Both Less and More Bionic than Before

My time in the hospital was kind of a blur. The light grew and faded over and over again--like a tide that washed in and out of my small bay of a room.
I tried to read. Tried to memorize my lines--but everything is so hard to hold onto when you're being held by the warm, foggy blanket of narcotics.
I was there four days.
Andrew came to visit me. Carl. Ashley. Amy and Clark dropped by in the middle of the night and I thought it was a dream. Renae and Cory came several times--so nice. My mom flitted in and out. I don't think she likes hospitals.
They moved me to the sixth floor on the second day. That night there was a man yelling in the room next to mine all night long--but he seemed so far away that I barely lost a wink.
They took seven screws out of the left side of my ankle, and kept two in on the right. And the plate of course. It looks like some sort of shallow strainer spoon--polished silver and full of holes. The sort of souvenir spoon you'd get from visiting a colony on mars. They gave me the jingling artifacts in a plastic ziploc bag with a label that said: "Hardware--left ankle"
Apparently, some people try to sell used implants on the internet to people in third world countries who can't afford new. But not to worry. I don't plan on giving anyone else my infection any time soon.
I'm feeling much better, but the bad news is, they're worried about the wound becoming infected again so they sent me home with an IV pump.
Yes, a pump. I will be attached to a clear plastic bag full of Nafcillin via a battery-powered pump that I will have to tote around with me all the time, everywhere I go. It will be pickling me with antibiotics round the clock for the next six weeks.
My fridge is now stocked with said bags of antibiotics--a new bag every day.
I will change out the plastic tubing that is now attached to my arm every three days, and once every five days or so, a nurse will come and put a new hole in my veins for the medicine to flow in through.
If the flow were reversed on my pump, it could quietly and efficiently drain me in a matter of hours. Luckily, I don't think the pump comes with that option. I'd hate to think that I was secretly attached to a robot mosquito--you never know where they've been.