Guts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs of a Giant Disaster (10 page)

Much, much later, when I first recalled these men and their awful carelessness and lack of empathy, thoughts of the elevator ride instantly filled me with an evil glee. I guess
Vengeance via Olfactory
is better than nothing. I’d like to stress that these are my
perceptions
of what happened to me, just as they’re my
perceptions
of people’s behavior at the time. Through this experience I discovered that when you get truly sick or are in a great deal of pain, it’s as if you’ve suddenly put on glasses that force you to see everything through vicious and cruel lenses.

Truthfully, I don’t know if the cruelty and carelessness shown to me during this time was real, or if it was simply my pain and self-hatred that boiled over and tainted everything I saw and felt. I think that if my stomach had blown up during a yoga retreat at a Buddhist temple, I’d more than likely be writing about what assholes the monks were.

Eventually with a crisp yet reluctant manner (which okay,
that
I get. . . no one wants to wear someone else’s dinner home to the missus), one of them lifted me up and heaved me into the arms of the other guy in the ambulance. Or lorry or trolley or tippy or proggy or foggy or pram or whatever cloyingly adorable fucking name they use. I wonder what they call a stretcher, because I sure as hell could’ve used one earlier. Then they strapped me into what, in my insanity, looked like a booth at Bob’s Big Boy. I’m sure it was a bed or something, but what are you gonna do, get all James Frey on my ass? It’s my stupid story, I say it was a booth.

After they seat-belted the Big Girl to her Big Boy booth, they drove me “to ’ospital.” (They don’t say “the hospital.” They say “‘ospital.” Don’t ask me why, I’m from a country that believes in dentists and ice cubes.)

As we made our way through the cobblestoned streets of London, my vicious saviors were oh so careful not to miss a single pothole or red light. I didn’t even rate that cool
weee-waaaaaw, weee-waaaaaw, weee-waaaaaw
sound.

Much later I’d have to take a cab
to ’ospital
for checkups, and I couldn’t believe it took exactly six minutes. I’m convinced that (like a New York cabbie with an unsuspecting tourist) these fuckers took the scenic route. During the ride, I hoarsely begged them for something to ease my agony. How odd to actually
mean
it, for once. They gave me the gas they told me they give to women about to give birth, which helped not even a little. (But then, my tolerance was so high at this point, I don’t think an elephant tranquilizer would’ve made a dent.)

The next while was a blur—getting to the hospital, being forced to wait endlessly until someone decided to help me. I was in a little curtained-off area of the emergency room, lying on a cot with my knees up to my chin, beyond freezing and terrified to realize the agony was getting far worse with each passing moment. None of their occasional shots of morphine seemed capable of wrangling this kind of pain.

Oh, the hilarity. Here I am, a gal who’s laid waste to miles and miles of Vicodin. Now when I truly needed it, it was rendered useless? I mean, that’s fucked-up, even for Satan.

I wondered if pain itself could kill. I tried desperately to concentrate on something happy or pretty, but I couldn’t remember anything, and it was so fucking
loud
in the ER I couldn’t even think.

It was only when a nurse angrily tossed open my curtain and shouted, “Miss, do stop screaming, as you’re disturbing the other patients!” did it dawn on me that the constant, earsplitting screams were my own. Later, when thinking about those awful hours—and trust me, I do so as rarely as possible—I’m just crushed that I was so sick and in such terrible straits and clearly so close to death, and yet no one gave a shit about me. Least of all me. Never once did it cross my mind to demand to be treated better. Or to scream at the paramedics to bring up a “stretchie” or to
at
least
drive the speed limit. Or to karate-chop that rude twat of a nurse’s head off.

You see, in the darkest part of my heart, I’d always known this day would come. I was simply reaping what I had sown, getting exactly what I deserved. So there I lay, the ugliest American, imprisoned in the politest ER in all of London, a creature of my own making—a now silently screaming, sweating, freezing, smelly, and very, very lonely turtle.

It began to sink in that I might actually be in big, big trouble. That thought was immediately followed by this staggering, mind-blowing realization: that despite years of slowly killing myself, all I wanted, with more passion and ferocity than I’d ever wanted anything else in my entire life, was to
live.

when
people say they simply don’t understand how a person could keep using drugs or alcohol even after they’ve started to lose their job, their friends, their family, their health, I give them this chilling example:

After spending a good hour sequestered in my own curtained-off hell in the ER, the shots they consistently gave me must’ve finally started working, because I felt oh-so-slightly better. By that, I mean the level of agony had been dialed down from a twelve to a ten, and my screams had died down to loud moans. Finally, my curtain was drawn back by a nurse endowed with an impressively large bosom and an equally impressive mustache, which, even in my state, I craved to pluck. She was quite sweet, as all women with excessive facial hair seem to be, and she cheerfully began the lengthy process of admitting me to the hospital. She asked no-brainers like name, age, race, etc.

She then asked me about my health.

“Do you drink caffeine?”

“Not much.” (True.)

“Do you smoke?”

“A little.” (A lot.)

“Do you drink?”

“Not excessively.” (Not counting the two bottles of wine I sucked back a night.)

“Do you do drugs?”

“No.” (More than you could even begin to imagine, pretty lady.)

There I was, in sheer agony and probably quite close to dying, yet I lied instantly. Even though the truth could possibly have saved my life. This is the hardest part for knitting or golf addicts to comprehend. The cold, hard truth of it is, if this woman had said to me at that very moment, “I can guarantee you that
all
of your pain will go away this instant if you tell me the truth right now,” I would
still
have lied. Without question.

