Since someone asked, I will tell a little more to this story. How do I remember the details? Because I don't get put down by the drugs for some reason, and I stay wide awake. I'm just a detail oriented person, and one of those who can tell you stuff that's around me when I walk into a new place. I'm a quick scanner, I suppose, and that's something I will miss in the future.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, pulling into the emergency room at the Memphis VA with the two stooges. Once they parked me in a cubicle in the newly remodeled ER there (which is quite nice, by the way), passed my CT scan and Xray films to the doctors, and signed me off, the ER staff began to hover about. First another round of vital signs, then they brought me more blankets, which I did not want, because being the post-menopausal woman I am, I am NEVER cold indoors.
The preliminary forty questions were asked for the third time since I had gotten ill, and then the doctor came in to look over the films. He asked the same questions again, and disappeared outside the curtain. A very swishy male nurse came in, practically rubbing his hands together in glee, announcing that "we" were going to have an NG tube. I told him, no "WE" were not! He looked like I had slapped him, and slinked back out, and I could hear him tattling to the doctor "This patient refuses to have the NG tube" like a little girl telling the teacher that I wouldn't let him skip rope with me. Ugh.
It became a matter of wills at that point. I have had bowel obstructions before. They didn't put an NG tube down my nose then. Why now? I wanted explanations. I got them, and they made sense. A very kindly female nurse came in and talked to me about it. She explained to me how she was going to do this procedure, and was extremely patient and nice about it. Attitude is everything to me. I was not going to let Mr. Nancyboy shove a tube down my nose. He was way too eager.
Before they did the torture routine, the doctor authorized a good dose of Dilaudin and Phenergran, and that gave me a wave of feel good that relaxed me enough to finally give them the go-ahead for the NG tube. True to her word, this nurse had a technique that made it not so bad, and I will remember it if I ever have to do this again, heaven help me. She sprayed a numbing solution both in my nose and down my throat, and that made all the difference. Bless her.
~~~
There was a room ready for me, but it was a semi-private. They wheeled me in for the transfer to the bed, and the tv was blasting from the other side of the curtain. I was on the inside away from the window, and it was hot in the room to me. Damn, usually I had a private room at the VA because there are so few women. I just hoped I would sleep through this dastardly barrage of bad talk shows, Jerry Springer, and Maury.
The roomie had been through a mastectomy the day before, and I thought I had it good compared to her. But she was out of there shortly after noon that day, as they don't keep mastectomy patients very long at all. That is so unfair.
All day long, I had a parade of the Doogie Housers. The Memphis VA is staffed by the medical students and interns from the University of Tennessee Medical School, and I swear that some of these people were fifteen years old. (That's when you know you are getting old, heh.) The good news is that they are eager to learn, very thorough in their examinations, and even though I have to recite my medical history ten times a day, I do feel like I get good care there. Having a female in this facility is quite a novelty for them, so they send everybody in to scope me out, literally.
That afternoon, the nursing administrator came in to do his paperwork with me, and he was a bit of a swish, too, but very nice. After Fred introduced himself, he commented on my watch. I had to chuckle to myself, and handed it over for him to look at closer. It's an old braille watch that I got off ebay, antique-y looking and who knows how old. He was fascinated with its pop-open crystal. Nice conversation starter, that, and he had to finally excuse himself because we got way off the track of my medical history. Fred came back later with some Smithsonian magazines for me to read, bless him. Boredom is my big thing in the hospital, because I don't like to watch tv.
Shortly after Fred returned with my reading material, the staff came in to announce they were moving me to a different room. Oh, brother...now I thought...put me in with someone with forty relatives that trek by me all day. But, surprise! It was a private room with the best view in the hospital, overlooking the main intersection and the fire station across the street. Entertainment value at least.
For the next five days, I would lay in bed and watch the goings-on out that window. The fire trucks would leave the station on the average of a dozen times a day. I could see The Med, the medical center which is the home of the Elvis Presley Memorial Trauma Center, which I could also see from my window. Countless ambulances a day came roaring up to that entrance. It was there that Elvis himself was brought after they found him at Graceland that fateful day. (A bit of trivia here: it was a Jonesboro, Arkansas, ambulance driver who had brought a patient for transfer to The Med who saw Elvis coming into the trauma center that day and called his dispatcher with the news. The dispatcher called the local news station, and the rest is history.)
My ex came the second day, and brought me a bag of my books and some clothes. It was odd trying to tell him where things were in my apartment so he could gather them for me. I did have a book bag with my braille study stuff in it, and he brought that. It was fun to have that with me, as I'd practice into the night with the lights off, and the nurses would come in for vitals or whatever and wonder what the hell I was doing. I had a word puzzle book with me, and they thought I was a little nuts, but let it be. I wished that I had asked him to bring the first part of Harry Potter to me, but that would have been too much to ask for him to find it, even though it was sitting on a bookshelf in plain view. I'm so slow that I might have gotten a couple of pages read.
A friend who works at the VA in research brought me some novels and magazines. I read "The Secret Life of Bees" all in one shot one night, and got caught up on the Newsweek and Time accounts of the London bombings. What horror that must have been. We don't know how lucky we have been in the US. Dana also smuggled in a Dr. Pepper and some pretzels for me. I was supposed to be NPO, but that damn tube in my nose sucked everything back out, so I very sneakily enjoyed the salty treat and left the DP in my water cup to get flat before I enjoyed it too. Nothing harmed, so I got away with it.
