ALLY:
I woke up at home. Last I remembered, I was in recovery with Dr. Moon, Trish and my parents. My throat was still hurting and I felt the need to throw up again. I went to the bathroom and just retched in the toilet. Trish ran in as if a hurricane was coming.
"Ally, are you OK?"
Now my throat was killing me. I said hoarsely,
"I'm fine. I just felt the need to throw up and I had a stomach ache, and my throat still hurts."
I took my toothbrush from my cup and filled it with cold water. Shit. I was so stupid that I drank it way too fast and I felt the need to retch again. I knelt in front of the toilet and threw up and saw a bit of dark red blood in it. That made me a little paranoid. It suddenly felt like an episode of the creepy ass show Monsters Inside Me, or to be creepy to a much lesser extent, Grey's Anatomy. I said loudly yet in a very raspy voice,
"Trish, why is there blood in my vomit?"
She seemed surprisingly calmer than I'd expect her to feel right now.
"Don't worry, Ally. According to your surgery summary that Dr. Moon gave me, that I think you should read when you get the opportunity by the way, it said throwing up and nausea, as well as scabs and mild bleeding are normal for the first two weeks. Let me see your mouth."
I asked,
"Are you sure, Trish? My breath is really, really bad."
Trish gave me a smirk.
"Ally, I might be scared of germs, but I'm not scared of a little halitosis."
She grabbed a tiny mirror from the cabinet.
"Yeah, you got scabs and they're a bit bloody. But if they were bright red or bleeding profusely, I'd take you back to the doctor."
I saw her go to the sink and wash her hands.
"Now let's see if you have a fever."
She put the digital thermometer under my tongue. It beeped in literally two seconds.
"Ninety-nine point seven. Not so bad, but if it's one hundred one point six, you need to see the doctor immediately. Now go lie on your bed, you're still sick, and Dr. Moon said you needed rest and fluids."
I complied with my best friend. I laid down in the comfort of my pullout couch bed with everything I could possibly need if I was sick. Warm blankets, a small basket of books (Reading, next to music, was my second favorite thing to do in my free time. My favorite book sets were Twilight, Sex and the city, also I was quite a fan of the TV show, The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Divergent and the LA Candy series as well as novels by John Green, Charles Dickens, Rainbow Rowell, Kiera Cass, Sarah Dessen, Gayle Forman, oh hell, I could go on. I had always loved to read books, and right now, I was reading The Scarlet Letter, again. It was just so well-written), my iPhone, the TV, the remote and the netflix remote. The feeling of being sick was an asshole, but hey, at least I was occupied, and at least I didn't have to be quarantined. Because that would be scary on so many levels, not to mention not fun.
I picked up the recovery rules and read them. They had some of the symptoms that I might experience every now and then and when to call the doctor again and how to recover properly. Trish came over with a cup of tea for me.
"Here, Ally, drink this."
I said,
"Thanks, Trish."
I gently took the cup from the tray and took a sip. She remembered the honey and lemon, plus chamomile was my favorite flavor of tea. It was very refreshing. She came back with a glass of red. I coughed into my elbow and asked,
"Is there ever an inappropriate time of day to drink wine?"
Trish said,
"Meh. I never drink it with breakfast, but I love my wine! But, you, Ally, on the other hand, shouldn't drink at all until you're better."
She said that to me as if she was talking to a child. I laughed a little, but not too much because it could hurt my throat and cause me to go into a coughing and hacking fit. I coughed a little and I croaked,
"Trish, sometimes I think you use the fact that I'm sick as an excuse to treat me like a three-year-old."
She said,
"That's true. Sometimes it's fun to treat you like a child. But still, Dr. Moon said to stay hydrated. So after you've finished your tea, have lots of water."
I said,
"Yes, Nurse Trish."
Trish said to me,
"By the way, are you horny for Dr. Moon?"
I was kind of horny for my new doctor. He was in my league, he obviously had a good job and he was smart, nice and caring. But you really shouldn't tell your friends about your thoughts of libido.
