Triggering the Kraken

The Kraken inside me erupted during the night of 10/10 - 10/11, I'm ashamed to say. 

After my knee replacement, they woke me up! So rude - I just wanted to sleep. Anyway, the late hour of the day, my nausea, and low blood pressure necessitated an overnight stay, which I wasn't too happy about.

Did I have a sense of foreboding, perhaps? What they call their 'short stay bay' is a series of tents side by side, in my opinion. It's mostly a curtain, with just enough wall to accommodate their machines that need plugging in. No sound blocking or dampening attempted. 

I came equipped for sleeping in a strange place though - headphones, earplugs, eye mask, CPAP machine, and a meditation download. BUT none of it helped! The meditation was 3 hours long, full of calming thoughts and images and cosmic sounds but it was useless. Nobody in 'tent city' was considerate enough to lower their voices, or try not slam metal cabinets shut, or respond to beeping machines. It overwhelmed the calming, even voice of the meditation. 

Then around 1 a.m. the woman in the next door 'tent' decided she was ready to try her walker up and down the walkway in between our curtains. So it was scraped across the floor, unfolded and placed down emphatically to ensure it was fully unfolded, then she thought it was time to share her family history with the nurse on her back-and-forth travels. Her decibel level alerted me that she might be deaf, so the nurse was also talking loudly in order that she was heard. There was absolutely no attempt to talk in hushed tones - I think they thought they were going for an afternoon stroll after tea to catch up. 

I lost it. I pulled the assistive devices off my face and shouted, "How is anyone expected to get any sleep in here?" No response, no change.

I started listening to my audiobook, but still the noises came punching through - a person being checked in next to my bay had to answer a ton of  questions, the beeping machines had to get hooked up and multiple plastic bags opened, metal tools were placed on tables, cabinets were opening and shutting. Aaargh. In the meanwhile the old dear next door was still connecting with her nurse and the man down the hall couldn't stop coughing.

My nurse came in to give me some pain meds and a Kraken arose from within. It was ugly. I asked why people couldn't be more considerate - didn't they realize this was a glorified tent city, and they were disturbing everyone. Plus it was way after 1 in the morning - when was it going to stop? I showed her how I was doing my part by trying to cover all bases and orifices in my head - what more could I do? I said I'd a good mind to call my husband to come and take me home (and I'd still get more sleep than I was now after the traveling). 

Oh man, that Kraken had been stewing for a while, and was full of poison. When the nurse asked what she could do (why did I have to do the problem-solving, the Kraken thought), I said she could simply point out that they were being inconsiderate and could try talking in hushed tones instead.

I must have fallen asleep briefly sometime after that, because I recall waking and thinking it was probably 6:30am, but horrors, it was 3:30am on the same day! So here I am writing it all down instead of sleeping. 

Here's what the leg looks like, (they 'had to' shave part of my leg) and it's been walked on already! 

But now that's behind me. I'm walking again and home, where I want to be.