City and Colour - Sleeping Sickness

When was it? It was still cold outside, I remember that. Maybe late December or early January? He sat over me as I tried to open my eyes and wipe the sleepies away. He couldn't stay long, but it was just enough. I spent that day in bed; couldn't eat, couldn't even stand up. Having to go to the bathroom was few and far between and swept aside like a homework assignment I could just procrastinate until the next morning. That night they brought me to the hospital. We parked across the street from the Emergency Room in a No Parking Zone, but the sun was setting and the sky was a fading pink that night. I didn't change my clothes for the occasion, my Mom basically carried me to the door. We sat there for hours but it felt like a few minutes in my dreams. Finally I can move into the next glass-enclosed room where the bored nurses get to ask me uncomfortable questions in front of my parents. "Are you pregnant?" I'm a virgin, fuck you very much. Back to the basics. "What's your weight?" 120? 125? I'm not sure. Let's get on the scale just for kicks. 112. "Do you eat on a daily basis?" This goes on for only another half hour until they send me behind a curtain where there is only a plastic bed and hospital robe. Strip. After a blood test, they wheel me through big white double-doors where the winding hallways creep outward like the roots of a great redwood tree. Technically we're underground but that's not the reason it's so cold all of a sudden. I get a room all to myself and after waiting for an hour, I finally have four sad hospital blankets wrapped around me. I have to pee. Mom wheels me to the bathroom down the hall for all to see. She comes in with me and I feel pathetic, but cannot even stand up without her help. Nothing. Nothing happens. Wheel back to the room. Get under the covers. Get out from under the covers and go back to the bathroom. Nothing again. This happens at least 7 times more before the doctor arrives. They don't know what's wrong. Cool. My parents watch me sleep for three hours before my Dad has to go home to take care of the dog, do some paperwork and get himself dinner. I wake up and he's there. "Didn't you leave?" Yes, and he came back with Wendy's for my mom. The doctor comes in and tells me I'm dehydrated and they're putting two bags of water in me through the IV. I always saw it sticking out of my Pop Pop's wrists, but never in my wildest dreams thought they'd stick out of mine. I finally knew how Chris felt and I was only there for 5-6 hours. I snapped at the nurse, didn't pay attention to the doctor and felt so angry towards my parents for not taking me home when I repeated how much I just wanted my bed. "Get me out of here" I said to him. He came the next morning, too.