Superman

"Sasha I have to go to the hospital." I said, stuffing things into my bag. Sasha rolled over and groaned. It was clear she wasn't going anywhere.

I had been up since five am taking the powerful laxatives prescribed for me by the Gastrointestinoligist at Chiang Mai Ram Hospital. I sat in a chair in front of the TV, drinking water and making frequent trips to the bathroom, while watching Leonardo DiCaprio in The Beach. I still don't get the attraction. Dawn came and with it the local songbirds who sound like they are auditioning for a Tarzan movie.

When I got to the Hospital they took my blood pressure, temperature and weight for the third time in two days. Everyone I dealt with asked me about allergies, hypertension, diabetes and previous hospital experience. I admired the redundancy. They were a team.

They put me on a gurney and took me to the OR. I was put on an IV drip. The nurse, a sweet little Asian with too much skin whitening cream and expertly plucked eyebrows, told me it was to feed me. I hadn't eaten since the day before as ordered.
"If you need anything you tell me." she said.
"What's your name?"
"Nuuuung."

They brought me into surgery where Dr. Lee was cat-napping behind his desk. He woke, smiled and offered me his hand.
"How are you feeling today Khun Rene?"
"Sabai di, Kuhn Lao?
"Sabai di."
Nuuung came over and stuck a needle into the IV.
"What's that?" I said.
"Make you sleepy."
"No but what is it?" I persisted. Dr. Lee's face loomed over me. It looked like a big yellow sponge.
"Like a sleeping pill." He said.
That was the last thing I remembered.

I woke with a start. I looked around at the other patients in the recovery room. All of them in green hospital garb. All of them wearing green hair nets. All of them in various states of wakefulness, like me. I looked at the clock on the wall. Two and a half hours of my life had been erased. I had a pretty good idea of what had happened during that time lapse but I didn't remember any of it. Now I know where Aliens get their ideas.

Nuuung came by and asked me how I was doing.
"What's your name?" I stammered. My tongue felt thick in my mouth.
"You forget me?" I could tell she was smiling because the corners of her surgical mask were pointing up. She wheeled me into the doctors office. He was napping again.

He showed me a video of my colon. He gave me a guided tour pointing out the landmarks.
"See, nothing, nothing, nothing."
"What about the pain?" I had this little pain in my gut now for a decade. It never really hurt that much, but it never went away either. Last year at Chiang Mai Ram I had had a battery of test including ultra-sound. All of them came up negative. Still I had dreamed up a black knot of cancer festering inside of me. With the colonoscopy everything was crossed off the list.
"Probably nothing, come back in ten years." Dr. Lee advised.

To satisfy my curiosity he showed me what a cancerous polyp looked like. The lining of the patients colon was dark and splotchy. Mine was as pink as the Olson Twin's nipples.

The Doctor and Nuuung insisted that I go home in an ambulance. The attendant wheeled me into the elevator and took me down to the main lobby. He escorted me to the cashier where I settled the bill for my personal Fantastic Voyage. It came to a whopping $225. The teller asked me if I had any insurance.
"No." I smiled. " I'll just put it on my card."
As I waited for the ambulance to pull up Sasha magically appeared.
"I had a feeling that you needed me." she said.

I was in a daze for the rest of the day. I had a big breakfast of bacon and eggs and pancakes to celebrate my youthful intestines. Later we went to Kaed Suan Kao to see Superman. It was dubbed into Thai. Superman was invincible. He soared into the stratosphere then drifted back earthward, Christ-like. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.