Back to main Creative Writings page > I Bruise Easily Sgt. K When they told me I had pneumonia I thought no problem, stay in the hospital for a day, get some antibiotics and leave. As the medicine flowed into my body I thought I was finally going to be well again, after being sick for ten months. I lay there in the emergency room of one of the finest hospitals in the country, surrounded by curtains blocking off faces of doom, despair or grief. I tried to close my eyes for a moment but the drunk to my left kept crying he couldn’t feel his lips and the girl on my right was advertising she had four abortion but was upset that she was losing the baby that was inside her this time. Actually I felt that nothing bad could happen to me while I was in the middle of the latest installment of bizarre ER. But I became unnerved when my past medical history was taken again and again. I literally asked if they were writing down what I was saying. They knew I was nursing a four-month headache and I couldn’t breathe, they knew it was very difficult for me. I could only speak one or two words in between breaths and I was starting to get very aggravated. As the ICU was calling on the intercom to speak with the doctor on my case, I thought everything was fine. They have a bed for me in the ICU because I had a pretty bad case of pneumonia; it was about time I got the royal treatment. The flight nurse stopped in and asked numerous questions and then a hematologist looked at my newly bruised arm and asked if I bruised easy, I said no. I got a glimpse through a small opening in my curtain and saw four doctors looking at my chest x-rays. They are probably all new students, this is a teaching hospital, and they had never seen a case that bad before. Soon after the blood bank was on the intercom asking for the doctor assigned to my case, but that wasn’t too much of a problem because I was sure it was procedure. I was sure of it. I had just closed my eyes when she, the intern who needed to learn some warmth, walked in. I didn’t like her the first time I spoke with her and I knew my feelings toward her were not going to change. In a matter a fact way, with no warning, no family nearby, with no look of concern, she told me I had Leukemia. I told her no. She told me yes. I told her I had pneumonia, she was wrong. That things got all screwed up and she was a student, I needed a real doctor to talk to. She told me to calm down; the conditions were such that I could have a stroke any minute. I looked at her and told her strokes were for old people. I concluded I could not have leukemia because I couldn’t spell it. Then I remembered the mistake. I told them I had just had three blood tests in the last six months. Last summer I had a bone tumor in my leg and I showed them the scar. I told them they had taken the tumor out and then had to do reconstructive surgery on the leg and filled the hole left behind with cement. And since the cement got into the bone marrow, my white cells had attacked the cement and that was why I had so many white cells, They are the infiltrator fights I told them. If they didn’t believe me they could look up the records because I had the surgery done in this hospital. Well the nerve of these doctors, they didn’t even consider what I was telling them. So I pulled the IV out, put on my clothes and went home to get copies of my blood test. While I was there I put down a lot of dry cat food for Merlin and Morgan, my cats and a big bowl of water. Just in case, because I might be there for a while explaining to the doctors. I then decided to call my brother to take me back to the hospital, he would help me explain this whole mess to those doctors. When I walked in they had a bed waiting and I hesitantly lay down. I took the blood test results out of my purse and clutched them in my hand ready to throw them to whoever I saw first. As I closed my purse, I saw my star pinned to the inside of my wallet. I concluded that I could handle this problem: why not, I handle everyone else’s problem, I am the police.