I'm Not Quite Dead Yet

During my hiatus from blogging I found myself in the Emergency Room or the ER to the cool kids.  Don't worry, I'm fine, thanks for asking...you did ask right?

Picture it, 1980 something, a small town in Western Massachusetts.  There's this dumbass kid whose parents are going out for the night and he wants to know when the babysitter is coming over.  The babysitter lives across the street from this dumbass kid and the dumbass kid thought it would be a good idea to go across the road and find out for himself.  Well, this dumbass kid decides to hang off of the 6 foot flower box on the picture window to try to get the said babysitter's attention.  After a few jumps, the flower box comes crashing down on the dumbass kid and long story short, he is puking up blood and gets a complimentary ride in an ambulance to the hospital.  Yeah, the dumbass kid was me.

While in the hospital, they noticed I only had one kidney.  In the 70's they didn't use ultrasound often so they never caught that I was born a mutant.  So after a week long stint in the hospital, I was released with some serious restrictions that I was supposed to follow the rest of my life.  Things like, no contact sports, drink shitloads of water, no outdoor adventures, no touching, no breathing, you know things like that.  The biggest was no contact sports or rough housing because they were afraid I would lose my remaining kidney.  Fair enough, I'll sit around playing Nintendo while my friends are outside, playing...yeah that didn't happen.

My friends all knew about it, my teachers and Scout Leaders did, my coaches, everyone.  I was like a fucking X-Man minus the cool abilities and a bald dude in a wheel chair.  I was the kid with only one kidney.  My friend's parents didn't know what to do with me when I went over their house.  Some wouldn't let me step outside if it was slippery, some didn't know what to feed me, I was like a Mogwai, don't feed it after midnight, don't get it wet and don't expose it to bright light.  My entire life I only had one kidney and had to be careful.


I didn't start this blog post to tell you that story.  Like I said I went to the ER last year for a pain in my kidney.  Normally I would suck it up but I don't fuck around with the one kidney, especially now I know there is kidney issues in my family, so I called the Trophy (remember her?).  She told me to go to the ER and met me there.  There I was laying in bed, freaking the fuck out, thinking that I played a contact sport or something and my original doctor was right, I should have been bubblized, that's when I heard it.

"Where the fuck is the fucking doctor?"

Oh, I don't know..maybe he's helping out the 50 other people that came in.

Then it hit me, what if I am wasting the doctor's and nurse's time, what if there are people in here that need more medical attention than me.

"Tell the doctor this is my fourth time in this week and he still ain't figured out what's wrong with me."

Nope, I'm not wasting their time.  That waste of plasma is.  I'm here for the first time in 20 years.  She's got a frequent flier card.  What the hell man?  Maybe I should start being a hypochondriac and use the ER for my drug addiction and to comfort me when I have the sniffles.  Nah, I'm too nice for that I guess.

By the way, I'm fine, I had severe gas and come to find out I actually do have two kidneys, the one that was "missing" just doesn't function.  38 years and no one told me this?  Oh well, life goes one, just watch those contact sports.