At 40 days off cigarettes my back and ribs hurt me so much that I couldn’t move and for some reason I decided that I needed to see a chiropractor.  So I went to see one, had an exam, took a ton of x-rays, got an adjustment and was told to ice my ribs and come back the following Monday.

Well, that night I couldn’t get out of a chair I sat down in.  I tried to lie on the floor thinking it might help and instead it made things worse.  I called my mom and asked if she had anything really good for pain and I made it through the weekend with Norco and Valium.  Monday my sponsor took me to a real MD - and a few x-rays later he shot me up with antibiotics, wrote a scrip for others, along with another scrip for Norco, and sent me across the street to a radiology lab where I had a CT scan on my 40 day smoke free lungs.

It was too late in the day to get the darn thing read so I had to return the following morning for the results.  When I did I was given clear instructions that they were waiting for me in Admitting at St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center.

At the very least I had pneumonia - and they presumed PCP.  Oddly I’m still HIV-.   I assumed they would wheel me into a room and throw a gown on me and an IV and I’d be done in a few days.  Instead, the next thing I remember I was in recovery from surgery and had tubes sticking out of my side along with some sort of pump that was keeping my lung inflated.  I don’t remember being in any pain as I was attached to a bottle of morphine.

The fluid wasn’t coming out fast enough I suppose, because after 2 days of that I signed something and woke up several hours later in ICU with a 14″ incision across my back and bruising across most of my ribs, front and back, and the information that parts of me had to be removed. I want to sue that fucking chiropractor who looked at chest x-rays of me from 3 days before and didn’t send me to a real doctor.

I am out of the hospital now for several days but I am in so much pain that I can hardly describe it to you.  I’ve also gotten the first hospital bill - not the surgeon or anything else mind you - and it looks like  the hospital stay alone was over $23.000 - and I feel like I want to die.

This doesn’t seem right.

I son’t be able to even drive - like to go to work - for at least 2 more weeks according to the orders.  I live paycheck to paycheck (mostly) and I haven’t had one in 3 weeks now and have had to rely on family and friends for groceries and telephone service . . . .

I’m trying to remind myself that “this too shall pass”.  At the moment though, honestly, I wish I would have died.  The longer ago the better.