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| The needle in the arm makes me think of her I.V. |
Fuck.....this one is personal.
Today mark a very serious anniversary for me. More specifically, it’s a very serious anniversary for my mother that almost could have been fatal if it happened much later. Why? Because on the 2nd of December, 2015, my Mom went into the hospital.....for Diverticulitis. For anyone not familiar, it’s an intestinal disease that go for the folds/nodes in your intestines, and depending on when it’s caught, it either just needs to be purged from your body at best or operated on at worst. I’m getting ahead of myself.
Prior to this, she had be having abdominal for a few weeks. It seemed to me that while it hurt, it wasn’t the most crippling. Thanksgiving that year she didn’t enjoy it as much, as the pain got worst. Finally, she had enough of what was going on, and was taken to the hospital to be checked up on. The doctor said there was nothing apparently wrong, so she left the hospital (along with my Dad, who took her), but just after she left one of the medical technicians came running up to her, and said that she had to be admitted immediately. I wasn’t with them, as I was left home to keep an eye on the place. A few hours later, my Dad comes home without her, and there was some part of me that immediately thought she was dead. Luckily, that wasn’t the case, and he sat me down to tell me everything. That she had the disease, what stage it was at, and how long she would be in the hospital for (Essentially 1 week), and in a sense I was relieved.
Yet I wasn’t. My Dad went to work & after work visited her, and for all of that time I stayed home to keep an eye on it & take care of it. However, I was cleaning the house practically that entire week in an almost obsessive manner. Seemingly random things I was cleaning up, but anything to take my mind off of what was going on. I wasn’t feeling good during that week, and at one point I had a desire to drink for the sake of getting exceptionally drunk. Again, I wanted anything to take the pain away of the fact that I could have lost her.
Fast forward a few days, and it’s the day before she came home. I hadn’t visited her yet, but it was this time that I did. A family friend of roughly 3 years by that point picked me up from the house, and took me to the hospital, as my Pops was there before me. I was taken up to the room where she was.....and that kinda fucked with me more. The room itself was nice, but then I saw her. She was in that stereotypical green hospital gown you see, and had the I.V. in her arm with the fluid she needed. The funny thing was that she wasn’t hooked up to the standard heartbeat monitor like you see in a lot of medical shows, but instead a smaller one that was on the pole with the I.V. bad. Yet, that same beeping sound I heard.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
We were all in her room.....and I heard that sound.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Mom was in quite a bit of pain for practically that whole time, which is why I never heard from her until that visit.....and I heard that sound when I saw her.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Luckily, we all went out of her room, and into the small visiting area not far away, and that was a bit better. All of us were talking about stuff that I can’t recall, with Dad & the family friend on one side, and me & Mom sitting together on the other side. At one point, I was just drowning out everything, and practically clung to her like a lost toddler at a grocery store. I held her arm that didn’t have the I.V. in it, and didn’t let go until she was sick of it. Luckily, she wasn’t annoyed, as she kinda understood what I was feeling. After we were at the hospital for a few hours, Dad & me left for home.
It was the day she came home, and I was left home again. I didn’t do that much cleaning that day, but I did setup our small metallic Christmas Tree in the living room, and put 2 water bottles underneath it, since the doctors said that she needed to drink a lot of fluids. I remember the smile she had when she entered the front door, and saw the tree that was lit up. She was home, she was alive, and I still had my Mother. Yet, I never forgot the sight of her in the hospital. The gown, the I.V., and the beeping from the miniature heartbeat that, on days where I feel particularly sad.....I sometimes hear it.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
However, this isn’t just how I felt at the time. This was also about the thing that might have saved me from doing something stupid to myself during then. That’s right, it was Sodom & their 1992 borderline Death Metal album, Tapping The Vein, that stopped me in my own tracks, so considering this something of a mini review. Where as when my Uncle Randy died, I needed a mixing of upbeat & soul-crushing music to get me through his death, but Mom? No: I needed something dark, I needed something bleak, I needed something nasty. Tapping The Vein is gory, grungy, dirty, dingy, dark, violent, and incredibly unrelenting in just how much it can crush you. The instrumentation was some of the heaviest they’ve ever done at the time, and Tom Angelripper’s vocal work is some of the harshest it’s ever sounded. There are times where it’s hard to tell when it goes from Thrash Metal to Death Metal, and vice versa, & if you aren’t the biggest Death Metal fan the album may not be for you. However, if you are at the bottom of your personal barrel, and you need some kind of sound that reflects that feeling, then this music is for you.
And back to our regularly scheduled program in a few days, which is thankfully a lot more pleasant!
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If any of you would like to listen to Tapping The Vein, there’s a link right below:
Tapping The Vein
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Also, if you would like to learn about this disease in more detail, click on the link below:
Diverticulitis (Wikipedia)
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