Overnight in Emergency... and then a bed.

"So, did you try to kill yourself?"

No audible answer. It's eleven at night and these words issue forth from under the curtain next to me.

"Did you try and hurt yourself?"

Still nothing I can distinguish.

"There's nothing we can do for you here, we're going to release you. OK?"

No one has come to visit this person. I've already had plenty of company.

At this point I'm glad for the Ativan the nurse offered me. Emergency rooms are not for sleeping, and if you manage to pull it off without sedation or other chemical assistance you're a real trooper, or a three-toed sloth.

I turn to my side on the stretcher, cover myself, position my IV so as not to kink it, and trust the drugs to guide my sleep.

I've already been through my meeting with Doctor Bruce Ritchie and his horde of cohorts, and learned that I will most likely be losing my spleen. I have also been issued a massive dose of steroids - a thousand milligrams of Solumedrol, a liquid that they blast through the IV in order to disable the immune system, in hopes of slowing the death of blood cells. In comparison, Prednisone, the other immune-system disabling steroid I will soon be taking, is considered a high dose at 100mg a day. Turns out I'll get 3000mg of steroids in my first three days.

And at 150ml an hour, the Solumedrol burns the wrist and leaves a wickedly bitter taste in the mouth. And after the steroids, the doctors and the suicide watch next door, the first day is over.

When I wake, it's to a tech taking more blood. Nothing like leaving flannel sheets and a down comforter at home to be jabbed by a needle in the early hours in an unfamiliar place.

I check the clock - 7 am. I wonder how long I'll be in emergency. I'll be told later that the U of A hospital has run at 110% capacity for the last decade. That just might factor into how long it takes to get a bed.

I get sent for a x-ray, and by the time I get back, I have a bed. I'm immunosupressed and they don't want me catching any diseases in the emergency room. A porter wheels me up to a post-operative surgery ward, which has nothing to do with my condition, but it's a spot, somewhere, and not in the emergency room. And it's.... snug. I'm in a room considered "capacity", where a semi-private room normally with two beds has been issued three - with me on a stretcher in between two patients. It's about wide enough for the stretcher, and I bang my legs on the bed next to me when I swing my legs over.

Although I'm only with them a day, my infirm companions are amiable despite the circumstances. Being post-op, they're in pain and discomfort.

To my left, a man who has had part of his anus removed due to Chron's, and on my right a man with bone cancer. I'm definitely in better shape than these guys.

Vanessa shows up later.

"Jeremy's sending a laptop."

"What, you didn't ask him for one, did you?"

"No, I called to tell him you were in here and he just offered."

It turns out I have some golden friends... and this will be revealed more as things get heavier.