I'd like to think that I was the one who was making my boyfriend's heart to flutter, but since I'm not a superfluous AV node in the left ventricle, that's not the case.
I stepped off the bus at 6:45, and made my way to his room. By 7:15, I had made my way up the fifth floor, west wing. Seeing that the sign on the door said "Family Only," I got worried. I also got sent to the waiting room. Fortunately there was a Katherine Hepburn documentary sort of a thing on. Not that I was about to pay much attention, but it was nice that it was there. The sofas were comfortable, too.
Around 7:45, I got a phone call on my cell from my boyfriend, who will from here on out have the moniker of Heart, for obvious reasons. It turns out that he asked for no visitors except for me (his family had come and were long gone), but the nurse put up the wrong sign. The ugly bulldyke lesbian. I had been waiting for in the waiting room for a half hour for nothing.
Because no one will understand (hell, I'm not completely sure I understand, either), I won't go into specifics. I will say that he is partially better---maybe. They weren't able to fix the thing that was wrong with him, but they were able to fix some smaller things which could counteract the effects. Those smaller things could also be what had kept him from dying for the past five years. They can't really tell if that was a good thing or not until he, you know, has a heart attack or something. He can't even be put on medicine, because if the operation was a success, the medicine would do things that are bad and complicated-sounding.
Three different doctors and two nurses stopped by while I was visiting, and all of them asked if we were brothers. We shrugged and said no. "Oh. You guys sort of have a family resemblance. I would have guessed that you were brothers." We didn't realize what they were getting at.
When visiting hours ended two hours later, we got it.
I asked if I could get a pass to stay for a bit longer, the bulldyke lesbian nurse replied "Oh yeah--family (wink wink) is allowed to stay overnight, if they feel it's necessary. Just take this note down to security, and they'll give you an overnight pass and you can stay as long as you'd like."
Well, what do you know? For the first time in my life, I met a bulldyke lesbian I DIDN'T want to punch in the face.
And so, until midnight or so, I got to do the sickeningly sweet thing of getting into his hospital bed with him and cuddle while watching Comedy Central. All the tests and checkups that had happened until 9 curiously immediately stopped, and I came back from getting my overnight security pass to find that the shades had been drawn. That could either be a time thing, or it could be the meaning of the bulldyke lesbian's second wink, I'm not sure. But I do know that my visit was the best thing that had happened to him that day.
At least, that's what he told me.
