No. 274 – About a Girl

Performer: Nirvana

Songwriter: Kurt Cobain

Original Release: Bleach

Year: 1989

Definitive Version: MTV Unplugged in New York, 1994.

When I was sprung from St. Joseph’s Hospital in Flint, sans one gall bladder, in March 1994, I was taken to my Uncle Tom and Aunt Martha’s place in Okemos, Mich., to recover from my surgery.

Going to Okemos meant that I would be out of work for a second week. It also meant I would have to run up a pretty big bill at The White Horse when I got back as a token of appreciation to the other copy editors who took up the slack during my absence—maybe even two big bills. I couldn’t worry about that. My first order of business was to get healthy.

At Aunt Martha’s, I was given full access and free run of their basement. A bed and full bathroom were downstairs, and after unpacking and hanging up some clothes, I jumped into the shower.

This was an event. I hadn’t showered in almost a week. I’d had one hand shower in the bathroom in my hospital room after wheeling in my IV stand and one sponge bath (not from a superhot candy striper, alas), so I was feeling pretty gamey.

I’d also lost a lot of weight. I was shocked when the dial on the scale in the bathroom stopped at 164. My normal weight at this time was around 180; I hadn’t weighed 164 since I was in junior high. That’s what not eating solid food for a week can do for you, I guess. I stepped in the shower, and I’m surprised any hot water was left after I stepped out. I can’t tell you how much better I felt with a week’s work of funk off me.

Then it was dinnertime. I don’t remember what everyone else had; I had beef bullion. I wasn’t allowed to eat solid food for a week, and at the hospital, I was fed intravenously most of the time. The last day I was there, I got some ice chips.

The beef bullion was the first non-water food I’d had since the previous weekend, and I’ll tell you what, it might as well have come from the kitchen of Charlie Trotter himself. It was about the best thing I’d ever tasted. I’ve never enjoyed bullion as much as I did that day. Afterward, we watched the Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, which was one of Tom’s favorite movies.

That night I slept in a bed with clean sheets in a quiet, dark room, not being interrupted every two hours or so by nurses and doctors wanting to check on me and with no people dying around me. What a difference-maker that was.

A hospital is where you go when you have to have a major problem taken care of, but to quote Richard Pryor, a hospital is no place to get well. My health felt as though it improved more in one day at my Aunt Martha’s than it did the entire time I was at St. Joe’s post-surgery. After one day, I felt as though I was fully recovered.

I wasn’t of course, and the rest of my time in Okemos was more of the same—a lot of relaxation, solitaire playing and listening to tapes on my trusty Walkman, including my bootleg tape of Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged performance.

My improvement the rest of the time wasn’t nearly as dramatic as that first day had been, but it was constant. I appreciated that Tom and Martha opened their house to me for my recovery. In the end, I had to admit it was better than being by myself.

One day, Dad and Granddad drove up from Columbus to check up on me, which was nice. Another day, toward the end of my stay, Tom, who is a huge Michigan State fan, took me to see MSU beat up on Indiana on the hard courts. I hated Bob Knight, so I had no problem rooting for Sparty.

I also had my first real food at the end of the week. In all honesty, I can’t tell you what it was. I’d like to think it was a huge steak, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. Everyone was conscious about my fat intake now that my body no longer had its fuel-injection system to tackle something like that. It probably was chicken, and I’m sure I loved it.

At the end of the week, Martha took me back to Flint to see my doctor, and he gave me a clean bill of health and the freedom to drive again, which meant the freedom to resume my life. I took off for the weekend to Columbus, and I couldn’t wait to get back to work. March had come in like a lion, all right, that year.