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.

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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.

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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.