The fourth day, the team came in and decided that they could pull the NG tube and get me out of bed. I was estactic. I still had the IV drip for antibiotics, but didn't have to be tethered to it all the time, so bathroom visits didn't involve dragging the IV stand with me. Yay! I told the intern who came in to remove the tube to please not act like she was starting the lawnmower. Someone did that to me once before, and it was awful. She was gentle, and all I had was a slight nosebleed after the fact, and a bit of a sore throat. Not too bad.
Once I got loose of all the equipment, I begged for a shower. The nursing assistant came in and plastic-wrapped my IV port and I went in to shower in the semi-private bathroom that adjoined the next room. I had no shampoo, so I used the stuff in the pump on the wall. My hair felt like glue, and I couldn't get it to rinse out. Stupid me...I couldn't read what it said without my glasses, and it was a lotion-based cleanser. (I read the container later.) Geez, I looked worse than before I showered.
But getting a shower made all the difference, sticky hair or not. I was able to get up and sit in the side chair and look farther down the street, which was nice. There was a storm coming up, and I watched the clouds roll in. At one point, I saw something I have never seen before, and I moved around to see if it were a fluke, but it was a piece of rainbow that curved upward in the sky. It started as a small section, then got longer in the arc, and I leaned over to look toward the 2 pm sun and there was a second section, also curving upward. I suppose had I been in a certain spot, I could have seen the full circle. Very odd. I've seen a double rainbow before, but only curving toward the horizon. I took it as a good sign.
My temperature evened out, and the antibiotics seemed to be doing their job, so the team decided to let me go on Monday. I called my ex to see when he could come across the river to pick me up, and it was going to be late afternoon before he could come. I went in after they pulled the IV port out and grabbed another shower, this time washing my hair in real shampoo that Dana brought me. It took three washings to get the goo out. Nasty. I got dressed in my real clothes, and suddenly realised I was breaking out in hives. Dammit...something had triggered an allergic reaction. They were all over me, from head to toe, and I ran out to the nurses station to ask if they could possibly get me some antihistamine. Lucky me, it was lunchtime. The docs were at a lunch meeting and they had to approve the drug. I thought I'd go crazy itching.
If it hadn't been for another friend that I got on the phone for about an hour, I think I'd have gone nuts with the rash. Distraction is a good thing. That's why I was glad to have a couple of people that I could call while I was laid up. Thank goodness for cell phones and unlimited nighttime minutes.
I was glad to get home to Ringo and Toby. They missed me, I could tell. They don't seem to want to let me out of their sight now.
So, that was the excitement (yawn) of my week from hell. Big whoop.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Monday, July 25, 2005
Thumping the Melon
No, this is not like jumping the shark, although some might disagree once they read this blog.
Yesterday I bought a watermelon. Big deal, you say. That depends on where you grew up, and when, I suppose. In the coastal part of Texas where I lived the formative years of my life, watermelons were summertime, and their selection was not taken lightly at my house.
One of the things I remember about my father was that he was the only one in the house to select the family melons. He might not do jack shit around the house for my mother, but he imparted a mystic ritual every summer, The Thumping of the Melons. We would go sometimes to a roadside stand, which actually was just a farmer from the valley set up on the tailgate of his big flatbed truck on the side of the highway, and peruse the various melons. Less eventful would be performing the ritual at the grocer's, but I have seen it done there, too.
The family would pile in the Buick, whether it was the '52, the '56', or the '59, and head out for the melons. He'd drive up and down the highway, checking out the prices, because there were always melon wars along the road. Cantaloupes were the gauge: this guy would have ten for a dollar; half a mile down the road they might be twelve for a dollar. (Yes, they were that cheap in my childhood. Gas was also twelve cents on occasion of a gas war.) The watermelons would be priced in accordance, usually by the pound. Having found the vendor with the best deal and the best looking Charleston Greys, he would park along the roadway and our clan would exit the car like clowns in the circus.
We would all gather round as my father would curl back his nicotine-stained second finger and give the long green orbs a thump. He'd successively narrow his choices until he was down to two. To this day, I could never figure out what tone he was aiming for in his criteria for selection. Once satisfied that he had the perfect melon, he'd hoist the behemoth onto his shoulder, pay the man, and ceremoniously load it in the trunk. The last pictures we have of my father are some home movies that my oldest brother took. He is bringing in the prize melon from the car, smiling his toothless grin for the camera, the big melon cradled in his arms like a precious commodity. My brother and his new wife were home for a visit, and I would bet it was the 4th of July. That was when we had THE Melon of the Summer.
There were three holidays when I was growing up: Christmas, Easter, and the Fourth of July. We generally went somewhere on the Fourth, either to the beach at Freeport, or to Hermann Park Zoo in Houston. These events for a time were well documented because my father was a bit of a camerabug, and I can remember all too well having to stand at attention facing the sun and tears streaming down my eyes because he was fiddling with the shutter on his Argus. There are a lot of squinty pictures of us kids.
These family outings were always accompanied by The Melon. If we went to Hermann Park, The Melon was done before we went to the zoo. If we went to the beach, The Melon was passed around with the caution not to drop it in the sand. (Duh.) The point was to eat your slice as sloppily as possible, juice dripping down your elbows, and spit the seeds farther than your brothers. (Alice's Rules of Melon Eating.) My father always cut out the center part of his slice and put it aside on his plate for the last to eat, and he referred to this as "the goody bite" as it had no seeds and was the sweet heart of the melon.
