it's cold in there

when laurie the nurse came out and picked up the papers in the tray where they keep papers for whoever is up next, i whispered "i hope she isn't mine, i've had her before and she's mean."

"linda?" she said in a pleasant voice.
(note to self, there are lots of stories about various linda's on this site. hmm)

she was short and a little plump and had olive skin and gorgeous shiny black hair and smiling eyes and i was totally wrong about her. the mean lady must have been someone else or if this was the same woman, this one, laurie, had had a bad day that time in early december when she took my blood. whoever that was had been hard on the needle when she stabbed my poor aching veins. and veins were hard to find at that time anyway, since both of my arms were so bruised and swollen from hospital iv's and blood tests on the hour and so many tubes. plus whoever-that-was was not a chatter. customer service points are deducted from non-chatters in my book.

this person, this day, this lovely laurie, was kind and gentle and patient as she walked me back to the changing room.

"you better put some scrubs on because you have a metal accent on your pants (i thought that was an elegant word to use for a string hole in a pair of sweats). and honey you can keep that sports bra on but the t shirt has to go. here's a gown (why do they call them gowns? this is not a prom or wedding or a ball or even close), and sweetie, put these socks on, it's really cold in there."

all suited up.

the next nice person was pam and she came to get me and said "we" needed to put an iv in first, before we "get started", because "we" needed to inject a dye into my heart so "we" can see all the wires in there and get good pictures for when they do the surgery. she said i may experience an odd taste and sure enough, there was sulfur on my tongue for just a moment.

time to "go in there", and laurie was right, it was very cold in there.

there it was. a gigantic tomb, white and green, with red blinking lights. it looked at me and smacked it's lips and with clanks and beeps, it smiled as it waited to inhale me. clank clank. come here, my pretty.

i was claustophic and told them so but they said "it won't take long and we will give you headphones so you can listen to music and we will talk you through it."

they offered to put a washcloth over my eyes, said it would calm me and at first i said no, but the nice young gay man said, "honey, you really don't want to be looking around in there, you won't like it. really."

with earphones on my head and a plastic rack of some sort tied tightly to my own rack (they needed extra slack for me, haha), feet all cozy in tan socks with rubber bottoms, i heard them say "you're going in."

in i went, way in. deep inside the clanky cave. i peeked around the edges of the washcloth just once and briefly, and they were right - i didn't want to look around this place. odd, but the reason i was here was to avoid putting me in a similar container later on, but that one would be fashioned from wood.

from time to time the plastic rack got hot on my chest and i when the nice gay man in the control booth said "you'll feel an injection now" i felt cool water being poured all over my left hand.

more beeps and clanks and groans and "breathe in breathe out now hold" and funny but the song i heard was

"all i can do is keep breathing...all that i know is i'm breathing...all we can do is keep breathing..."

by the way, i kept the socks.

and the scrubs, too.