I said,
"No, but I want to be more than just his patient. He's smart, caring and in my league. Why would you think I'm sexually attracted to him?"
Trish smirked.
"Granted you were on anesthesia, but you were making comments about how you wanted to have sex with him, how you wanted to make him hard and how you hoped he got erections from you."
I was shocked. I had always thought of myself as asexual. Was it weird that I was twenty-two and still a virgin?
"I said that?"
Trish said,
"Uh, yeah. But then again, Anesthesia plays tricks on your mind and makes you say nonsense."
I said,
"Well, I do have a crush on the doctor, but that doesn't mean I want to have sex with him just yet."
She smirked.
"OK. Whatever you say. I lost my virginity to Jace in sophomore year at Leah Carter's stripper themed sixteenth birthday."
I said,
"I know you did."
Jace walked in, with a black Jackass bag.
"Hey, babe,"
he said to his girlfriend. They kissed on the lips. He glanced at me.
"Hey, Ally, how did your surgery go today?"
I said,
"I think it went OK. But I have occasional spells of nausea and my throat still hurts."
"That's normal, Ally. When I was about seven, I had to have tonsillectomy. In the recovery process, I had nausea, throwing up and my throat hurt and was bleeding occasionally. But it should take like two weeks to heal. By the way, Trish told me to get you some ice cream at Safeway and I got some, just let me put in the freezer."
I went into another coughing fit and croaked,
"Aww, thanks, Jace. That's very sweet."
He smiled,
"Well, what else are friends for?"
But he was holding another bag. The bag was white and had a red and yellow picture of the lobster guy from Futrama and in red and yellow letters it said, It's John F%!#N Zoidberg.
"But it looks like you came home with more than ice cream."
Jace laughed.
"Yeah, I did, Ally. I also bought you some cans of chicken noodle soup, and in the mailbox and you got some cards."
He went to the kitchen and put the ice cream in the freezer and he put down his Futurama bag and lifted out lots of cards. They were from my older cousin Hayley Dawson who was twenty-seven and living in Austin, Texas, my paternal grandparents in Omaha, Nebraska, Hayley's parents, my paternal uncle Tom and his wife Miriam, Hayley's younger brother, Nathan (we called him Nate) who was twenty-four, my other paternal uncle Mark and his wife Lily, Mark's sons and my cousins Ben, who was thirty and Conrad who was twenty-seven, and was from my maternal grandparents in Colombus, Ohio where my mom was born and raised, my maternal Uncle Dennis and his husband Neil (Yes, my maternal uncle was gay) and my maternal aunt Sally and her husband, David, and their son and daughter, twenty-five-year-old Max and twenty-two-year-old Emma. They had obviously seen my posts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and clearly their hearts had just gone out to them. I opened the cards, and as expected, they were get well cards. I opened the first package from Hayley, and I opened it to find the DVD boxset for Downton Abbey, series one to five, which was my favorite TV show when I was in my teens. I had watched every episode, and it was like crack, or any other kind of addictive drug.
Also high on this list was Glee, Modern Family, Friends (Because Trish and I were so like Rachel Green and Monica Geller, except I never dated her younger brother JJ), Castle, Reign, Supernatural, Seinfeld, Sherlock, Big Bang Theory, Game of Thrones, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Special Victims Unit, Vampire Diaries, 2 broke girls, Grey's Anatomy and Scrubs. I opened the next package, from my cousin Nate, which was a jar of vlasic dill pickles (Pickles were my favorite snack). I opened the one from Uncle Tom and Aunt Miriam. I got gift cards to Gap, Bath & Body Works, iTunes, Old Navy, Piperlime, , Victoria's Secret, Macy's and JCPenney and really sweet get well cards. This was definitely a perk of being sick- being spoiled.
I asked Trish,
"Can you get me some envelopes, a pencil and stamps?"
Trish said,
"Oh, yeah. Sure."
She got me the stuff, and I wrote thank you cards to everyone. I was so grateful that they were thinking about me. I had been very ill for days and they obviously cared. Of course, I wasn't spending them until I was all better.