So yesterday I bought a watermelon at Kroger. The sign said "Seedless Melons". (How do they reproduce these things if there are no seeds? I know, it's just another miracle of science.) They all were uniform sized, little round dark green melons about the size of a soccer ball. Nothing compared to the Black Diamonds of yore. I grabbed one out of the bin, and thought, wouldn't do me any good to thump it, because I have no idea what it's supposed to sound like. Forgive me, Daddy, for I know not what I do here. I just hope it's ripe.
Yesterday I bought a watermelon. Big deal, you say. That depends on where you grew up, and when, I suppose. In the coastal part of Texas where I lived the formative years of my life, watermelons were summertime, and their selection was not taken lightly at my house.
One of the things I remember about my father was that he was the only one in the house to select the family melons. He might not do jack shit around the house for my mother, but he imparted a mystic ritual every summer, The Thumping of the Melons. We would go sometimes to a roadside stand, which actually was just a farmer from the valley set up on the tailgate of his big flatbed truck on the side of the highway, and peruse the various melons. Less eventful would be performing the ritual at the grocer's, but I have seen it done there, too.
The family would pile in the Buick, whether it was the '52, the '56', or the '59, and head out for the melons. He'd drive up and down the highway, checking out the prices, because there were always melon wars along the road. Cantaloupes were the gauge: this guy would have ten for a dollar; half a mile down the road they might be twelve for a dollar. (Yes, they were that cheap in my childhood. Gas was also twelve cents on occasion of a gas war.) The watermelons would be priced in accordance, usually by the pound. Having found the vendor with the best deal and the best looking Charleston Greys, he would park along the roadway and our clan would exit the car like clowns in the circus.
We would all gather round as my father would curl back his nicotine-stained second finger and give the long green orbs a thump. He'd successively narrow his choices until he was down to two. To this day, I could never figure out what tone he was aiming for in his criteria for selection. Once satisfied that he had the perfect melon, he'd hoist the behemoth onto his shoulder, pay the man, and ceremoniously load it in the trunk. The last pictures we have of my father are some home movies that my oldest brother took. He is bringing in the prize melon from the car, smiling his toothless grin for the camera, the big melon cradled in his arms like a precious commodity. My brother and his new wife were home for a visit, and I would bet it was the 4th of July. That was when we had THE Melon of the Summer.
There were three holidays when I was growing up: Christmas, Easter, and the Fourth of July. We generally went somewhere on the Fourth, either to the beach at Freeport, or to Hermann Park Zoo in Houston. These events for a time were well documented because my father was a bit of a camerabug, and I can remember all too well having to stand at attention facing the sun and tears streaming down my eyes because he was fiddling with the shutter on his Argus. There are a lot of squinty pictures of us kids.
These family outings were always accompanied by The Melon. If we went to Hermann Park, The Melon was done before we went to the zoo. If we went to the beach, The Melon was passed around with the caution not to drop it in the sand. (Duh.) The point was to eat your slice as sloppily as possible, juice dripping down your elbows, and spit the seeds farther than your brothers. (Alice's Rules of Melon Eating.) My father always cut out the center part of his slice and put it aside on his plate for the last to eat, and he referred to this as "the goody bite" as it had no seeds and was the sweet heart of the melon.
So yesterday I bought a watermelon at Kroger. The sign said "Seedless Melons". (How do they reproduce these things if there are no seeds? I know, it's just another miracle of science.) They all were uniform sized, little round dark green melons about the size of a soccer ball. Nothing compared to the Black Diamonds of yore. I grabbed one out of the bin, and thought, wouldn't do me any good to thump it, because I have no idea what it's supposed to sound like. Forgive me, Daddy, for I know not what I do here. I just hope it's ripe.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Sh*t Happens: Day One
Or in my case, it doesn't. Which makes for a sudden, total emergency.
DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A STRONG CONSTITUTION.
This is the story of how the sh*t hit the fan last Tuesday night.
There, you've been warned.
~~~~
This wasn't the first time I've had a bowel obstruction. Ewwww...gross, you say. (And I warned you to proceed at your own risk.) Uh huh, it is. Hurts like a beeyotch, too. Forces you to confront your own mortality in none too subtle terms.
Here I was, minding my own business on a less than regular type of day. I had a couple of braille tshirts to finish packing for shipping (brailling the care instruction labels and the extra packet of iron on crystals), and some patterns to get processed before I took off for the annual visit to the dentist. I hate going to the dentist because of a bad childhood experience, and that didn't have me in the best of moods. I knew that it was time for the big gun panaramic xrays that they like to do every 5 years, and there was no way I had the money for that. It was likely that I wouldn't have enough to even pay for my cleaning. I bargained my way out of the comprehensive xrays, and they did the bitewings and discovered a hairline crack in a front tooth. Damn. Thankfully, they didn't schedule enough time that day to do it, so I rescheduled for later. I was right...$117 for cleaning and xrays. I wrote a check for $50 and promised the rest as soon as possible. I felt like a pauper. Albeit one with shiny teeth.
