A Good Buzz

A good buzz. And blurs.

A good buzz and some possibly important blurs are the things I remember from being in the hospital. I had just taken my Constitutional Law final, came home and took a nap, and woke up shivering with a fever of 105. Basically, I blame law school for the rest of this story.

After discerning where I was, who I was, and what time it was, I rolled over to my phone and called my boyfriend. “I need to go to the health center.” “Ok baby, I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

He picked me up, drove me to the student health center, where they took my temperature. 104.7. I thought the nurse was talking about a radio station when she first said it. Something about that number scared the nurses. They yanked my hoodie away from me, threw me in a bed and took away my blanket. All of this, in my compromised mental state, made me very angry. Then they brought out the ice water.

After dunking a rag enough times in the ice water so that it was soaking wet, they dripped it all over my shivering little hoodie-less body. I don’t really remember what happened at this point, but I’ve heard from other sources that I yelled ineffectually and stomped my foot a few times.

After realizing that rags and ice water were not going to cure my fever, the student health center sent me to the real emergency room. The people there threw me in a room with a gown that had 21 buttons and at least 12 ties, and told me to strip. For real? You expect an angry, sick girl to figure that how to put out on a gown that has 21 buttons and 12 ties and looks like a straight jacket? At this point, there was more foot stomping, and my 21-year old brother embarrassedly helped me get dressed. From this point on is a blur – there was a spinal tap (yes, like the funny movie; no, not funny in real life), a dark hospital room, and way too few shots of Demerol. At some point after I was given my first painkiller, I thought it was an appropriate time to start rapping some incoherent Jay-Z. Painkillers and Jay-Z do seem to complement each other.

I have distorted memories of the next few days. I know I don’t have meningitis, although lupus and leukemia are still a possibility. My temperature slowly returned to normal, and they released me yesterday morning. When they first released me, it felt like a 300-pound man had jumped angrily on my back. Today, it feels like that man turned into a midget. The buzz is gone (unfortunately), and I feel almost normal, although I wish I knew what caused all of this. The default answer, for now: law school.