DAY 2 THROUGH 6 — AND THEN THE BATTLEFIELD CHANGED
There are certain phrases you should probably never say before going to work.
“This should be an easy day.”
“What could possibly go wrong?”
“At least it can't get any worse.”
These are not observations.
These are summoning rituals.
Fortunately, I had enough experience with Haus Morgenrot by this point to know better than to tempt whatever ancient Mesopotamian deity governs residential treatment facilities.
So I didn't walk into Friday, August 21st expecting an easy day.
I walked in with something better.
A plan.
After Day 1 of 6 had involved random UAs, medication nonsense, group chaos, accountability discussions, luggage, paperwork, and enough metaphorical desert vegetation catching fire that Smokey Bear had probably begun monitoring my location, I had developed my new operating orders.
They were simple.
Be boring.
Verify.
Document.
Don't freestyle.
Listen with interest, not investment.
And above all:
🌵🔥
If the cactus is on fire, first determine whether putting out the cactus is actually my assigned responsibility.
If not?
Damn.
That's crazy.
Anyway.
Friday was movie night.
How bad could it—
Nope.
Not saying it.
I've learned.
THE GERMLIN OPERATING SYSTEM, VERSION 2.1
My basic problem is that I am very good at making other people's bullshit emotionally expensive for myself.
Somebody tells me something weird?
I think about it.
Somebody interprets a policy differently?
I think about it.
A hallway cat appears from a ventilation duct demanding snacks, three towels and diplomatic recognition?
Somehow, five minutes later, I'm conducting an internal investigation into whether I could have prevented the collapse of NATO.
No.
We're not doing that anymore.
The new doctrine was:
Listen with interest, not investment.
That doesn't mean don't give a shit.
It means I can hear what somebody says without immediately loading it into the emotional cargo bay.
Same thing with instructions.
If I don't know?
Don't freestyle.
Ask.
Verify.
Then do what I'm supposed to do.
There is no bonus XP for inventing policy.
There is no secret achievement for solving Haus Morgenrot.
Nobody is going to descend from the ceiling at 9:57 PM holding a golden plaque:
CONGRATULATIONS, MR. GERMLIN.
YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY FIXED INSTITUTIONAL HUMAN BEHAVIOR.
No.
They're going to ask why headcount isn't done.
So Friday's mission was straightforward:
Do my job.
Document what touches me.
Don't chase every hallway cat through the fucking building.
Movie night.
Clock out at 10.
Go home.
That was the mission.
Remember that.
“CAN I GO TO THE BATHROOM?”
One of Friday's recurring adventures involved clients leaving group to use the bathroom.
Now, there are ways to handle this badly.
You can turn yourself into the Bathroom Gestapo.
You can stand in the doorway like Gandalf.
YOU SHALL NOT PISS.
Probably not ideal.
Or you can pretend there is no policy whatsoever and let Free-Roaming Hallway Cat Simulator 2026 begin.
Also not ideal.
The direction I'd been given from the COO/SOD side was essentially:
“While we may not stop you from going to the bathroom, according to the COO and SOD, if you go during group times, we will hold you accountable.”
There.
Beautiful.
Boring.
You want to go?
You're an adult.
I am not tackling you outside the men's room like a linebacker.
But choices can have consequences.
That's the entire transaction.
Jerry: “So we're not physically defending the toilet?”
Me: “Correct.”
Jerry: “Can we install a drawbridge?”
Me: “No.”
Jerry: “Alligators?”
Me: “Jerry.”
Jerry: “I'm just brainstorming.”
And brainstorm he may, but the actual procedure was much less exciting.
Get the name.
Document what happened.
Keep moving.
No courtroom drama.
No five-minute argument.
No personal investment.
Boring.
Which is good, because by the end of that shift I had somewhere around twenty-five fucking write-ups.
Twenty-five.
Not twenty-five paragraphs.
Not twenty-five words.
