Tuesday, 7 AM

The screams echoing in this hallway remind me of how primal we become in pain.

I haven’t slept in 24 hours and I can’t, really. I try but then nurses come in and yank on the overhead light and stick me with needles and I can’t do anything but lie here. They took me for a CAT scan at 3 AM and the bright, fluorescent lights of the hospital basement are burned on the inside of my eyelids. I'm hungry and my thoughts float to chicken. I haven't eaten a lick of real food since Sunday evening. These IV bags full of suspiciously colored nutrients do not fill me up the way a KFC Double Down might.

It’s daylight now, and the sun is streaming through the windows and curtains.

I know I will fall asleep eventually and I know I’m exhausted because I’m obsessing over weird things, like where I’m going to get my haircut when I bust out of this joint. I decided in the bathroom mirror I need a cut and color, like immediately. (How have I been walking around with hair like this? Disaster!)

I am practicing yoga breaths and trying not to wonder why this is my fourth stay in less than a year.

My parents will be back in the city by noon and I have good, kind friends who will visit. I love them for it. But in the middle of the night, in the middle of this experience, I am alone. And at 5 am, I just think I want someone to put their hand on my back. I think I’d be able to sleep then. A big handprint on the small of my back.

Thinking about it both comforts me and makes me cry.

So instead of crying (because I don't do that) I will play my embarrassing lite music hospital playlist and try to sleep some more, to breathe in and out and ignore the sounds and smells of this experience.

Update: They just brought my food and it's various liquids designed to fill the belly of NO ONE. Seriously, are they kidding with this? Tea? Strawberry gelatin? IT'S NOT EVEN REAL JELL-O. I wonder if it's against hospital policy to barter small, useless items found in my purse for microwaved cafeteria eggs.