Twenty-Four Hours To Live

Twenty-Four Hours to Live

By: Steven Broyles

There are countless fictional stories out there where someone receives the news that they have a certain amount of time to live. The amount of time is usually just enough for the main character to travel somewhere to say they were sorry or confess their love to someone they should have told years prior. Bucket lists are checked off and a sense of a completed life is realized. It is emotionally satisfying. In a narrative structure, the device works so well because it provides a time limitation, creating built-in tension in the story. So, the terrible news is issued, and the recipient starts a journey. In the world we all live in, this is only a dream, as reality never quite matches the nifty stories we tell. My particular story is all mixed up and, fortunately, the fated twenty-four-hour news came late. Well, let me explain. Let's start in the doctor's office.

"Did you have too much to drink last weekend?"

"Whadaya mean?"

"Are you allergic to beer?"

"I don't know; I've never drank beer."

The doctor's incredulous pause left no doubt that he was not taking me seriously from there on. But it was true. By the age of twenty-three I had never had a drink of alcohol. I knew the smell of it. Kids had come to school drunk all the time. Beer and pot. The smell of both was repulsive to me so I never developed an interest. The same with cigarettes. Of course, I had grown up suffering from asthma, so the idea of purposefully inhaling smoke was not appealing. I had seen friends come to school with a strange vacant look on their faces. Their speech was slurred, and, in one case, they did not recognize me. It was frightening. So, no amount of peer pressure would convince me to participate.

I never wanted to be the guy who brought his car into the shop, only to be told the problem was that my car was out of gas. Doctors are the same. So, I get it. They are going to ask all the basic questions, the answer to which will solve at least ninety percent of the problems that walk in their doors. In other words, they want to make sure there is gas in the tank before they order a complete engine rebuild. Getting past these basic questions though would be my greatest frustration. My fuel tank was full. My battery worked. What could possibly be wrong with me? I tell the doctor that it feels serious; as in, not normal. He looks down at his watch. I look on the wall at his nicely framed large medical degree.

"Are you feeling any pain or discomfort right now?"

"No. But..."

"On a scale of one to ten, rate the pain when it is at its worst."

"Eleven." Word of advice: Joking during a medical evaluation is another way to not be taken seriously. "Ten."

"Any nausea?"

"Not with the pain, no."

"So, you have been nauseous before?"

"Yes, in my life, I have been nauseous." Again, with the joking! "Just, not with this pain."

More questions followed. The routine exam revealed nothing abnormal. I was a young man. I was strong. I was healthy. I was not currently experiencing any pain. Assigning degrees of severity to a patient's condition, especially compared to other patients, is called triage. It is a medical decision-making process by which doctors decide who gets the most care and when. I have never taken a course, read a book, or even an article on the subject of triage, but I know what happens when an otherwise healthy young man says his tummy hurts; no one gets excited. Hang nails get put ahead of you.

But my doctor de jour must have felt the need to do something. So, he did. Oh, yes he did. He pulled out a plastic tube about ten inches long and the size of a twelve-gauge shot gun. It is known as an anoscope. Its main purpose is to scare the patient into feeling better. It goes in the place where you only want things to come out. And, for a moment, I really thought I felt much better. But this needed to be settled, so here we went. As uncomfortable as the next three minutes of my life were, I prayed he would find the source of my pain and prescribe a cure. Done and done. But all he found was more of a very healthy young man. The next step was a barium x-ray of my intestines. This was great because there was no tubing involved. It was bad because I had to swallow barium, a liquid slightly thicker than a milk shake, yet slightly worse tasting than radiator fluid. The radiologist then takes a hundred pictures or so as the radiator fluid moves through the digestive system. Long story, short. I was a strong, healthy young man. During the next two months I grew weary of being called a strong, healthy young man. I prayed for someone to please tell me I was sick. And better yet; why was I sick? My body had been telling me I was sick for quite a while; the challenge was getting a professional to agree.