Twenty-five separate opportunities for me to practice my handwriting while wondering whether the United Nations accepted incident reports as an official currency.
The stack became thick enough that I could theoretically roll it up and defend myself with it.
THE HAUS MORGENROT BOOK OF ACCOUNTABILITY.
First Edition.
Hardcover.
Available wherever fine administrative literature is sold.
AND YET, I LEFT AT TEN
Here's the funny part.
I finished.
Not Haus Morgenrot.
Haus Morgenrot will never be finished.
Long after humanity disappears, some hallway cat will emerge from the ruins at 7:14 PM and ask:
“Can I has snack?”
But my responsibilities were finished.
Approximately twenty-five write-ups.
Groups.
Movie-night nonsense.
Whatever else Friday threw at me.
And I clocked out around 10 PM.
Not 10:37.
Not “I'll just finish this other thing.”
Not “somebody else seems stressed so I should remain here until the sun explodes.”
Ten.
Mission accomplished.
I had done exactly what I'd been trying to teach myself to do.
Handle what belongs to me.
Don't inherit everybody else's emergency.
Clock out.
Go home.
And if the story ended there, this would be a very boring blog post about workplace boundaries.
Unfortunately, my body had apparently read the operating orders and said:
“Interesting.”
WHY DOES MY CHEST HURT?
I got home.
And something wasn't right.
That's where the jokes need to sit down for a minute.
I had discomfort around the lower/right side of my chest that became sharp when I took a deep breath.
There had been some shortness of breath.
My right arm was doing the tingling/numbness bullshit again—the hand, up through the arm toward the shoulder.
There were other weird sensations too.
And my first instinct?
Of course it was.
Power through.
I had just finished Day 2 of 6.
Day 3 was coming.
I could sleep.
Wake up.
Go to work.
Deal with it later.
That's what I do.
Fuck it.
Keep moving.
That's useful sometimes.
I've gotten through plenty of shit because I can put my head down and continue moving when I'd rather not.
But there's a problem with making perseverance part of your identity.
Eventually you can start treating stubbornness as evidence that everything is okay.
Jerry: “Your chest hurts when you breathe.”
Me: “Correct.”
Jerry: “Your right arm is tingling.”
Me: “Also correct.”
Jerry: “And your proposed medical treatment is what?”
Me: “Sleep.”
Jerry: “Fascinating. Where did you attend medical school?”
Me: “Fuck you.”
Jerry: “Accredited?”
I called VA Health Connect.
That decision probably mattered more than anything else I did that night.
I explained what was happening.
The nurse listened.
And the answer was not:
“Get some sleep.”
It was not:
“See how you feel tomorrow.”
It was:
Call 911.
Well.
Fuck.
THE MISSION HAS CHANGED
This was the point where I had a choice.
Not between being brave and being scared.
Not between being tough and being weak.
Between recognizing reality and refusing to recognize it.
I could keep telling myself:
Day 3 starts at 10 AM.
Or I could acknowledge something very simple:
Day 3 wasn't the mission anymore.
I woke my sister.
Packed a bag.
Extra shirts.
Socks.
Underwear.
Tablet.
The basic equipment necessary for the highly prestigious vacation package known as:
SURPRISE HOSPITALIZATION DELUXE™
And EMS came.
The original mission had been:
Finish six days.
The battlefield changed.
Therefore the mission changed.
Take care of Mr. Germlin.
That sounds painfully obvious written down afterward.
It didn't feel obvious at the time.
Because some part of me still wanted to go to fucking work.
That's the part I keep coming back to.
I would have tried.
Had I not made that phone call, I genuinely might have tried to sleep for a few hours, get up, get dressed and drag my ass back into Haus Morgenrot.
Because that's what “power through” had come to mean.
Except sometimes:
“POWER THROUGH” IS PERSEVERANCE.
And sometimes:
“POWER THROUGH” IS REFUSING TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE SITUATION HAS CHANGED.
