The anti-victim's guide to not falling apart

A true story of grit, absurdity, and staying sane when life goes fully off-script

"Today is a good day for a nightmare," I thought to myself last Thursday, as the world had the audacity to look stunning—one of those smugly beautiful days that practically yells, “Let’s frolic!” knowing full well you’ll be spending it indoors watching someone drool on their hospital gown while high on prescription-grade horse tranquilizers.

I swung around the corner of UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica to pick up my partner, Nick, who had just undergone major oral surgery—by which I mean a team of professionals had legally drugged and temporarily silenced the man I love.

Naturally, I prepped some very important philosophical questions like “Does time move forward or is it just doing jazz hands?” Hoping he’d open with a cabaret number.

Like a golden retriever with more pizzazz than a bagger at Trader Joe’s—he’d never been happier to see me.

He must have accidentally popped a red paintball in his mouth—one filled with theatrical-grade stage blood as it was now oozing out like molten wax, dribbling tragically onto what clearly was his favorite shirt.

We had barely pulled into the driveway when he started clutching his stomach and groaning like a man who’d just eaten an entire rotisserie chicken in one sitting—but, you know, spiritually. Which was odd considering the surgeon had pumped him so full of painkillers to last him through Memorial Day.

Fast forward three days and he was grumpier and no better off. At this point, we’d come to the conclusion that his painkillers were, in fact, Harvard grads with limited life experience currently staging a peaceful protest somewhere around the junction of Large Intestine Interstate and Colon Avenue. They weren’t relieving pain so much as holding handmade signs that said things like “End Gut Oppression” and “This Is What Democracy Feels Like.”

So, to give those overeducated painkillers the reality check of their lives, we took them to the realest place I know: the UCLA Nethercutt Emergency Center. A name that sounds faintly like a Dickensian orphanage, but operates more like a DMV staffed by sleep-deprived demigods who’ve lost the will to triage as time caves in on itself.

The waiting room had that same peculiar energy as my high school graduation—where you could immediately tell who had places to go this fall and who had just sort of wandered in from the ether and decided to stick around.

One man was passionately informing anyone within earshot that yes, he did have a job entertaining boardwalk crowds, and that his current absence had caused untold disruption in the local juggling economy. Another woman appeared to be wrapping up her federally allotted number of people she was permitted to scream at before midnight.

We tucked ourselves quietly into a back corner, doing our best impression of background furniture, and silently praying that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde skimming the room wouldn’t take an interest in us.

Hours pass and the bouncer finally ushers us backstage through a series of beige double doors and finally a windowless Hall J where old Mr. Champa treated us to an exclusive performance using his outdoor voice to count to 1,000 in Thai. Thank goodness because I doubt we would have noticed the passing of time otherwise.

Meanwhile, our nurse—a man with the weary confidence of someone who had, at some point, written his dissertation on “Human Chaos and the Quiet Art of Not Giving a Damn” glided in with the composure of a seasoned flight attendant announcing turbulence during a nose-dive.

He was probably someone who kept a Swiss Army knife, four batteries, a laminated CPR flowchart, and a single Werther’s Original in his sock “just in case.” So when Nick began writhing and groaning like a haunted cello, he simply nodded as if this was the moment he had trained for his whole life.

With a flick of the wrist, he connected the IV pain meds like a man defusing a bomb. Naturally, this diplomatic bypass infuriated the protesting Harvard grads occupying Nick’s lower intestine. They had not been consulted. So they launched into a six-hour silent academic revolt somewhere near the spleen.

But no matter. The meds worked. Slowly, with the reluctant grumble of a bureaucracy realizing it had no choice, Nick’s GI tract began to stir.

Nurse Michael began our discharge paperwork with the same no-nonsense precision he’d used to kickstart Nick’s rebellious intestines. That’s when we noticed a lanyard peaking out from under his ID.

Turns out, he was an ex-Marine. Of course he was. The man had the bearing of someone who could perform a tracheotomy with a pen and still be five minutes early to his lunch break.

We went home grateful for the care. And honestly, grateful for his service—both to the country and, more urgently, to Nick’s lower digestive tract.