intro . . . This is a true story based on my second night of in-patient detox to rid my body and brain of opiate pain killers. Someone from the hospital’s finance center came into my darkened hospital room (where, for the first time, I was sleeping comfortably), and woke me up to announce that there was a problem with my health insurance coverage and I would have to go. I was terribly sick from opiate withdrawal and she was way out of line. I finally fell back to sleep when I was awakened a groggy second time by someone in a white coat sticking a needle in my arm for a blood sample. An hour after that someone else came calling, flicked on the overhead fluorescents, and proclaimed that I needed to walk down the hall to the nurses station to have vitals checked (blood pressure, heart rate, etc) and get my custom cocktail of detox medications… My body and brain sure couldn’t keep up with their system.

 FINALLY FALLEN

Finally fallen into a sickly sleep
Poisons blocking out my dreams
Arrives a page sent to awaken
Spewing nonsense meant to frighten

Finally fallen into a dreamless sleep
Fitful, frightful and thickly deep
Arrives in dark someone to stick
Catch a vein and make it drip

Finally fallen into a restless sleep
Drifting, sifting a glad escape
Awakened again to walk to the chair
Vitals are needed but I don’t care

Finally fallen into a tormented sleep
Images leaking from thawing dreams
Awakened by my body’s head
Fighting demons at two a.m.

Finally fallen into wide awake
My shell pretends it’s another day
Morning has stopped the endless night
With endless hours of grey daylight

epilogue . . . Once I started to feel better, five days later at discharge, I let the finance group have it. And it turned out that there was no problem at all with them getting paid, as I had dual coverage and they just hadn’t done their work correctly. During my stay I also learned that they operated as a non-profit group and never turned needy patients away. Jeesh, what an asshole.

© 2014  |  deb davies thorkelson    |    images: iPhone self=portraits