Behind the curtain

At Mt. Auburn last night, the guy in the curtain next to me was getting stitches in his eyelid after taking an elbow to the face during a racquetball game. He and his wife laughed at the idea of a scarred eyelid, giggling because he’ll have to slather his eye with sunscreen this summer. Across the hall, a woman moaned in abject misery. Her pain seemed intimate and I felt like I was intruding on a private moment even though my curtain was closed and I couldn’t see her at all. The nurses kept getting on the intercom and asking for housekeeping to come to room 10. I was glad to be in room 2, fall away from whatever needed to be cleaned up, but I felt silly for being there in the ER, taking up room and attention when there were clearly people who needed it more.

I took my first kickboxing class last night. Layla Ali I am definitely not. I did discover that the only thing more humbling than taking extremely silly looking phantom punches and kicks in front of total strangers is coming down with a UTI in the middle of an aerobics studio. It’s right up there with peeing in the basement bathroom of the Porter Sq. CVS, though slightly more public. So off to the ER I went (my doctor doesn’t phone in prescriptions, which is very frustrating). Watching Scrubs in the hospital definitely isn’t as much fun as watching at home, especially when I’m squirming around and waiting desperately for the pyridium to kick in. Thank god for pyridium.