I don’t know how it happened. I wasn’t a crew member of the Nostromo and if I had a facehugger, no one told me. If you are my friend, please know, I would want you to tell me if I have spinach in my teeth, my fly is down or if a facehugger has taken a shine to me. The short-term embarrassment is nothing compared to the long-term consequences.
"You sure there isn't anything on my face?"
Well, anyway, I had an alien in me. It was the only explanation. I had sharp pains right below my sternum that weren’t going away. Rather than wait around for my little chest-burster to make a surprise appearance, I went to the doctor to see if we could narrow down the due date. As expected, I was sent to get an ultrasound.
I told the ultrasound technician that I didn’t want to know the sex because all that mattered was that it was healthy and had two mouths. She just murmured something about the gel being cold and went to work. I thought she would have been excited to do a scan of an actual incubating alien, but she was stone-faced. I suppose after a few years in the biz, you’ve seen it all.
My doctor got the results of the ultrasound the next day and promptly sent me to a surgeon. Apparently, my little guy was breach and wouldn’t be bursting out on his own, so they would go in after him. Surgery was scheduled for the next morning.
Around this point in my pain-induced haze, I noticed that they were referring to my alien as “gall bladder.” I just figured this was for security reasons and to keep the media in the dark. These doctors were savvy.
So, Friday morning I check into the hospital. Thanks to my back surgery a couple months back, I knew what to expect: poking, prodding, millions of questions, leg squeezer things, “this will help you to relax,” “slide on over to this table,” oxygen mask being lowered, bye-bye juice pumped into my vein and the world going black.
When I wake up, my alien/gall bladder is gone. I feel a pang of remorse that I didn’t get to say good-bye, but I knew how these things worked. Some government black-suit whisked my alien away to a secret bunker in the desert where it will be sealed in a glowing green tube of liquid. I can only hope that he’ll remember me when the mothership returns.
I had bigger problems to contend with, however. The Percocet they gave me for pain made me feel like I was starring in a completely different movie.
"I think it was something I ate."
Before we called a young priest and an old priest, my husband called my doctor, who told me to, duh, stop taking the Percocet. I got some nausea medication and was down graded to Extra Strength Tylenol for pain. That was Monday. Last night I ate my first full meal – a sandwich. My stomach actually recognized it as food and digested it. This morning, I finally feel like a human being again.
I go almost thirty six years without being treated for anything more serious than a sinus infection. Now, in the first few months of 2011, I’ve had back surgery and my “gall bladder” removed. I feel like a ticking time-bomb. I know better than to ask “what’s next?” so I’ll just hope that I can get a few months of peace before my next hospital visit.
"Nurse? Can I get more ice chips?"
