Hard to Kill

When I arrived in the waiting room on the gurney, I noticed a familiar body in scrubs looking at me through Coke-bottle glasses. 

“Hi Ron,” I said.

“Hi! Do you want some of my ginger ale? It’s really good!” 

“No, thanks. That’s alright.”

The EMTs unstrapped me and I shuffled to join Ron in the worn out row of chairs lined up across the wall of the dimly-lit, linoleum hospital basement. The security guard leaned back in his rolling chair as Ron turned to talk to me, his eyes like those of a goldfish through his lenses.

Ron and I had been in the same unit in the ER and had been transferred to the same hospital a few hours apart. We both wore blue paper suits and grippy socks and I was wrapped in a thin linen blanket. As we sat there, eating animal crackers, he told me that he had been hearing voices that told him to kill himself. He also informed me that he works as a landscaper but used to work making pizzas. He loves fried clams and he lives with his aunt. I told him that I have been struggling with obsessive-compulsive disorder since I was young and that I used to work at a restaurant that made really good fried clams.

After a while, the nurse came in and ushered me to another room, where I filled out paperwork and she snapped my photo with a digital camera. Then the doctor met with me. He spoke through my case summary quickly as I nodded along, then leaned back and clicked his pen on the table.

“So as far as thinking your family is aliens in human suits, that’s a thought very typical of schizophrenia and this is the age where psychotic symptoms may start to become present.” 

“I see. I didn’t think of those thoughts as being real, though.”

“Well, time will tell whether this is severe OCD or pre-schizophrenia.”

I ambled out to the waiting room and was sandwiched between Ron and another schizophrenic patient, probably around twenty or so like me. He was very friendly and we exchanged several fist-bumps, but he kept worrying that we were conspiring to kill him.

Eventually, the nurse came downstairs from the unit and gestured that I should come with her. “I hope we’ll be on the same floor!” said Ron cheerfully as I left.

“Yes!” I replied, knowing we wouldn’t be.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Cassidy is a large animal veterinarian obsessed with horses who paces the halls and makes jokes to distract her from her hyper vigilance, chronic pain, and PTSD. She draws makeup on with Crayola markers and makes snowballs out of pillow stuffing which she throws at me. She talks at me non-stop and tells me that I’m her saving grace in the ward, but she doesn’t know that she’s the same for me and the reason I felt comfortable enough to speak at dinner on the first night.

José is a hopeless romantic who stays in his room all day except to eat dinner, watch TV, and smile sweetly at everyone. He told me that he used to run a poetry account when FaceBook was first launched, but he had to shut it down because it made a lot of women fall in love with him. He loves Pablo Neruda’s poetry like I do.

Miranda has a nose piercing and dirty blonde hair and stays in bed all day, doing word searches and propping herself up to bask in the sun when it’s bright out. As her medications begin working, she starts to sleep less during the day and does more art. 

Tanisha mumbles and has occasional moments of lucidity. She asks me if I think we are safe here and if I can hear the screaming that she hears. I tell her that yes, I think we are safe, and no, I can’t hear the screaming. She starts to think I am surveilling her, so I ignore her the rest of my stay so as not to provoke her. 

When Jordan was 18, he was smoking crack and having sex with a 30 year old woman who eventually turned to prostitution to support their habit. He had been working as a coach for other addicts before he relapsed. On his first day, we hang out and play guitar together while he tells me about his addiction and recent breakup and I tell him about my OCD, struggles with my identity, and musical journey.

Sasha is an addict who entered shortly after me, was discharged, and came right back, looking worse than before. She laughs like it’s painful and mostly eats the ice cream and cakes and jello that we have for dessert.

Deirdre is the nurse who tells me that I need to reach down inside myself and pull myself up.

Sandra is the nurse who tells me that I have the look and the talent to be a singer, I just need to be patient and care for myself.

Nicole is the nurse who calls the doctor when Ziprasidone makes my throat close up and gives me a Benadryl that makes me breathe again.

Amanda is a Chinese immigrant in her 50s who fell for a scam and became suicidal as a result. On my third day, she sees me crying in the hallway and I tell her, “I feel like I’ll never get better.” Her gaze casts downwards and her eyes start watering too. We stand there, holding each other up, and she confesses, “I’m crying a little bit for me.”

At dinner, she asks me for help on her word searches and shows me videos of her cat and her daughter. Every evening, we go on our supervised walks together around the backyard, arm in arm as she tells me about how she met her husband, how she loves potlucks and Chinese-style poker, and how she hopes that her daughter will find a husband. She asks me about my music taste and can’t resist interrogating me about whether or not I have a boyfriend. 

We get discharged one by one, but for a while, it goes on and on like that. We color in the Thanksgiving mural on the dining room table and make origami frogs. We talk about our favorite books and films and sit in the gazebo in the yard and listen as one of us cries about our father. We hold onto each other and onto life. And we walk in the light of the moon with sirens in the background and the lone rabbit hobbling away from our voices as we nurture the love that makes us so hard to kill.