That night, the situation changed.
So I changed the mission.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 22 — DAY 3 OF 6
There was no Day 3.
Not at Haus Morgenrot, anyway.
Day 3 had been removed from the schedule by emergency medical services.
I eventually ended up in the ER being evaluated for the chest/breathing symptoms and right-arm tingling.
There was another complication in my medical history.
Months earlier, the VA had spent considerable time evaluating me for possible Brugada syndrome, an electrical heart-rhythm disorder.
Possible.
That's an important word.
I've heard different things at different points, and I wasn't going to promote myself to Confirmed Brugada Man™ because I had read half a Google result while wearing a hospital bracelet.
The doctors could figure that shit out.
My responsibility was to tell them the history.
So I did.
And then began one of the most frustrating medical experiences imaginable:
Waiting for the thing that scares you to happen while somebody is actually watching.
My heart?
“Oh, we're being monitored?”
Perfectly respectable citizen.
Meanwhile I'm thinking:
Motherfucker, where was this behavior at home?
HAUS MORGENROT WOULD HAVE TO SURVIVE WITHOUT ME
There was still the matter of work.
Because of course there was.
Hospitals do not magically remove employment from the universe.
I needed to call out.
Morning SOD.
Facility director.
Voicemail.
Eventually SOD called me back.
I explained where I was.
Got the number saved.
Was instructed to contact HR.
Called HR.
Explained that I was in the ER and would update them if I was admitted.
And that was that.
No dramatic speech.
No elaborate cover story.
No attempt to explain every heartbeat I'd experienced since the Clinton administration.
Mr. Clark is in the ER. Mr. Clark cannot report for his 10-to-10 shift.
Documentation will follow.
Done.
Seven months of showing up didn't evaporate because I missed a shift while sitting in an emergency room.
And if Haus Morgenrot was short?
🌵🔥
Damn.
That's crazy.
I was unavailable for cactus duty.
GOOGLE DEMANDS THAT THE CORPSE AUTHENTICATE ITSELF
Hospitals contain an astonishing amount of waiting.
Eventually you've worried about everything you can worry about.
You've stared at the walls.
You've stared at the television.
You've stared at your phone.
Then your brain begins generating side quests.
At approximately 7:22 PM on August 22, Google decided I needed another one.
My legendary Samsung Galaxy A53 had died.
This phone had lived a distinguished life.
OtterBox.
Screen protector.
And, because civilization peaked with me, “FU” duct-taped on the back.
Google, however, had a suggestion:
Get your Galaxy A53 5G.
Excellent idea.
There was one minor obstacle.
THE FUCKING THING WAS DEAD.
Google apparently expected me to perform necromancy.
Google: “Please retrieve a security code from your Galaxy A53.”
Me: “It is deceased.”
Google: “Galaxy A53.”
Me: “It has joined its ancestors.”
Google: “GALAXY. A53.”
Jerry: “Have you considered a Ouija board?”
Eventually we sorted out that I was dealing with the wrong type of verification code anyway.
But for a few minutes there, Google Account Recovery became:
WEEKEND AT SAMSUNG'S
AT LEAST I BROUGHT THE TABLET
Voice transcription briefly created another crisis when it decided I said I needed to buy a tablet.
No.
I already had the tablet.
Galaxy Tab A11+ 5G. Eleven inches.
What I needed was a case.
Smooth brain corrected.
Case ordered.
Approximately nine dollars.
Civilization restored.
This mattered because I was now spending enough time in the hospital that the tablet had become mission-critical entertainment infrastructure.
And thus began:
TUBI MEDICAL SERVICES
Not affiliated with any accredited healthcare organization.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 23 — THE 12:46 A.M. LIFEVAC INVESTIGATION
At 12:46 in the goddamn morning, apparently I saw a LifeVac commercial.
Most people watching television in a hospital at 12:46 AM would simply watch the commercial.
