R.I.* and I were very close friends when we were children. Many decades have passed but, a glimmer of that childhood connection remains. We occasionally see each other on holidays or at other family gatherings. We usually talk about basketball teams. Once or twice over the past forty years we have talked a little about his ongoing struggle with alcohol.
Not long along I heard that R.I. had a life-threatening emergency that involved an uncontrollable nose bleed. I called him on the phone to find out what happened. The circumstance was not funny but, his unique way of telling the story was certainly funny to me.
After a couple of basketball comments I said, "So. R.I., how's your nose?" He offered the following detailed response which I have attempted to capture verbatim.
WARNING: If you are offended by profane language, stop reading this now (and by all means avoid my cousin R.I.).
To my knowledge, R.I. has not had another nose bleed since the surgery. I may send him three or four yards of gauze just in case. *Lots of people in my family, besides R.I., use initials rather than complete names. We have had A.W, J.O., J.J., J.D., and O.D. (No, O.D. did not die from an Over Dose.)You won’t believe this shit but my goddam nose started bleedin' like a water faucet so my wife had to drive my ass to the emergency room. When I got to the hospital they stuffed my fuckin’ nose with a bunch of gauze shit. I mean they must a stuffed three yards of that shit up my muther fuckin' nose - both fuckin' nostrils. So I had to lay there with this shit stuffed up my nose for 24 hours before they came back to take it out. But when they took it out, they didn't take it out of my muther fuckin' nose. The bastards pulled it out my muther fuckin' mouth. They stuck some metal thing in my mouth and then they pulled this nasty three yards of shit through my muther fuckin' mouth. I thought I was gonna puke. So at that point, I thought at least the assholes had fixed my muther fuckin' nose bleed and I was gettin' ready to go home. Then what the fuck! My muther fuckin' nose starts bleedin' like a faucet, again. This time the doctors stuff it up with another three yards of that shitty gauze but, then they tell me that they are gonna need to fix my goddam nose surgically. So then I just wait in this boring ass hospital bed for three or four days while these dumb muther fuckers try to figure out what the fuck they're doin’ and how they can make the most money doin’ it. Finally, a doctor comes in and says, "Sir, we're gonna have to cut an incision across your face, around your eye brow, and down the side of your head. It will leave a significant scar." I said, "Fuck! I don't give a shit about a muther fuckin' scar but, I want to know what time are you gonna operate ‘cause I have been lyin’ here for days goin’ crazy. You people have just been makin' me wait around like my time don't make any fuckin' difference. Well, time does matter to me so I wanna know what time are you gonna operate?" So the fuckin’ doctor says, "Sir, we will schedule the surgery for tomorrow." I said, "What fuckin' time tomorrow?" The doctor says, "In the afternoon." I say, "What's 'afternoon' mean to you because to me it's between 12:00 PM and 5:00 PM." The asshole says, "Yes, that sounds about right." I said, "I want you to tell me what fuckin’ HOUR you’re gonna operate and if you don't come within one HOUR of that time I'm gonna walk my ass right out of here." The asshole doctor says, "I'm sorry but, if you leave, Sir, your insurance won't pay for any of this." At that point I just stared at that muther fucker and said, "I sure as hell hope you don't think I'm gonna pay for any of this shit." So finally the muther fucker agrees to show up on time. I went outside to smoke a cigarette and think about whether I was gonna have this fuckin’ surgery or not. I decided I didn't really have any muther fuckin' choice. So they operated. They cut this big ass incision on my face and then moved my muther fuckin' eyeball over to one side so they could stick some big ass prong inside my muther fuckin' head to seal off the vein that was bleedin'. But they could only seal off one end of a vein that was bleedin' and couldn't reach the other end.
So they had to cut a muther fuckin' hole in my groin and stick some wire all the way up into my muther fuckin' head to seal off the other end of the vein. I still can’t believe it but, the goddamn thing worked. I don't know why they had to cut a new hole in my groin right next to my asshole which they could've used. After the whole thing was over I kept wishin’ that the muther fuckin' doctor had to stick the wire up his own fuckin' groin to get it into my head.