I had not eaten before I went to the 1PM appointment, so shortly after 2 I checked my post office box (yay! it's my braille Dymo labelmaker!) then headed through the McDonald's drive thru for quarter-pounder with cheese, some fries and a Dr. Pepper. Why I went there, I don't know, except that it was the easiest place to get through right then. I really hold McD's right in there with Walmart as a general rule. Don't go unless all else fails.
Took the heart-attack-in-a-sack home to eat and get online to check mail and see who was online. The burger was a little less hot than I like mine, so I nuked it for a few seconds, remembering why I like Wendy's so much better. It was passable, the fries were too greasy and the DP was flat. I was too busy reading and scrolling to really notice anything else.
About 4PM, I began to notice that there was little output in my "bag". (Short terminology for the "appliance" needed to hold what my gut used to. Appliances, to me, are things that go in the kitchen or laundry room.)
It was far too flat for this point in the day, considering I had packed away the combo meal. Trouble was brewing. My gut was not percolating like it should.
Five PM. I signed off for a while and decided maybe I needed a short nap, like I do on a fairly regular basis these days. Didn't happen. I began to have some dreadful cramps, and still nothing passing through. I gave up with the nap around six, and went back to chat online.
I was conversing with three friends when the nausea began. As soon as it did, I knew what was up. One of the most important things my ET nurse told me when I first got my ileostomy was to pay attention when things aren't coming through, and if you begin to throw up, go to the emergency room at once. I was fighting against throwing up, not only because that is the worst sick there is, but because I knew I would have to go in. I still haven't paid the bills from the last time I had to go to the ER. And that was no xrays or anything. Nearly a thousand dollars for less than 3 hours. I called my ex. Got his voice mail. Damn. Left a semi-coherent plea to call me, figuring that he had cut the phone off for the night. He has no land line any more, and only recently have I been able to convince him of the folly of leaving the cell in the truck overnight.
Ok, backup plan. I was online with another friend who has a key to my place to feed the cats when I am out of town. I asked her if she could stand by if I needed a ride to the ER. That's a terrible thing to spring on someone in the middle of a conversation. She agreed, but I hated having to ask.
I put a couple other conversations on hold when I felt a big wave of nausea hit. I decided to take the cell phone in the bathroom with me, because I had called 911 from the bathroom floor once before, when I couldn't stand up to get to the other phone.
I sat on the edge of the tub, and the phone rang. It was my ex, who said he would come over if I wanted. No sooner did he say it than I felt the need for sudden supplication to the porcelain goddess. I just said...hurry and bring your key to let yourself in. I know it seemed like hours, but he was here in about 6-7 minutes. I was still in the floor, and he called the ambulance while I called for Ralph several more times. I leaned back against the tub, still on the floor, and heard the siren coming. ("Hear that? They are coming for YOU....") Nothing like entertaining the entire neighbourhood on Tuesday night, now that there is nothing good on tv during that time. : P
The paramedics arrive, and later the ex tells me the look on their faces when they stepped into my apartment. I had been busy earlier, there was stuff stacked on my desk, my braillewriter was out on its little tv tray stand, and comic books were strewn around. Add this to the shock of my Daredevil shrine in the corner of the living room, and two panicked cats running for the cover of the bedskirt, and it was some sight, I'm sure. The ex says my place has the look of ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag. C'est la freaking vie.
I'm gathered up onto the waiting stretcher, and it's only hours later that I realise that I have no shoes and am wearing what I normally only sleep in: my favourite huge Ekco tshirt that is so long that it covers the black running shorts underneath. On the front is the Sienkewitz DD in faded red; the back is the same, smaller image in black outline. That ought to freak out the sisters at St. Bernard's hospital. But that's not where we went. It was much closer to Northeast Arkansas Hospital. Four stoplights and seven turns and we are there in about five minutes, bouncing everywhich way on the washboard pavement of Stadium Drive.
I hear the paramedic call in my vitals to the waiting ER staff. BEEP...BEEP...BEEP as we back into the unloading dock, and the noxious diesel fumes bouncing back into my face when they pull me and the gurney out into the steamy night air. It ain't easy being green.
They slide me through the automatic doors and the nurse points back to bay 8. Damn. Three times I've been to this hospital and all three times, I have landed in bay 8. At least give me a change of scenery. That would come soon, as they rolled me into a smaller room because they needed the heart monitor for a chest pain patient who was on the way. It was going to be a sleepless night for me, even though I was given a dose of Demerol and Phenergran that normally knocks people stupid. I kept praying it would knock me stupid. Never happened.
My ex stayed with me into the night, way above the call of duty. We watched out the door into the corridor as they brought in a "code". The whole ER scrambled, but to no avail. The phlebotimist comes in and draws umpteen vials of blood from me, after trying three times to find a vein. Suddenly a nurse slammed our door shut. The ex got up to see what happened, and they were calling the funeral home because the person in #2 had expired. Very shortly after that, one of the morticians came in with the stretcher with the body bag, but found out his person was still up on the third floor. That scene repeated about an hour later, when another came to take away someone's mother who had died of cancer. She must have been tiny, because the burgundy shroud barely registered a form underneath as he wheeled her out.
I was sent out to have some xrays done, and when I came back to the room, someone else was being wheeled into #2 . I thought that the family would freak if they knew that someone had just died in there. It seemed like people just kept showing up for this person, and they were taking shifts since only 2 at a time are allowed with a patient. Meanwhile, I was given a nasty concoction to drink for a CT scan.