I noticed the microscopic disclaimer text.
Because of course I did.
“What the hell does all that tiny shit say?”
Thus, while admitted for chest and arm symptoms, I temporarily became an investigator of anti-choking suction devices.
This was apparently important enough for Midnight Germlin.
Then, less than two hours later, my attention span changed departments.
2:44 A.M. — WHY DOES KIRIYAMA HAVE UNLIMITED BULLETS?
I had started watching Battle Royale on Tubi.
And at 2:44 AM, I had identified the film's greatest medical mystery:
Where the fuck is Kazuo Kiriyama getting all these bullets?
This man fires his weapon like ammunition is generated procedurally.
Magazine?
Reload?
Logistics?
No.
Kiriyama apparently entered the Battle Royale with:
AMMO: ∞
Then around 2:55 AM, I wanted to identify one of the girls he killed.
There was confusion.
Then I supplied the key forensic evidence:
“Scythe.”
Ah.
Hirono Shimizu.
The girl with the scythe.
Which produces perhaps the most unfair equipment matchup in Japanese cinema:
Hirono: 🌾🔪
Kiriyama: 🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫
You brought agricultural equipment to a gunfight.
This was apparently how I spent the early morning hours of Sunday, August 23.
And you know what?
Good.
There are only so many hours you can spend contemplating your mortality before eventually asking why the Japanese psychopath has infinite ammunition.
“YOU CAN'T FIX WHAT YOU CAN'T SEE.”
Later on Sunday, the tone changed again.
One of the doctors said something that stuck with me:
You can't fix what you can't see.
That was exactly the problem.
The episodes I remembered weren't necessarily happening while I was attached to the monitors.
I'd had multiple occasions where I'd awakened at night with my heart racing.
Sometimes there had been vivid dreams or nightmares around them.
One involved a car going off a bridge, getting out, then going back into the water trying to rescue people.
Wake up.
Heart racing.
But now?
Hospital.
Monitoring.
Medical professionals.
Equipment everywhere.
Heart:
“Good afternoon, gentlemen. I have never committed a crime in my life.”
It was frustrating.
Not because I wanted something bad to happen.
Absolutely fucking not.
I wanted an explanation.
There's a difference.
If something strange is happening, you want somebody to catch it.
You want the monitor to go:
THERE. THAT. THAT'S THE THING.
Instead:
Nothing.
You can't fix what you can't see.
So the useful thing I could do was give them the history.
I needed to tell them:
“I've had multiple episodes where I've woken up at night with my heart racing. Sometimes I've been dreaming when it happens, but this has happened repeatedly.”
That's information.
Trying to manufacture an episode with energy drinks?
That's stupidity.
Which brings us to Monster.
THE MONSTER ROTATION IS HEREBY RETIRED
For months, I'd been using Monster Energy as one of the tools for getting through twelve-hour shifts.
Six twelve-hour days can make caffeine look less like a beverage and more like logistical support.
But after all this?
Nah.
The Monster rotation was done.
There would be no:
“Maybe if I drink one they'll finally catch something on the monitor.”
Absolutely the fuck not.
Jerry: “What about Brugada IPA™?”
Me: “What?”
Jerry: “Budweiser, Bud Light and Brisk get into a fight outside a convenience store and accidentally invent—”
Me: “No.”
Jerry: “Limited release?”
Me: “No.”
Jerry: “Seasonal?”
Me: “Make great choices, Jerry.”
Jerry: “Coward.”
A client at Haus Morgenrot used to tell me:
Make good choices.
Eventually he upgraded it:
Make great choices.
Calling VA Health Connect?
Great choice.
Calling 911 when the nurse told me to?
Great choice.
Trying to induce a cardiac event for the convenience of diagnostic equipment?
That would be what professionals refer to as:
A fucking terrible choice.
HOSPITAL NIGHT: CAN I HAS SNACK?
