Sarcoma in the Key of E

Woke up late last Tuesday

Had a hospital to get to

Made a plan, started the van -- then

I found out I had more wakin' up to do.

The road was twisty and turvy,

my mind was filled with fuzz,

I missed a turn, my tires started to burn

then a CRASH! and the van met the trees.

The following day, L. drives us to NYC,

I get weaker and weaker on the way,

we see the doc, hit the hotel to rest

and my fever rises up past 103.

Over urgent care we merrily go;

it's a place that's easy to enter

but awful hard to get let go.

Five shots to the hand and they draw

my blood (it looks the same as before).

The chest X-ray reveals a minor horror;

not collapsed lungs, I laugh at those,

but a pneumonia -- and no fool laughs at those.

We're "admitted" they say, but there is no bed,

so my fabric cubicle will have to do.

I curl up and collapse for what seems an hour,

then am interrupted by doctors 1,2,3 and fo'.

Fo' is great--a major break--a man I know so well,

he waves his hand, writes a script and back to the hotel I go.

Things are normal for a while,

then gets to be time to leave,

we take a cab to get our car,

all is great, all is well

'cept our luggage is gone, possibly halfway to hell.

L. calls the taxi commission,

she visits the cops,

but it's Sunday -- and no one stops.

We find a crappy place to spend the night

then finally good news, all right!

The valets at hotel 1 made a mistake

(perhaps our bag gave them a head fake?)

and left our suitcase on the sidewalk.

Now the bag is back and we are ready to

sleep the night. I have high hopes for the mornin' --

and not a little fright.

****

Lessons learned:

1) I can sustain this medium (barely) for a verse. It's just as well that I forgot about the chorus, believe me.

2) Or wait, maybe it's not a bad blues song! Maybe it's a bad poem, hence no chorus! (The fact that it could be both or neither confirms that it is bad if nothing else.)

2) I am exhausted and it has been a horrible and dispiriting week. I'll try to talk about this in a real way soon. For now, I hope it will suffice that the pneumonia is very small and the fever hasn't recurred since we started treatment.