July 19, 2013

• It Didn’t Seem Real

  It’s always interesting going to a hospital.  This time, I was the patient, not my dad.  I took a cab to the hospital and went  Emergency.  It wasn’t busy and I saw the triage nurse within 5 minutes.  He took the usual information down.  I explained the problem and the medication I needed.  He made a few notes and walked me into the emergency room right away.  It was the same thing the last time. 

  Within minutes two nurses (one was a good looking Chinese guy), a doctor and a student came in.  One person hooked me up to monitor while another stuck an IV in me.  They explained what they needed to do and what to expect.  I nodded and told them I remembered how it was last time.  They gave me my meds through the IV line and pushed it through.  I spent the next hour or so under observation.  But I know there wasn’t much they were really going to do.

  So I spent the time pondering and observing.  I watched patients getting hauled in.  One person didn’t speak English that well and came in by ambulance from a nursing home.  When the nurse tried to put an IV into him, he let loose a torrent of Italian swear words.  Another patient started to cough really bad.  A nurse came in to help clear a lot of mucus.  They closed the curtain so I couldn’t really see.  But they all wore masks and gowns before entering.  In the bed right in front of me, a woman had what I overheard was a gallstone or kidney stone.  There were 2 women who must have stayed up all night with that patient.  They both had very rumpled dresses and tired eyes.

  The brief bed rest was an opportunity again for life to tell me something.  You become aware of your mortality when you sit in a hospital bed.  I started wondering what I did with my bucket list.  I mean, this wasn’t a life threatening incident and I wasn’t close to death.  But it’s still the emergency room. I wanted a note book to jot down my thoughts.  But there were just questions.  What’s worse, I was stuck in the quiet section of the ER.  The elderly man was now sleeping.  The coughing guy was quiet.  Another woman who came in with her husband was resting.  Everyone was quiet.  It was too much for me to handle. 

  This was almost 3 weeks ago.  It seems so far away now. 

  • 12:24 AM
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