More waiting. Now it's after 1 AM. The contrast dye has had time to settle in me, and I'm wheeled off to CT. The radiologist apologises as she has to put in a port for the contrast dye. Lucky me...it's in the bend of my right arm. At least this tech was honest about that "Don't breathe" stuff while they are doing the scan. She says as long as I don't move on the table, it will be ok. I can do that. Even as that warm feeling invades my body as the dyes injects, I remember that people just used to die from bowel obstructions before they could get in to see what was the problem.
~~~
By now, if you are still reading this, you are probably bored shitless. Sorry that I feel the need to recant this experience. I'm going to keep writing. That doesn't mean you have to keep reading.
~~~
Two o'clock in the morning. The ex has to be at work at 0730, so he calls it a night. The doctors have decided now that I am stable enough to be transported. They are waiting for the results of the CT scan to call in to the Veteran's Hospital in Memphis. They are done with me. I am a charity case. I have no insurance and they have done all they are obligated to do, unless the VA is full and cannot accept me on transfer. Then they will be forced to finish treatment. I wait some more.
A nurse comes in with a jar an sets it on the end of the bed. "You need to pee in this for me" she practically yells. "Not too much. But I need it quickly." Yeah, like I pee on command. I have no liquid in me. I threw it all up and have been NPO for the past four, five hours. I trot on down the hall anyway and find the loo. No sooner than I get my pants down and am hovering over this tiny jar, someone lets out a blood-curdling scream.
"Dear Jay-sus! She's gone!" Room #2 is two for two tonight. I have just pissed all over everything but the jar. If it weren't so awful, it would be funny. Someday, I might laugh. Not at that moment. The wailing in the hall continues as all the relatives race in.
I get myself back together and secure my vessel in a brown paper towel because I don't want to be carrying a cup of piss down the hall in front of the bereaved family. One of the wailing women is beside herself, and someone shakes her. She wanders off down the hall to collect "Mama's favourite blanket". I see her bring a tattered blue blanket back, and in a few minutes, she returns with a small child wrapped in that same blanket, and she goes back in with the deceased. I just hope the child is too young to remember any of this.
Shortly the coroner arrives. He questions the staff in the hall before he goes in and asks the family to step out. Time of death? Two-forty-two. I never hear the cause, but they must not have been expecting this. The coroner leaves, family members troop back into the room, and I hear the doctor discussing my fate with the VA on the phone.
Yes, they can take me. Am I coming by private vehicle, or by ambulance transfer? I hear the cranky nurse who stuffed that Demerol into my backside say that she doesn't give a damn if I go by Greyhound Bus. Just get me gone. Gee, thanks, Florence F*cking Nightengale. Holy shit, she's come back in with another syringe full of Demerol to give me right before they load me in the ambulance for the seventy-five mile trip to Memphis at four AM. She jabs me again, I'm transferred onto another gurney, and loaded like a side of beef into another meat wagon. I resist the urge to flip FFN the bird as she waves goodbye at the door.
And....we are off. There is a female paramedic driving and the guy stays back there with me. I'm locked and loaded back here, facing backwards, thankful I also got another ass-full of Phenergran so I won't get carsick. Only problem is...I can't sleep. Not in a frickin' ambulance, bouncing all over these fine Arkansas highways. Even the paramedic notices. We end up talking about useless stuff all the way to Memphis, like why the cabinet doors in this ambulance all have a sticker that says "Cabinets". Maybe it's like the freakin' BatCave from the 60's tv show. We get to the big Hernando DeSoto bridge that spans the Mississippi River and I notice that there are eight span lights out on my side of the bridge as we go under them.
Then I realise that this driver has no idea where she is going once she crosses the bridge into Tennessee. The other paramedic thinks she is kidding at first, but she's serious. He directs her around a route that I just don't understand how it could be faster than the one I use. We get to the VA, and they can't find the ambulance entrance for all the construction. She drives in the wrong way of one entrance, then backs out, running over a curb, or something. They circle the block, asking someone in the parking lot which way to go. Of course, the guy they ask is more than likely stoned, or he wouldn't be out there at 0500. We end up going in the admissions entrance. They drag me up a hall to a desk, where they ask a very large woman where the ER is. She points vaguely up the hall. We follow the overhead signage, going about a hundred yards into a darkened corridor. The signs keep pointing us in a circle. I have been in this place enough times to know this isn't right, but shit, I'm just the passenger in this circle jerk, so I shut up and let them do their two stooges routine. We wind up back in front of that same desk. She can't be arsed to give us directions the first time, but she points again to the corridor right beside her, that we passed up the first time. Though those double doors. Exit only they read. My charioteers go back and demand better explanation of how we get from point A on the outside of the door to point B on the inside. There is no signage, and the fat woman is shouting around the corner to press the button. There appears to be no damned button. She finally waddles out from behind her desk, and hits a small square near the floor and the doors swing wide...toward us. Before they can slam shut again, Mutt and Jeff push me through and present me to....a bunch of people sitting around the ER who look like they have no idea why I might be there.
I am uncerimoniously dumped off this litter onto one of the VA's, and the paramedics take leave. I assume they found their way out of the building.
~~~~
Ok, I'm tired, it's late, I'll write further adventures tomorrow. And yes, I swear all this shit is true. You can't make up a clusterf*ck like this.
DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A STRONG CONSTITUTION.
This is the story of how the sh*t hit the fan last Tuesday night.
