Being A Burden

Being A Burden

The Emergency Room

Philadelphia, PA

October 2006

We sit in the emergency room on a Sunday night.  The doctor gives us instructions. I am given a heavy dose of painkillers to alleviate my excruciating pain. It appears as if I might have gout in my right foot. I don’t care what I have; I just want a foot amputated so that the pain subsides.

Trisha, my sister, tells the doctor that I can tolerate a lot of pain. So, my behavior tonight, she tells them, is an indication of how bad I feel. The doctor agrees to increase my pain dosage but only if I assure him I will not spend the night alone at my house. Trisha must volunteer to take me to her house for the night. She agrees. The doctor hands me a Percocet. I tell him I will take it later, when I am comfortably at home. But he demands, for liability issues, for me to take it in his presence. Begrudgingly I comply.

Trisha goes out to the parking lot and brings her car to the front of the emergency room. I am wheeled out to her and gingerly shoved in to the front seat. And off we go. We pass my house, my car, my place of work and head to her home a half hour way where I will spend at least a day or more as I recover. While I would have preferred to be home, I am grateful for Trisha’s care.

The medicine seems to kick in almost immediately. The pain lessens somewhat but I don’t care now. A new sense of joy and peace has infiltrated my well-being. I am happy and content and sense but I will be well soon.

Patricia on the other hand seems agitated. “Do you know today is?”, she asks me in a demanding tone.

 “No”, answer in my spacey state of mind. “No, wait, it’s Sunday, right?”.

 “No,” she replies, “today is the first day for the rest of your life that you become a burden to me”.

 I laugh uproariously and so does she. But I look at her with a critical eye; the truth hurts.