At some point my hand/arm tingling was still doing its occasional thing.
The sensible answer was no longer for me to sit there conducting amateur neurology.
I was already in a hospital.
If it happened again?
Tell the nurse.
Revolutionary concept.
I was also hungry.
Because apparently hospitalization does not remove the ancient biological drive known as:
midnight munchies.
But being in a hospital means you don't necessarily get to wander down to the vending machine and begin a personal tasting menu.
Testing.
Diet restrictions.
Diabetes.
Whatever else they might have planned.
So the procedure became:
Ask whether I'm allowed to eat.
Then locate snack.
Can I has snack?
Somewhere, a hallway cat at Haus Morgenrot felt a disturbance in the Force.
ALSO, MY VOICE TRANSCRIPTION WAS DRUNK
Being exhausted does wonderful things to speech recognition.
Yawning?
Mangled.
Sneezing?
Mangled.
Talking while half asleep?
Apparently I begin transmitting encrypted military communications.
This created its own lesson:
If the transcription didn't catch what I said, don't fucking invent what I said.
Sometimes technology just needs to admit:
“I have no idea what this asshole just said.”
That's okay.
I frequently don't know what this asshole just said either.
MONDAY, AUGUST 24 — RELEASE THE GERMLIN
Eventually, I was discharged.
The instructions were not particularly mysterious.
Cardiac/diabetic/low-sodium diet.
No concentrated sweets.
Activity as tolerated.
And one command that may as well have been printed in 96-point bold Comic Sans:
NO ENERGY DRINKS.
Fine.
Monster Energy had already been dishonorably discharged.
I also had medication changes and prescriptions to deal with, including lisinopril 10 mg, Lantus, famotidine, sucralfate and other medications listed in the discharge paperwork.
Then the healthcare system introduced the next boss.
WALGREENS WOULD LIKE EIGHT HUNDRED FUCKING DOLLARS
My prescriptions had gone to Walgreens.
Cash price?
Roughly:
$812.
I looked at that number and immediately rediscovered my veteran status.
No.
We are not doing that.
I use the VA.
Thus began a telephone campaign that would continue beyond the hospital story:
VA.
Hospital.
Walgreens.
VA.
Prescriber.
Pharmacy.
Somewhere in America, a fax machine began laughing.
I had already handled the VA emergency-care notification through the 844 line within the relevant window.
Now the prescriptions needed sorting.
But I was not handing Walgreens eight hundred dollars because somebody's administrative plumbing had routed the medication river through the wrong pipe.
That became tomorrow's—or later's—problem.
GUARDIAN INSURANCE ALSO CHOSE VIOLENCE
Because apparently Monday hadn't generated enough paperwork, benefits enrollment entered the chat.
Dental?
Kept.
Vision?
Kept.
Hospital indemnity?
Kept.
Employer-paid $30,000 Basic Life & AD&D?
Still there.
I also attempted to get another $50,000 voluntary life/AD&D policy.
Evidence of Insurability.
Questions.
Medical history.
Diabetes.
Insulin.
Tachycardia.
Possible/unconfirmed Brugada history.
Depression/anxiety history.
I answered what I knew.
If I didn't know an exact A1c?
Unknown.
Don't freestyle.
Remember?
Eventually Guardian reviewed everything and effectively responded:
DIABETES.
Denied.
The extra fifty grand was diabetes'd directly into the Shadow Realm.
The free thirty survived.
You win some.
You get underwritten into oblivion on others.
COOL RANCH DORITOS ARE PLACED ON PROBATION
Then I got home.
You might imagine that after spending days in a hospital with chest symptoms, right-arm tingling, diabetes, blood-pressure concerns and explicit low-sodium dietary instructions, I would return home and immediately begin behaving like a monk.
I ate a hamburger.
Then Cool Ranch Doritos.
And bean dip.
My right arm started complaining again.
Now, did the Doritos cause that?
