I walked into her house and the first thing I heard was, “I can’t find my shirt!”

It was the morning of Carla’s minor surgical procedure of having a large mole removed from her abdomen. Because of her extreme fear of needles, the doctor had prescribed Valium for her to take before, along with a numbing patch so she couldn’t feel the numbing shots. When I arrived to pick her up, I knew the Valium had already taken over.

“I can’t find my shirt, Em. I don’t know where it is. I looked in the dressers and the closets and the washing machines.”

“But you only have one closet and one washing machine.”

“But I looked everywhere!!! I don’t know where it could be!”

I went upstairs to her bedroom to find her a shirt. She wanted a black one. Upon opening the dresser drawer, I found two black shirts. “No,” she said, “I don’t want those shirts.” I asked her what kind of black shirt she wanted then. “This one!” she exclaimed, holding up a different black shirt. Good. She was finally dressed and we could head to the doctor.

I got in the driver’s seat. She got in the backseat. I asked her why she was sitting back there. “Oh, it’s too far to walk around to the front.” Yet the whole ride there, she sat in the back making obscure observations about the back seat. “It’s very spacious back here!” “It’s bumpy back here.” “I’ve never sat in the back seat before.” “If we were in an accident, I am much safer back here because it’s so much further away than the front of the car.” I asked her what would happen if we were rear ended. “Well, then I’d be screwed.”

When we got to the doctor’s office, she did a fairly decent job checking herself in, but refused to sit by me, instead, plopping herself in between some old ladies. She turned on her iPod, Zoe, and tried to sleep, counting on me to wake her up when the doctor called her name. The doctor came out for her and she got up, dragging her feet. The doctor asked how we were. Carla didn’t respond. I said that I was fine and Carla was drugged so please forgive her.

I will go ahead and put in a great word for Carla’s dermatologist at Central Ohio Skin & Cancer. Both the doctor and her assistant were incredibly caring and did everything they could to ease Carla’s concern and, believe me, there was much. I videotaped the whole thing so please check YouTube for that coming up shortly. 🙂 It will be amazing. I was so intrigued by it all and thought I was really growing in my stability around blood, but suddenly, when they were doing the stitches, I got really queasy and almost passed out. I stopped videotaping and sat in the corner with my head between my legs. I knew they were too busy with needles to worry about me so I calmed myself down with some deep breathing.

All in all, once I got her back to her house and settled in, I went to mine and took a short little nap before going to work so as to regain my strength. There are about 100 other quotes I could give you of stupid things that Carla said while on drugs, but I’m too tired right now. I will just go ahead and say though that it was hilarious. I spent a lot of time laughing, even while they were cutting her skin open.