That’s how strong He is. When He’s got His evil talons in you, you don’t care. You will lie to protect Him, no matter what happens. He’s your most devoted better half, your longtime lover. He’s adoring and reliable and He’s never let you down. It’s certainly not His fault that He’s killing you. Like a battered wife, you take Him back even though He just knocked out your two front teeth. You lie to your weeping mother even though He’s convinced you to steal the painkillers she actually
needs.
You will die protecting Him, no matter what.

Because no one will ever, ever love you as much as He does.

I’ll never forget the first time I met Him. It was about fifteen years ago in Los Angeles, and I was deep in the throes of navigating the truly terrifying waters of overnight fame. I was also suffering my first-ever migraine. (Real, by the way. The fake ones came later.) My boyfriend at the time took me to the emergency room of Cedars-Sinai, and about two minutes after the nurse injected Him (in this case, He was morphine) into my ass, I distinctly remember saying to myself,
Holy shit
, this
is the answer!

Suddenly, the closet walls fell away and I wasn’t depressed or anxious for the first time in years. I can’t begin to express the vast sensation of relief that coursed through me. I felt good and confident and at peace. I was
me
, only much, much better. I even signed autographs and posed for pictures on the way out, much to the amusement of my boyfriend.
Go ahead and laugh it up, buddy. ’Cause my heart no longer belongs to you.

Of course, like any good love story, it took many years for us to finally give in and admit our feelings for each other. I kept Him at bay for as long as I could. But He was so
persistent.
We’d see each other, break up, then I’d give in again, then dump Him. His given name was Opiate, but He went by many aliases. (Which should have been my first red flag.) I didn’t care what name He went by, I’d have known Him anywhere. He was known as Codeine, Heroin, Fioricet with Codeine, Vicodin, Hydro-codone, Hycodan, Darvocet, Percocet, and my personal favorite, Morphine, to name just a few. I adored them all, but I must say I’m
exceedingly
grateful I never ingested either Heroin (a powerful derivative of the opiate), or his rascally, good-for-nothing cousin OxyContin. Because I know with absolute certainty that, if I had, I’d be deader than a doornail. Doorknob? Whatever, I’d be dead.

All opiates, also known as painkillers, are derived from opium, which is extracted from the seeds of the poppy flower. Scientists have created imitators, but I’ve never been a fan. It’s kind of like your boyfriend being suddenly replaced by a robotic replica. (You know, it just occurred to me that when Dorothy was surrounded by all those poppy flowers, she wasn’t forced to fall asleep, she simply had a good, old-fashioned heroin nod. See? I knew there was a reason I always liked that witch!)

Back to my point. I’ve talked to many people about painkillers, both drug addicts and the knitting/love/work addicted. This is a purely unscientific study, but I’ve discovered that drug addicts and the knitters have completely different experiences when they take painkillers. Almost all of the knitters said they had pretty much the same experience. The drugs made them feel kind of nice for a bit and helped relieve their pain, but they mostly just experienced itchy skin, constipation, and nausea. Most of them said that they were happy and relieved to stop taking the pills. A few admitted they liked to save one or two to have later with margaritas and I knew I’d be seeing them in a church basement at some point in the next few years. But have fun, “knitter.”

Now, the reaction of the drug addict’s brain is just slightly different. It goes a little something like
Yes! Yes! Thank you!!!!
This
is what I’ve been waiting for all these years. I finally feel
normal
, I finally feel
happy
! MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE . . .

And that’s what makes me suspect that addiction might just have a little something to do with people’s different brain chemistries. The addicts instantaneously and utterly lose their fucking minds, and I can say from experience that their minds aren’t exactly in a hurry to be found. These people suddenly become just like that guy in your neighborhood who invests in full-out, life-or-death screaming matches with air. Or that woman who insists on wearing six-inch platform heels to work every day and wonders why she’s always in such a shitty mood. Or that construction worker who’s convinced that because he screamed “I love pussy from outer space!” at me, I’ll immediately drop my dog leash and groceries and run toward him as fast as I can, ripping my clothes off on the way.

The biggest problem with being crazy is that you don’t
know
you’re crazy. So, while being asked those questions as I was being admitted to that hospital, I thought nothing of lying, of quickly giving the answers a “normal” person would give. (A normal person with a machete in her tumtum, that is.) I was an expert at both lying and pretending to be normal, I’d been doing both for years. And I most definitely wasn’t crazy. Not one bit.

Soon afterward, it seemed I’d finally worn out my welcome in the ER and was wheeled to the X-ray room. At first I was relieved, thinking I was one step closer to getting that pill or shot or whatever would cure me (along with a boatload of painkillers with three refills), so I could leave this hellhole and go home, where I could scream as loud as I wanted to into my pillow. The surly technician, who had clearly excelled at the same school of bedside manners as the ER nurse and the paramedics, refused to believe that it was physically impossible for me to bring my knees down from my chin. He kept insisting, saying it was the only way to X-ray my stomach area, and I kept telling him, “No, no, please, no, I can’t do it, I swear.”

But he’d obviously gotten wind of what a loud asshole I’d been in the emergency room because he wasn’t putting up with my nonsense. In a decisive move that would have made Heinrich Himmler weep with pride, he cut to the chase and simply
yanked
my legs down with of all his evil might.

Which took me to a place way beyond pain. I can’t believe I didn’t pass out again, but that would’ve been a gift. And people like me don’t deserve gifts.