I don't know.
Nobody established that.
I'm not putting Cool Ranch on trial for crimes unsupported by evidence.
But perhaps—perhaps—freshly discharged Mr. Germlin did not need to immediately conduct a field experiment entitled:
WHAT HAPPENS IF WE SALT THE MACHINERY?
Later I considered Lay's and jerky.
Jerky:
540 mg sodium.
Lay's:
210 mg.
Both:
750 mg.
So I ate the Lay's.
Jerky returned to barracks.
Cool Ranch remained legal but was placed on supervised release.
And I began contemplating the horrifying dietary frontier of:
Oatmeal.
Yogurt.
Salad.
Water.
Jesus Christ.
Was this adulthood?
TUESDAY, AUGUST 25 — DAY 6 OF 6
Here's where the numbering gets funny.
Day 3 didn't happen.
Day 4 didn't happen.
Day 5 didn't happen.
Not at Haus Morgenrot.
But the calendar kept moving.
And on Tuesday, August 25, I had been medically cleared to return to work.
Which meant somehow:
DAY 6 OF 6 HAD ARRIVED.
HR wanted the return-to-work documentation.
Fair enough.
I gave Mr. Harris a courtesy heads-up.
And after EMS, ER, admission, monitoring, possible-Brugada discussions, hospital television, Kiriyama's infinite ammunition, Google's necromancy demands, Guardian underwriting, Walgreens attempting to charge me the GDP of a small island nation, and Cool Ranch Doritos nearly earning a parole officer—
Mr. Germlin returned to Haus Morgenrot.
Oatmeal.
Yogurt.
Water.
No Monster.
No honey bun.
Possibly grilled chicken salad.
Who the fuck was this man?
Jerry: “You've changed.”
Me: “I spent several days in a hospital.”
Jerry: “You have water.”
Me: “Correct.”
Jerry: “Voluntarily.”
Me: “Don't make this weird.”
Jerry: “Should I call somebody?”
Me: “Jerry.”
Jerry: “This isn't the Germlin I know.”
But I went back.
And I finished.
Not in the way I originally intended.
That's the important part.
I DID NOT COMPLETE THE ORIGINAL MISSION
If you'd asked me Friday morning what success looked like, I would have told you:
Work Friday.
Work Saturday.
Work Sunday.
Work Monday.
Work Tuesday.
Six days.
Done.
But that's not what happened.
I completed Day 2.
Then the battlefield changed.
And for once, instead of staring directly at the new battlefield and screaming:
“FUCK IT, THE OLD ORDERS STILL APPLY!”
I changed the mission.
Day 3 became:
Get evaluated.
Day 4 became:
Stay there and let them evaluate me.
Day 5 became:
Get discharged when they say I'm ready, understand what comes next, and go home.
Day 6 became:
Return only after being medically cleared.
That's still completing the mission.
Just not the mission I had written down beforehand.
And maybe that's the part I actually needed to learn.
I'm good at enduring things.
Sometimes too good.
“Fuck it. Keep moving.”
Useful sentence.
Dangerous sentence.
Depends entirely on what you're moving through.
There are times when stopping because something changed isn't quitting.
There are times when changing direction isn't failure.
Sometimes perseverance means continuing toward the goal.
Sometimes perseverance means being intelligent enough to realize the goal has temporarily changed.
COMPLETE THE MISSION—BUT WHEN THE BATTLEFIELD CHANGES, HAVE ENOUGH SENSE TO CHANGE THE MISSION.
I still finished Day 6.
Haus Morgenrot survived Days 3 through 5 without Mr. Germlin.
The hallway cats presumably continued roaming.
The paperwork continued reproducing.
Somebody probably wanted a snack.
The cactus almost certainly remained on fire.
🌵🔥
And somehow, despite my deeply held suspicion that civilization would collapse without my personal supervision...
it didn't.
Damn.
That's crazy.
And neither did I.