After reading tons of comic books in my computer I was about to sleep at 2am when I experienced sudden, gnawing abdominal pain. This happens a lot, and I suspect cancer, or a trapped, live fly like the one in Drag Me To Hell. I couldn’t sleep, I writhed and writhed on my bed and hoped that I would die (exaj). I felt like someone was… dragging me to hell (just have to use it, again). I tried placing my warmed palms on my abdomen, I tried all sorts of position, but damn pain wouldn’t go away. I even tried some chakra whatever method—back in med school some alternative medicine person told us that you could remove the cold from any organ by acting like you’re taking something from that organ using your hand, and throwing whatever you took at some nearby organic object. For instance, she cited that someone with severe abdominal pain had thrown the invisible pain at some plant, and in a few minutes the pain was gone. The next day the plant had wilted and died. There was no plant in my room, so I threw it on the floor, surely there must be some dust mites there or something.

It didn’t work. I continued contorting in pain. I vowed that no matter what happens to me I would never go to our emergency room. So finally I popped open a vial of Tramadol, and to my chagrin the only syringe I have is the largest 10-cc syringe. No way am I stabbing my atrophic deltoids with that giant needle, so I resolved to insert it on a vein on my left hand using my right hand. Now I have large hand veins, and I am quite good in inserting needles into patients’ veins, so without even tying a tourniquet on (although it would have been quite dramatic to tie one with a hand and my teeth), I poked my largest vein and pushed the drug. Bulge. I yelped like a moron and pulled out the needle. I poked a different vein. Bulge. I yelled a loud “DAMMIT!” not in a cool Jack Bauer voice but with the whiniest voice on the planet. The needle was losing its sharpness and there was already some aspirated blood in the syringe so no way could I inject it intramuscularly now. I tried for the 3rd time on a different vein. BULGE. “P#T@!!!” I yelled. I threw the syringe away. By this time abdominal pain has left me spontaneously, laughing mockingly as she drifted away. This is why I could never be an IV drug user—I’d waste drugs worth thousands of pesos on painful missed insertions. That, and the gangrene on Jared Leto’s arm in Requiem scares the crap out of me.

Categories: Blogs