There, you've been warned.
~~~~
This wasn't the first time I've had a bowel obstruction. Ewwww...gross, you say. (And I warned you to proceed at your own risk.) Uh huh, it is. Hurts like a beeyotch, too. Forces you to confront your own mortality in none too subtle terms.
Here I was, minding my own business on a less than regular type of day. I had a couple of braille tshirts to finish packing for shipping (brailling the care instruction labels and the extra packet of iron on crystals), and some patterns to get processed before I took off for the annual visit to the dentist. I hate going to the dentist because of a bad childhood experience, and that didn't have me in the best of moods. I knew that it was time for the big gun panaramic xrays that they like to do every 5 years, and there was no way I had the money for that. It was likely that I wouldn't have enough to even pay for my cleaning. I bargained my way out of the comprehensive xrays, and they did the bitewings and discovered a hairline crack in a front tooth. Damn. Thankfully, they didn't schedule enough time that day to do it, so I rescheduled for later. I was right...$117 for cleaning and xrays. I wrote a check for $50 and promised the rest as soon as possible. I felt like a pauper. Albeit one with shiny teeth.
I had not eaten before I went to the 1PM appointment, so shortly after 2 I checked my post office box (yay! it's my braille Dymo labelmaker!) then headed through the McDonald's drive thru for quarter-pounder with cheese, some fries and a Dr. Pepper. Why I went there, I don't know, except that it was the easiest place to get through right then. I really hold McD's right in there with Walmart as a general rule. Don't go unless all else fails.
Took the heart-attack-in-a-sack home to eat and get online to check mail and see who was online. The burger was a little less hot than I like mine, so I nuked it for a few seconds, remembering why I like Wendy's so much better. It was passable, the fries were too greasy and the DP was flat. I was too busy reading and scrolling to really notice anything else.
About 4PM, I began to notice that there was little output in my "bag". (Short terminology for the "appliance" needed to hold what my gut used to. Appliances, to me, are things that go in the kitchen or laundry room.)
It was far too flat for this point in the day, considering I had packed away the combo meal. Trouble was brewing. My gut was not percolating like it should.
Five PM. I signed off for a while and decided maybe I needed a short nap, like I do on a fairly regular basis these days. Didn't happen. I began to have some dreadful cramps, and still nothing passing through. I gave up with the nap around six, and went back to chat online.
I was conversing with three friends when the nausea began. As soon as it did, I knew what was up. One of the most important things my ET nurse told me when I first got my ileostomy was to pay attention when things aren't coming through, and if you begin to throw up, go to the emergency room at once. I was fighting against throwing up, not only because that is the worst sick there is, but because I knew I would have to go in. I still haven't paid the bills from the last time I had to go to the ER. And that was no xrays or anything. Nearly a thousand dollars for less than 3 hours. I called my ex. Got his voice mail. Damn. Left a semi-coherent plea to call me, figuring that he had cut the phone off for the night. He has no land line any more, and only recently have I been able to convince him of the folly of leaving the cell in the truck overnight.
Ok, backup plan. I was online with another friend who has a key to my place to feed the cats when I am out of town. I asked her if she could stand by if I needed a ride to the ER. That's a terrible thing to spring on someone in the middle of a conversation. She agreed, but I hated having to ask.
I put a couple other conversations on hold when I felt a big wave of nausea hit. I decided to take the cell phone in the bathroom with me, because I had called 911 from the bathroom floor once before, when I couldn't stand up to get to the other phone.
I sat on the edge of the tub, and the phone rang. It was my ex, who said he would come over if I wanted. No sooner did he say it than I felt the need for sudden supplication to the porcelain goddess. I just said...hurry and bring your key to let yourself in. I know it seemed like hours, but he was here in about 6-7 minutes. I was still in the floor, and he called the ambulance while I called for Ralph several more times. I leaned back against the tub, still on the floor, and heard the siren coming. ("Hear that? They are coming for YOU....") Nothing like entertaining the entire neighbourhood on Tuesday night, now that there is nothing good on tv during that time. : P
The paramedics arrive, and later the ex tells me the look on their faces when they stepped into my apartment. I had been busy earlier, there was stuff stacked on my desk, my braillewriter was out on its little tv tray stand, and comic books were strewn around. Add this to the shock of my Daredevil shrine in the corner of the living room, and two panicked cats running for the cover of the bedskirt, and it was some sight, I'm sure. The ex says my place has the look of ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag. C'est la freaking vie.
I'm gathered up onto the waiting stretcher, and it's only hours later that I realise that I have no shoes and am wearing what I normally only sleep in: my favourite huge Ekco tshirt that is so long that it covers the black running shorts underneath. On the front is the Sienkewitz DD in faded red; the back is the same, smaller image in black outline. That ought to freak out the sisters at St. Bernard's hospital. But that's not where we went. It was much closer to Northeast Arkansas Hospital. Four stoplights and seven turns and we are there in about five minutes, bouncing everywhich way on the washboard pavement of Stadium Drive.
I hear the paramedic call in my vitals to the waiting ER staff. BEEP...BEEP...BEEP as we back into the unloading dock, and the noxious diesel fumes bouncing back into my face when they pull me and the gurney out into the steamy night air. It ain't easy being green.
