the plot thickens (but fails to clot)
July 15th, 2007 by Lawrence David
this whole bleeding escapade was really poorly planned. going to the hospital effectively ruined what i had been looking forward to throughout my thesis proposal/shingles-racked summer: a trip to LA to see my cousin get married, followed by 3 weeks of backpacking through thailand, cambodia, and burma. my disappointment in missing those trips officially cinches this summer’s title as my “worst summer ever.” (even worse than that summer my mother enrolled me and my younger sister in a baptist day camp, where we had to compose skits about noah’s flood and play kickball in a basement with 8-foot ceilings.)
still, things somehow got even worse this week, after i was discharged from the hospital.
a little background: christina’s mcat was scheduled for yesterday, the 13th. for those of you who don’t know what the mcat is, it’s basically the most unholy test conceived — a four-hour long exam whose outcome largely dictates what tier of medical school you attend. studying for it took christina 2 months of daily practice exams and reviewing biology and chemistry lectures; the allied landing on normandy probably took less preparation.
already, i put a bit of kink in chris’ study schedule, by going to the hospital the weekend before her exam. the poor girl slept for 2 nights by my bed in the hospital (thankfully, mom came up and stayed with me the next 2 nights, which gave chris a chance to get some real sleep back in our apartment.) i was already worried that the bloody mess i had gotten us into had undone some of her careful test preparation.
apparently, my colon felt no such remorse. thursday night, about 12 hours before her exam, i began to bleed again. (i feel like i should be canonized soon, given all this spontaneous bleeding.) the plot thickens, but sadly doesn’t clot: christina is already asleep and i’m beginning to get light-headed. i had already shed a third of my red blood cells the previous week — additional bleeding is likely unfavorable for little things like remaining conscious or continuing to oxygenate my vital organs. yet, waking christina to take me to the hospital will at the very least leave her exhausted for her behemoth test the next morning. even taking a cab to a medical clinic and leaving a note will likely stress her out and jeopardize her success on a test she’s studied months for. on the other hand, ignoring my bleeding and going to sleep runs the risk of me fainting from blood loss in my sleep. which, of course, is something that might be a bit tricky to extricate myself from …
[two cliche's spring to mind. cliche #1: "talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard-place." cliche #2: "you can't get blood from a stone."]
maybe it was the excessive blood-loss talking, but i made a choice that in retrospect, might not have been the best one: i decided to take my chances and just go to sleep.
epilogue: christina got to her mcat with a mostly clean emotional slate and hopefully did ok. i even drove her, in an effort to prove that i was in good health. of course, that was a slight lie — i was still hemmoraging blood that morning (and probably shouldn’t have operated a motor vehicle — then again, i figured that if i got in an accident, well, i’d probably be bleeding anyway.)Â thankfully, whatever was going wrong righted itself later on friday and i soon stopped passing blood in my stool.
still, even as i write this blog post, i can’t help but worry that some maroon-stained sword of damocles is dangling over my abdomen, waiting to slice back into my GI tract. every ache or even stray muscle contraction in my lower torso has me worried that i’ve broken my merchandise.  dammit, it sucks being damaged goods.
