A Little Perspective

I was all set to come here and vent about the horrible day I had on Friday. But before I could quite get to that, something else happened that refreshed my perspective on some things.

Not that my day on Friday didn't completely suck. I still very definitely plan to rant about it. But we'll get to that later.

Saturday night my mom and I took my dad to the emergency room. In the matter of a short time on Saturday evening while we were at their store, he became extremely disoriented and basically just out of it. He has had a cold for awhile now, and for that and various other reasons we decided to head to the ER.

The long and short of it, after all the poking and prodding and bazillions of tests that they do: He was diagnosed with pneumonia and definitely needed to be at the hospital. He was released on Monday evening after a subsequent chest x-ray showed the pneumonia was gone, though he still has a cough as the cold is not gone. But he is doing much better and will be fine with time and rest.

We know now that he will be fine. But sitting in Trauma Room 12 at the ER on Saturday night, all night, not knowing yet what was going on with him, and listening to all that is going on around us was very disturbing. I guess they don't call them trauma rooms for nothing. Only curtains separated the trauma rooms from each other, so we were privy to everything in at least rooms 11 and 13 on either side of us, and then some. Dad was dozing in between the tests they were doing, and we generally had nothing better to do than sit there and take everything in.

For starters, an older lady died in room 11. Granted, she came from a nursing home and had already passed before she got to the ER, but nonetheless they tried to revive her for a bit and finally called her time of death. A short time later, in room 13, another older lady coded and they worked on her for some time before she too passed. It was the most like "ER" the tv show I have ever seen in an actual ER, people running around and hollering and frantic. Not that I frequent ERs.

So at this point, the patients in the trauma rooms on either side of us have died, rest their souls. An unsettling turn of events in an already stressful situation.

Next was the big biker guy that they wheeled by us enroute to a room. He was covered in blood and groaning in pain. We overheard later that he'd had a motorcycle accident going 80 mph and dislocated his leg, among numerous other injuries. We heard his yells as the doctor relocated his leg (or whatever the proper medical term is). Though it totally wasn't funny, my mom and I both giggled as we heard this poor guy's loud yelp of pain, then the doctor say "sorry", right before the poor fellow yelled even louder. I know I'll never be able to adequately explain to anyone else why we giggled but we both understood why at the time. It was just the way the doctor said "sorry" in the middle. Nevermind. I hope this poor guy heals up and goes home soon if he hasn't already.

Ultimately a young man was brought into room 11. I caught a glimpse of him when I went to the vending machines --he looked to be in his early to mid 20's. He had apparently been stabbed several hours earlier and had wanted to avoid the hospital. He did not want the police called and did not want to press charges, although the nurse advised him that she thought they were required to notify the police about stabbings, gunshot wounds, etc.

The doctor explained to him that he would need exploratory surgery so they could determine the extent of the damage of the stab wound. He talked about the possibilities of what they might find in this surgery and how the damage would be repaired, the various possibilities, speaking of colostomy and other things I'd have rather not heard about. The doctor carefully explained that without this surgery and ultimate repair, he would probably die.

The young man pondered that for a bit (what's to ponder???) then decided to go ahead with the surgery. The doctor left and a nurse began to prep him for surgery. What we heard then went a little something like this:

Man: Do I uh, need to let you know if I've uh, done anything tonight?
Nurse: Done anything? Like what?
Man: Like drugs and whatever
Nurse: Yes, we would need that information. What have you taken?
Man: Uh, meth.
Nurse: Meth. Ok, I will let the doctor know. Anything else?
Man: No. Ok. I'm gonna go smoke a cigarette
Nurse: Sir, you can't go smoke, we are prepping you for surgery now.
Man: Ok, then I don't wanna have the surgery. I wanna go smoke
Nurse: Sir, you understand that without this surgery you will very likely die?
Man: Yeah. I'm gonna go smoke now.
Nurse: Can you wait just a moment please?

The nurse goes flying past us, comes back in a hurry with the doctor and at least 3 other nurses in tow.

Doctor: I understand you have decided not to have the surgery and you want to leave?
Man: Yeah
Doctor: You understand if you leave here you are probably going to die? It's a simple procedure...

He goes on to explain again in detail what is to be done, ultimately convincing the guy it is in his best interest to forego his nicotine fit and sit and stay a spell.

Then the police arrived to talk to this guy about the stabbing.

It was quite a fairy tale. He went to a store for a pack of smokes and some guys he didn't even know just suddenly jumped out and stabbed him for no good reason - didn't even rob him.

Not to say that couldn't be true in this day and age, but I'd find it highly unlikely considering his aforementioned meth use earlier in the evening.

They finally wheeled him away to the OR. I wish him well. I hope he came through just fine and doesn't have to deal with the colostomy stuff. He wasn't gonna have the surgery so he could go have a smoke. And I thought I had a nicotine problem.

Before my dad was finally taken to a room, we heard one of the nurses telling someone that it had been "quite a night, 3 people died."

I don't know how the ER staff does it. I couldn't deal with all of that, day in and day out. More power to you. And thank you.