They slide me through the automatic doors and the nurse points back to bay 8. Damn. Three times I've been to this hospital and all three times, I have landed in bay 8. At least give me a change of scenery. That would come soon, as they rolled me into a smaller room because they needed the heart monitor for a chest pain patient who was on the way. It was going to be a sleepless night for me, even though I was given a dose of Demerol and Phenergran that normally knocks people stupid. I kept praying it would knock me stupid. Never happened.
My ex stayed with me into the night, way above the call of duty. We watched out the door into the corridor as they brought in a "code". The whole ER scrambled, but to no avail. The phlebotimist comes in and draws umpteen vials of blood from me, after trying three times to find a vein. Suddenly a nurse slammed our door shut. The ex got up to see what happened, and they were calling the funeral home because the person in #2 had expired. Very shortly after that, one of the morticians came in with the stretcher with the body bag, but found out his person was still up on the third floor. That scene repeated about an hour later, when another came to take away someone's mother who had died of cancer. She must have been tiny, because the burgundy shroud barely registered a form underneath as he wheeled her out.
I was sent out to have some xrays done, and when I came back to the room, someone else was being wheeled into #2 . I thought that the family would freak if they knew that someone had just died in there. It seemed like people just kept showing up for this person, and they were taking shifts since only 2 at a time are allowed with a patient. Meanwhile, I was given a nasty concoction to drink for a CT scan.
More waiting. Now it's after 1 AM. The contrast dye has had time to settle in me, and I'm wheeled off to CT. The radiologist apologises as she has to put in a port for the contrast dye. Lucky me...it's in the bend of my right arm. At least this tech was honest about that "Don't breathe" stuff while they are doing the scan. She says as long as I don't move on the table, it will be ok. I can do that. Even as that warm feeling invades my body as the dyes injects, I remember that people just used to die from bowel obstructions before they could get in to see what was the problem.
~~~
By now, if you are still reading this, you are probably bored shitless. Sorry that I feel the need to recant this experience. I'm going to keep writing. That doesn't mean you have to keep reading.
~~~
Two o'clock in the morning. The ex has to be at work at 0730, so he calls it a night. The doctors have decided now that I am stable enough to be transported. They are waiting for the results of the CT scan to call in to the Veteran's Hospital in Memphis. They are done with me. I am a charity case. I have no insurance and they have done all they are obligated to do, unless the VA is full and cannot accept me on transfer. Then they will be forced to finish treatment. I wait some more.
A nurse comes in with a jar an sets it on the end of the bed. "You need to pee in this for me" she practically yells. "Not too much. But I need it quickly." Yeah, like I pee on command. I have no liquid in me. I threw it all up and have been NPO for the past four, five hours. I trot on down the hall anyway and find the loo. No sooner than I get my pants down and am hovering over this tiny jar, someone lets out a blood-curdling scream.
"Dear Jay-sus! She's gone!" Room #2 is two for two tonight. I have just pissed all over everything but the jar. If it weren't so awful, it would be funny. Someday, I might laugh. Not at that moment. The wailing in the hall continues as all the relatives race in.
I get myself back together and secure my vessel in a brown paper towel because I don't want to be carrying a cup of piss down the hall in front of the bereaved family. One of the wailing women is beside herself, and someone shakes her. She wanders off down the hall to collect "Mama's favourite blanket". I see her bring a tattered blue blanket back, and in a few minutes, she returns with a small child wrapped in that same blanket, and she goes back in with the deceased. I just hope the child is too young to remember any of this.
Shortly the coroner arrives. He questions the staff in the hall before he goes in and asks the family to step out. Time of death? Two-forty-two. I never hear the cause, but they must not have been expecting this. The coroner leaves, family members troop back into the room, and I hear the doctor discussing my fate with the VA on the phone.
Yes, they can take me. Am I coming by private vehicle, or by ambulance transfer? I hear the cranky nurse who stuffed that Demerol into my backside say that she doesn't give a damn if I go by Greyhound Bus. Just get me gone. Gee, thanks, Florence F*cking Nightengale. Holy shit, she's come back in with another syringe full of Demerol to give me right before they load me in the ambulance for the seventy-five mile trip to Memphis at four AM. She jabs me again, I'm transferred onto another gurney, and loaded like a side of beef into another meat wagon. I resist the urge to flip FFN the bird as she waves goodbye at the door.
And....we are off. There is a female paramedic driving and the guy stays back there with me. I'm locked and loaded back here, facing backwards, thankful I also got another ass-full of Phenergran so I won't get carsick. Only problem is...I can't sleep. Not in a frickin' ambulance, bouncing all over these fine Arkansas highways. Even the paramedic notices. We end up talking about useless stuff all the way to Memphis, like why the cabinet doors in this ambulance all have a sticker that says "Cabinets". Maybe it's like the freakin' BatCave from the 60's tv show. We get to the big Hernando DeSoto bridge that spans the Mississippi River and I notice that there are eight span lights out on my side of the bridge as we go under them.
