Random Musings

E.R.

I spent the better part of yesterday in the emergency room. I was sent there from work by my doctor who, when I related to her my symptoms, wanted to rule out the more serious possibilities. What was wrong turned out to not be life-threatening, but spending time in the ER is a prime opportunity to observe and to reflect upon things that might otherwise go unnoticed or be taken for granted.

Waiting is inevitable when you're in emergency for something that doesn't require immediate attention, so patience gets a good workout. With my symptoms, I wasn't made to wait an excessively long time before I was taken to the back to be seen.

Upon arrival, though, I had to give my life history to a young girl who informed me that she used to attend the middle school where I now teach. Yes, I was even made to say where I am employed as a precursor to seeing a doctor. Being a rather private person by nature, it was uncomfortable revealing the details of my life to someone I didn't know.

In the ER, curiosity and imagination are also exercised pretty well. Before I was taken to the back, I spent a decent amount of the time in the waiting room, people watching, wondering why the others were there. Were they really sick or were they faking? Was what they had really an emergency, or were they there because they didn't have a doctor to see for that cold or that ache? Were they waiting out front for someone being seen in the back? Had they come in only to find out that they had something that was not going to allow them to come back out?

Had I?

There were about fifteen people waiting, of several nationalities, and most of them women. An older couple who sat over in the corner in the row of chairs underneath the TV, talked quietly with each other. The man was in a wheelchair that had a small green oxygen tank attached to it. A white plastic tube led from the tank and was clipped to his nose. They didn't hear their last name being called several times, not even when it was announced twice over the intercom. Finally, the young blonde receptionist with the ponytail had to come for them personally. She spoke pleasantly to them, telling them that they needed to sit closer to the desk so that they could better hear.

A young black girl in a black leather jacker, jeans, and black leather boot shoes curled up in a chair on the end of one row. She had her head on her arm, and I thought she was asleep, but closer inspection revealed that she was leaned over, talking on a cell phone.

There was another woman, an older lady with artificially blonde hair, who was taking care of an active, quietly talkative little girl. From their conversation, the woman was the girl's grandmother, and it appeared they were waiting for the girl's mother, who was in the back.

A small, leathery black man in rusty pants and boots was seated two chairs over from me. I got the impression that he was nervous about something. He was tightly clutching in his hands some papers he had rolled into a slim, tight cylinder. He kept getting up and going to the desk. Finally, just as the door to the back opened, and my name was called, someone from Social Services came down to speak with him. He smiled at the lady, shook her hand, and seemed very relieved to see her.

In my approximately 7X7 curtain-walled "room", there was one of those gurney beds with a back that adjusts to allow you to sit up or lie down flat. I chose to sit up so that I could write in the journal I had brought with me. Thankfully, the gurney-bed was well-padded, so it was at least comfortable. After a while, I had to use my jacket over my legs. They don't give you any covers and it was drafty back there. Although it wasn't all that cold, for some reason, my feet, hands and ears were freezing.

The smell of hospitals is unsettling to me. It's a mixture of clean, hypoallergenic linen, bleach, antiseptics, and some other smell-a forced, sweet smell meant to cover up the scent of what human bodies do when they're sick.

I needed to go to the bathroom when I first got back there, but then I heard the woman in the next room come back and report to someone in there with her that "it" was "coming out of both ends". Whichever end it was coming out of, I didn't want to be inhaling behind her, so I held onto what I had a while longer to give the restroom a chance to air out.

It was hard to concentrate back there while I waited for someone to come talk with me. I closed the curtains to keep strangers from looking in as they passed by. For some reason that seemed highly invasive to me. But with the curtains closed, the sounds of everything around me seemed amplified. I could hear the details of people's conversations. I could hear the employees talking about who was on break and who was due for one.

A couple was smack-kissing two rooms down; the man had a serious southern drawl. No word uttered from his lips had less than two syllables, and he talked very loud, every other word a mild curse word.He would lower his voice some for those. Even though I never lay eyes on him, I knew that he was there because he had cut himself, would eventually need a skin graft to fix it, and he didn't want "no tay-et-ness shaw-it" (tetanus shot). The doctor made him take one anyway.

In the time that I was there, three people came and went in the room right next to mine.(I had the end room.) Every time the doctor came in to give the person the discharge instructions, it was as if he was talking to me. I wasn't trying to listen, but there was absolutely no privacy. That last woman had a cyst on her ovary and a nodule in her breast that she was advised to have checked out via mammogram. She had undergone a hysterectomy some time back, and they couldn't find her appendix (Is that how it's spelled when you're talking about a part of the body?) on the xray they took of her, even though she swore she still had one.

When you're back there in ER, with something wrong with you and waiting to be seen by the doctor, your mortality and the fact that you are essentially alone in this world kind of smack you in the face. I wasn't frightened; I don't scare easily, but it did make me reflect on a lot of things.

I had to have an MRI, one of those tests where they slide you into this tube and images are made of your entire body. Some people freak out when taking this test. It's very noisy, and I imagine for some, it's like being entombed.

I've had it done more than once, so I was familiar with the procedure and have my own technique for coping. From the time the table starts sliding into the tube, I keep my eyes closed, so I have no idea what it looks like inside the tube, how close the confines are, nothing. I just take the test and think of other things. Yesterday, I thought about my family, my sons, my husband, and for some reason, my late Aunt Minnie. Despite the bizarre series of bangs and pings the machine makes as it does its thing, I think I might have fallen asleep in there.

I'm so glad that what was wrong with me didn't need a whole lot of privacy when it was time for the doctor to deliver my instuctions to me. I was given the name and number of another doctor to see, and the advice to take aspirin rather than ibruprophen to cut down on the inflammation in my shoulder and neck. As he spoke to me, the doctor smelled strongly of tacos, and I could see that he was talking around the remnants of it. Somehow that detracted from his professionalism; I wanted him to hurry with what he was saying so that I could be done with him and the situation.

When I left the hosptial, some seven hours after I went in, it was dark outside, drizzling, and it had turned cool. I zipped the jacket I had on and pulled the hood up on my head and walked out to my car. I have to make an appointment to see the doctor for what's going on with me; I got no real resolution for my problems, but I was grateful to able to go back home, get a bath, and climb over into my own bed.
Some of those people down there with me in the Emergency Room yesterday did not get off so easily.