"What a surprise to the caterpillar, when the call to be quiet, contemplative and still, results in the ability to fly."

oh, yeah;;

Since sometimes things are best expressed in a blunt, perhaps crude manner...
Tonight scared the shit out of me.

I had nearly forgotten that my lungs were diseased. I really dislike that word, disease(d), so instead, I'll refer to my lungs as being held hostage by a mutant defect living on chromosome seven.

So, yeah, I forget.

I forget the drab hospital furniture, the food trays that get placed on my bed thrice daily that I eat from while feeling sorry for myself for scarfing down prison style breakfast/lunch/dinner on my bed, by myself, with my TV for company and my IV drip on sloooow.

I forget the drug reactions, the chest pain, the nausea, the headaches, the insomnia, the goddamn, and I really mean THE GODDAMN, constant, erratic beeping of the IV pump at all. hours. of. the. night.

The overeager-to-please intern at six in the morning. The team that rounds bedside at eight. The chest physical therapy at nine. Etc, etc, etc, for fourteen days.

It blissfully floats away from my mind the second I feel that dopey high from my signature on the discharge papers.

Tonight, however, I coughed up about a pint of blood.

BOOM.

I remembered every goddamn (GODDAMN) detail.