Then I realise that this driver has no idea where she is going once she crosses the bridge into Tennessee. The other paramedic thinks she is kidding at first, but she's serious. He directs her around a route that I just don't understand how it could be faster than the one I use. We get to the VA, and they can't find the ambulance entrance for all the construction. She drives in the wrong way of one entrance, then backs out, running over a curb, or something. They circle the block, asking someone in the parking lot which way to go. Of course, the guy they ask is more than likely stoned, or he wouldn't be out there at 0500. We end up going in the admissions entrance. They drag me up a hall to a desk, where they ask a very large woman where the ER is. She points vaguely up the hall. We follow the overhead signage, going about a hundred yards into a darkened corridor. The signs keep pointing us in a circle. I have been in this place enough times to know this isn't right, but shit, I'm just the passenger in this circle jerk, so I shut up and let them do their two stooges routine. We wind up back in front of that same desk. She can't be arsed to give us directions the first time, but she points again to the corridor right beside her, that we passed up the first time. Though those double doors. Exit only they read. My charioteers go back and demand better explanation of how we get from point A on the outside of the door to point B on the inside. There is no signage, and the fat woman is shouting around the corner to press the button. There appears to be no damned button. She finally waddles out from behind her desk, and hits a small square near the floor and the doors swing wide...toward us. Before they can slam shut again, Mutt and Jeff push me through and present me to....a bunch of people sitting around the ER who look like they have no idea why I might be there.
I am uncerimoniously dumped off this litter onto one of the VA's, and the paramedics take leave. I assume they found their way out of the building.
~~~~
Ok, I'm tired, it's late, I'll write further adventures tomorrow. And yes, I swear all this shit is true. You can't make up a clusterf*ck like this.
Saturday, July 09, 2005
Another day of infamy
I'm not old enough to remember Pearl Harbor, but that event coined the phrase we have heard countless times in old newsreels spoken so eloquently by President Roosevelt. Alas, we now have another "Day of Infamy" to add to our history books.
It's two days after the bombings in London, and I think that full realisation has just hit me. It's as if I've been somewhat in shock, just like I was after 9/11. A certain feeling of powerlessness to help, but a resolve to resume normalcy (whatever that really is) to keep the bastards from getting what they want: fear.
Neither of these cowardly events were in "my backyard". I live in the southern USA, and the last horrific event here were the Westside schoolyard shootings. That WAS in my backyard. The 'terrorists' in this case were an 11 year old and a 13 year old. How that changed the whole character of this community! Parents were afraid to send their children to school. Schools became fortresses patrolled by uniformed police. Personal belongings were searched to gain entrance to classrooms. CNN was here, camped on the doorstep. It was the end of the innocence in Northeast Arkansas.
So, I can only imagine how the bombings affected those so much closer to them. My first news about the bombings came from the internet, almost at noon Central time. I had slept late, and gone over to help sort out some new computer gear for someone, and the tv was recording movies, not on a channel. When I checked my email, Yahoo news had this headline about 37 people being killed in subway blasts. My heart fell at my feet. I have friends there! I know it's a big place, but so are New York, and D.C., and I had people in both those places I cared about on 9/11, and just like this I had to know that they were safe, and couldn't rest until I knew they were. I frantically blasted off a batch of emails, knowing full well that my friends had much more to deal with than answering them. I could only let them know that I was concerned. Concerned isn't a strong enough word here. I'm not sure what the correct one would be. To put it in crass terms, I was scared shitless for them. That's more accurate.
Like the way the populace rallied in the world for the WTC victims, the Pentagon victims, and the plane crash victims, I feel much of the same support system for the people of the UK. There is little I can do as an individual across the vast pond. I went outside a few minutes ago and tied another red/white/blue ribbon on my car antenna, next to the one that has been there since September 12, 2001 and is barely a shred. I vowed not to take it off until our troops were safely home. I will probably send this car to the scrapyard before that happens.
But I can hope. It's all I have.
It's two days after the bombings in London, and I think that full realisation has just hit me. It's as if I've been somewhat in shock, just like I was after 9/11. A certain feeling of powerlessness to help, but a resolve to resume normalcy (whatever that really is) to keep the bastards from getting what they want: fear.
Neither of these cowardly events were in "my backyard". I live in the southern USA, and the last horrific event here were the Westside schoolyard shootings. That WAS in my backyard. The 'terrorists' in this case were an 11 year old and a 13 year old. How that changed the whole character of this community! Parents were afraid to send their children to school. Schools became fortresses patrolled by uniformed police. Personal belongings were searched to gain entrance to classrooms. CNN was here, camped on the doorstep. It was the end of the innocence in Northeast Arkansas.
So, I can only imagine how the bombings affected those so much closer to them. My first news about the bombings came from the internet, almost at noon Central time. I had slept late, and gone over to help sort out some new computer gear for someone, and the tv was recording movies, not on a channel. When I checked my email, Yahoo news had this headline about 37 people being killed in subway blasts. My heart fell at my feet. I have friends there! I know it's a big place, but so are New York, and D.C., and I had people in both those places I cared about on 9/11, and just like this I had to know that they were safe, and couldn't rest until I knew they were. I frantically blasted off a batch of emails, knowing full well that my friends had much more to deal with than answering them. I could only let them know that I was concerned. Concerned isn't a strong enough word here. I'm not sure what the correct one would be. To put it in crass terms, I was scared shitless for them. That's more accurate.
Like the way the populace rallied in the world for the WTC victims, the Pentagon victims, and the plane crash victims, I feel much of the same support system for the people of the UK. There is little I can do as an individual across the vast pond. I went outside a few minutes ago and tied another red/white/blue ribbon on my car antenna, next to the one that has been there since September 12, 2001 and is barely a shred. I vowed not to take it off until our troops were safely home. I will probably send this car to the scrapyard before that happens.
But I can hope. It's all I have.
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