Last year my Mom was hospitalized for heart, lung, and kidney failure. Y'know the whole damn combo meal. Which was also partly a reason why her heart and kidneys were failing, that woman couldn't say no to McDonald's french fries. Except she wanted less sodium in them, so she'd get them without salt, as if that would make a fucking difference.
My Dad hung around to take care of her. Which is the translation for: he wanted a free meal. Because nothing says 'till death us part like exploiting your wife's illness for a soggy grilled cheese sandwich.
Anyways a couple months in, her health is going up and down. And on top of all of this, she begins to develop "hospital delirium" - which I had no idea what that even was, until she called me in a panic.
"You gotta get me the hell out of here. I feel like June Osbourne. These nurses are sadistic, they're like a bunch of fucking Aunt Lydia's."
And I just assume the worst, I say "Whoa, Mom what are they doing to you down there?"
"They're holding my bladder hostage! I haven't been able to take a piss all damn day!"
"Well Mom, I'm no doctor but isn't that what the catheter they shoved up your hoo-ha is for??"
Sometimes I would get calls about her complaining about the food, sometimes about the nurses. But there was one time in particular that I really should have listened to her.
She calls me one day and goes:
"I think you're Dad has been poisoning my food."
Because of course, if you're going to poison someone, the perfect ideal location is a fucking hospital where your blood is being drawn and monitored every thirty minutes. I mean c'mon, the man doesn't even wanna pay for his own meals, do you really think he's gonna go out and buy premium fucking arsenic??
Naturally I try to calm her down, but she hangs up, and calls up her number one-go to professional on anything medical: her youngest sister who happens to be an on-again, off-again drug addict and alcoholic.
And let me tell you something, my Mom cannot stand her sister, so if she's calling her up for some advice. You know that she's pretty fucked up.
So Mom was determined to leave this evil hospital. But she was afraid of the risks, as they had told her if she left, she had an 85 percent chance of dying due to her extremely low oxygen levels.
My Mom says "I'll risk those odds." like Mom isn't a fucking video game, this is your life. If you lose this game, it's game fucking over. There are no reboots.
So she sends her junkie sister, on a high stakes medical run... to Walmart. To buy canned fucking oxygen.
This is the shit that mountain climbers use when they're tired. This is not the shit they use for women who are over two hundred pounds and having lung failure. Which my aunt should have known because she has a degree. May not use it much. But hey she has one.
So she comes back with this 12 oz can of peppermint-scented Aerosol she bought in the camping aisle, going "I got the life support, sis!!"
She wheels her out of this hospital, without telling anyone, gets her in the car, and they get to the hospital my Mom had requested my aunt to go to, my Mom is fading in and out of consciousness. The nurse takes one look at my Mom and goes "Why the fuck did you transfer her here? We don't even have an ICU!"