We spent the evening (until just after midnight, in fact) at the emergency room — Nora got a splinter in her butt from sliding on the deck, and the doc on call at the pediatric practice suggested we go to the ER.
We got there at about 6:30 or so, and proceeded to wait in the waiting room until about 7:30. It was crazy in there — much moreso than I’ve experienced in the past. Bleeders, barfers, coughers, scratchers, moaners, sleepers, and God knows who all else. Nora seemed temporarily perplexed by a terribly emaciated woman sitting across from us eating a tub of cottage cheese. How anyone can eat in that environment, I do not know. She ate a turkey sandwich on her gurney in the hallway later, too. I don’t know where it all goes, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask.
Every once in a while you’d hear some wet sound happen somewhere just out of sight, and the little dude with the mop would come and put his “piso mojado” sign down and start scrubbing. If it didn’t come with smells, it would have been darn funny.
Anyhow, we got into a room and Nora into a little mini degradation gown (you know the ones, with the ties in the back), and proceeded to mostly wait until about 10:30. Luckily it was a kids room, so it had actual walls and was a bit quieter than the curtained rooms and had a TV. So we watched some Disney. Then a car accident victim came in, so everything was focused on that for a while. Nora was oblivious to it all, but I was near the door for much of it and got to see what was going on.
Man, an elderly husband sitting alone outside a trauma room holding his wife’s shoes is almost too much to bear. The good news is that it sounds like she’ll be fine after a lengthy stay.
Another time, the nurses stood directly outside our door explaining medications to an older gentleman she was discharging. “You really need to consider taking a stool softener when you’re taking these medications [vicodin and percoset], sir.” Boy, I can vouch for that, having been prescribed both in the past. And I almost said so, in hopes of gently reminding the nurse that this man’s very private conversation was being held well within earshot of total strangers. In the end, I decided to stay quiet, as I thought the embarrassment felt by the man might well outweigh whatever malady he was taking the drugs for.
So all of this comes down to Nora, being kept up four hours after bedtime, collapsing in sheer terror every time they walked in. I don’t blame her — it hurt like hell on her ass every time they did. Finally, they gave up (actually, we pulled the plug on it, as she was so tired and traumatized by that time), and the ER doc said she could just soak in a warm bath twice a day until it works itself out. Lizzie and I looked at each other over our quivering daughter, both of us thinking that someone should really tell the doc on call who I’d originally talked to about that treatment.
I’m not griping, really — this is the same ER that’s saved my life twice and the same hospital that delivered Nora, and it’s completely amazing what they do every day and night. All I’m saying is that it was far more difficult for all involved (don’t get me started about the mincy intern who whispered to me about how much he hates it when people cry) because she was iced in the room for so long. By the time they got to her, she was already past being at all open to being brave about the process.
It’s just that I don’t remember it being like this before, particularly at Evanston. St. Francis is the only trauma center left in the area, but they must have been full up tonight (as often happens these days). And St. Francis, being in the Howard Street area, was always more of an urban ER (more injuries, uninsured people with fevery kids, and so on). Evanston used to be mostly flu barfers and ODs and gardening or golf injuries* — now it’s starting to take on more and more of a Cook County feel**.
I’m sure all of this can be funneled into some scathing assessment of healthcare in America. All I know is that tonight was a really, really busy night at a hospital that has basically minimized its ER capacities in the past several years. And still, it’s crazy on Friday night. Okay, maybe I’ll scathe just a pinch …
A good example of the alarmingly corporate mindframe that existed even eleven years ago: when they saved my life the first time (and again, they really did — good folks there, once they get to going), we waited in the ER for about an hour. I was having terrible abdominal pains (you know, the kind where people say, “I knew immediately it wasn’t regular pain”), and hunched over and sweating in the waiting room. We called St. Francis from the pay phone there, and asked what the wait time was in their ER. They had a couple stalls waiting to go, so we said we’d be right there. When we went to tell the triage nurse we were going to another hospital, they had me in a wheelchair immediately and in a stall in less than five minutes. My pain was no different, nor were my other symptoms. But I think two things were put into play by our calling St. Francis — Evanston didn’t want to lose our insurance bucks (little did they know I was uninsured at the time — ha!), and/or Evanston was terrified that I’d leave the ER and drop dead ten feet away, leaving Lizzie and my parents able to sue for naming rights to the new atrium they were building.
Now I say again (maybe the third time?), they ultimately gave me the best, smartest, and most inventive care I could have hoped for and very, very literally saved my life in a fraction of the time and agony other people with the same diagnosis had experienced in the past. For that I am immeasurably grateful, and for that I have what I can only call a special, if strangely impersonal, love for the people in the trenches (even the ones whose concern shifted when I started talking about leaving the ER). I do still thank them on every CD liner I create for anything I record, and don’t plan to stop doing that. I just think it speaks to a scary trend in healthcare that has been growing for years and years. I’m sure the triage nurse didn’t wake up that morning hoping to make sure she protected the legal standing of her hospital. But the fear that I might go elsewhere and either a) die, or b) receive more efficient care that would open them up to legal action seemed to be something that the entire community there was actually worried about.
OR … am I being too paranoid? Could it be that the simple fact that I was willing to leave a hospital at the level of pain I was experiencing to risk going to another was telling enough to them that they decided to expedite my admission? I sure hope it’s that, but I worry. Whatever the case, three days in ICU and almost three weeks in the hospital after that, they slapped me on my ass and sent me home. Business suspicions aside, there is nothing I can say about the care I got once I was diagnosed and admitted that doesn’t sound like a big bloggy hug. (Though I still hope to run into that damned intern, I call him “Captain Catheter,” in an alley someday. “You’ll feel a little pressure,” my ass!)
Anyhow, my flashbacks aside, Nora lived. She was already all talky on the way home, so I think this will be quite a satisfying notch in her belt when her best friend Sophie gets back from her summer vacation. And maybe eventually, we’ll be able to drag this damned splinter out of her butt, if it’s in there at all.
* I have been two of these. Guess which ones!
** For those who don’t know, Cook County Hospital is the hospital that “E.R”. is based on. It’s VERY urban and serves largely a very poor community, many of whom have no choice but to go there for any medical treatment (you know, like butt splinters).
