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Show Yellow Bed The ambulance has arrived at the ER. Me, once again on the bright yellow gurney, expelled from the warmth of the ambulance and rushed into the night chill through the automatic doors, paramedics on either side. Overhead fluorescent tubes marking the path like lights on a runway. Whizzing past the other patients in the waiting room who were remarkably able to find their own way to the hospital, them staring at me, maybe envious at my faster service, maybe scared for themselves as I mirror their possible future. But staring at me, nevertheless, their eyes following my twisted and contorted shape rushing by, trying to make sense of what they are seeing. Then in the white-walled room. Paramedics telling the nurses to BE QUIET. Most people have no idea of the noise of life. "Use the PortaCath! I have no veins. Find someone who knows how to access the PortaCath!" That's me trying to talk. No one seems to listen. Maybe they can't understand me. Maybe they understand me but just don't believe me. Maybe they think they know more about this rare disease and my body than I. They continue to prod my hands and arms and then my legs and feet for a vein. My heart tattoos salsa rhythms in my ears too fast for any dance. I cannot gulp enough oxygen. Suddenly my back arches too far back once again for twenty incomprehensively breathless seconds then violently releases forward impossibly fast, abdomen rock hard, pulling and pushing the upper body forward and backward like a hammer, stiff, from the waist, wrists locked next to face, fists clenched, |