
"Why did you bring Penny with you?" - Asked to Kelley and our families when they visited me in ICU at W-D. I thought they had brought my cat Penelope to see me too. Cats don't go in hospitals, kids.
Transport Guy: "Sir, do you know what the date is and where you are?"
Me: "Why yes! It's the year 11,023 and we're on the first floor of Brentwood, Massachusetts."
This one is a gem. It was common practice for the staff at Lahey to ask me the date and where I was and I do remember I was pretty close most of the time. It took me awhile to say Lahey Clinic and my dates were usually within a few days but on this particular instance I was a bit off. In hindsight I think I just put together the numbers of the actual date so instead of 1-10-?? it came out as 11,023. Also, this plays into one of my dreams where I believed I was in some future version of Japan where they were converting humankind into pure energy as kind of a last-stage evolution thing. As for the Brentwood, MA thing that actually makes sense to me because I couldn't wrap my head around Burlington, MA where Lahey Clinic is. I kept thinking Burlington, VT so my brain grabbed the first B town it could think of.
"If you drop me, you're all DEAD." - Although it sounds menacing, this was pretty funny and innocent. I was again being transported to CT scan at Lahey and when the transport guys were getting ready to move me from my bed to the CT slab one of them jokingly told me "Oh don't worry, we haven't dropped anyone today." as a way to assuage my fears of being handled. I was still a pretty hefty boy at this point, mind you. In response I looked to him and everyone else in the room and VERY seriously told them "If you drop me, you're all dead." They had a good laugh about that one.
That about does it for now. I'll have to consult my hospital historians for further humorous quotes and there will be another proper posting coming later tonight. I hope you enjoyed my ramblings thus far.
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Note: While writing this I was listening to and singing along to Chris Carrabba's cover of Weezer's "Jamie" VERY loudly. I hope my neighbors don't mind.
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