Diagnosis: Exposure to E.R.

August 8, 2004

The hospital emergency room is no place for a sick person.

I spent most of yesterday there, after experiencing harsh chest pains. When it became hard to breathe, concensus dictated that I should make the dreaded trek. As I suspected, it did me very little good except to provide evidence that I was not having a heart attack. My mitral valve (in the heart) was acting up, and so was my thyroid, and that combination gave me trouble. I dread getting the bill.

An interesting development in the saga of the heart, was that I collapsed into bed at 8:00 the night before - highly unusual for a night owl like me - and felt some chest pains then. About an hour later I was awakened by a rare phone call from Dave of the No Code blog (see link to the left of this article). He is an ER Nurse and Physician Assistant, who tells some pretty funny stories from the ER. His latest is about patients who can’t answer the simplest intake questions accurately. We talked for an hour, and I went back to bed.

The next morning, I was in the ER myself. During intake, I was trying to get enough breath and trying to deal with pain, and still figure out my social security number and whether I’m pregnant or take drugs or feel safe in my home. Inwardly I was laughing at the scenario, because I couldn’t think of the accurate answers to several of those basic questions. I told her I hadn’t had an episode of pain like this before, then a few minutes later told her I’d had pain the night before, and she sharply asked “Didn’t you just say you’d never ….?” If only Dave could see me now, I was thinking! I was half drifting into sleep during the whole event, oddly, and it looked pretty comical from where I was drifting.

Several tests were performed, and then a radiologist took me down to X-ray my chest. He was a friendly fellow who seemed intent on planting a suggestion that I might have pneumonia, of all things. I was chilled by his strange focus. I was fainting from a vaso-vegal response after having my blood drawn, as he tried to stand me up for the x-ray. He said “Maybe you have pneumonia, because I have a lot of people who can’t stand up because of pneumonia.” Then he filled the time telling me about how he also faints after blood draws, and how pneumonia made it worse. On the way back through the ER doors, he told me again that some of the reasons I might be feeling poorly are this, that and pneumonia. So bizarre! I really wanted to strongly counter his vibe of wishing pneumonia on me, so I stated loudly, “But I don’t have it.”

Then hours passed with no activity. I was amazed that at no point did anyone offer me water. We live in a desert, and drinking water is necessary on an hourly basis. How could something so basic be overlooked, here in a supposed bastion of health? Gary went and got us some water eventually. Mid-afternoon rolled around, and nobody had offered me any food. Was it really good practice to let an already-compromised person go without food as well? Half an hour after asking, they brought me this: A sandwich of processed turkey and processed cheese (which smelled rancid) on very dry nutritionless white bread. No lettuce, nothing healthful, and again no water. I had to peel off the sour-smelling cheese and throw away the week-old bread. I just ate the tasteless turkey.

The nurses were very pleasant, and the new young doctor seemed to be trying his best to think up something useful to tell me. I was just astounded, though, to see the utter absence of attention to wellness. No water, not interest in feeding me, then miserable material to eat which was almost worse than not eating. Most likely they were short-staffed like all hospitals.

When I started regaining my strength, I started getting bored. I found that I could make the little heartbeat patterns on the monitor make interesting shapes when I talked or held my breath or wiggled in the bed. That was borderline fun.

I finally checked myself out Against Medical Orders, because there was no reason to stay. They kept saying “Just a little longer, and the test results will be back and the doctor will see you again.” More hours passed. I had already had a long talk with him, and gotten all the pertinent information. There were patients lining the hallway of the ER on stretchers, and here I was taking up a bed for no reason at all. My roommate was begging for a private room, they had none to offer, and I was eager to bolt. My nurse promised they would call me if the final tests showed anything negative.

Nobody called, but I’m sure I know what the tests would have shown. Malnourishment and dehydration! But certainly not pneumonia.
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