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Lord grant me patience to be a patient!
In my 51+ years I have spent much time in hospitals and visiting doctors. I don’t like hospitals unless of course I am the one who is visiting someone who is a patient. I don’t have the patience to be sick let alone confined to a hospital bed. You can imagine my frustration then about two weeks ago when I ended up spending about four hours in the emergency room of the local hospital. I didn’t want to go! I didn’t think I was bad enough to waste the time of medical professionals. But I will also admit that hospitals are necessary and that my life has been saved more than once being admitted as a patient. When they do get a hold of me I am thankful that they can and will do everything within their power to help me get better. The rest is up to me, my attitude, and my believe in a healing Jesus who makes me right with God. So if I am going to be a patient I will bring my humor to the forefront and attempt to make everyone comfortable and relaxed. Following is part of my journal entry for that visit to the emergency room.
Author’s note: My hat is off to the professionalism and efficiency of the many talents of the emergency room staff at Lakeland Hospital in elkhorn, WI. They were very courteous, very kind, very gentle, and very tolerant of a patient who does not have the patience to be a patient. Thank you for helping me in my time of need. Mark
August 20, 2008
August is over! Yeah right. What a waste of a month. They finally figured that perhaps I must have had some strange strain of bronchitis for just about the entire month. I have taken several antibiotics attempting to squelch a nasty cough that resides in my throat and more specifically in my vocal Chords. The one that worked is commonly referred to as “Z-pack”. It is a five day administration with about a 2 week residue effect. It seemed to kick whatever this whatever was suppose to be.
Today, Wednesday, August 20 I passed out during a coughing jag at lunch. I have been coughing for about three weeks now. In the last week the coughing has left me with a low blood pressure and several different dizzy spells. Yes, I know there are those who will tell you that I am dizzy always. Perhaps they are right. However, these dizzy spells left me dysfunctional. The coughing jag at lunch caused me to lose consciousness for a couple of seconds with my face falling into my plate of food. As I came to my senses my wife handed me the telephone and told me to call the doctor. I called the doctor. She has a tremendously great influence and power over me. The doctor told us to be headed for the emergency room and that the doctor would call ahead to tell them of my arrival. I went but only under protest. Got there, checked in, and fortunately they weren’t busy so I got right into a bay.
The first thing they want me to do is strip! Everything but the shorts. “Nope! The whitey tighty’s were not coming off!” I asked why I needed to strip since the problem was my cough located in my vocal chords. The admitting nurse was pleasant enough and so I did… strip that is. Of course then they give you the gown that says it all: “I’m not humble… see! Yes, it’s my ass!” I hate those gowns! I sat down on the edge of the cot, they took my prosthetic leg off, and I was a captured emergency room patient.
My first medical visitor once the admitting nurse got done with all of her questions was a cardiology tech with an E.K.G. machine. They needed to make sure that I wasn’t having a heart-attack or some sort of congestive heart failure. The tech quickly slipped her hand beneath the hospital gown and started to slap sticky patches all over my chest. Another quick pass with the electrodes and she flipped the switch. In less than five minutes she had her report printed out, was disconnected, and on her way out of the room.
. Next on the list comes a radiology tech with the portable X-ray. She popped the ER cot into one of its most uncomfortable positions and starts taking all kinds of pictures of my chest.
“Look here… it’s up in my throat… that’s where it has always been.” I attempt to explain pointing at my neck. They take pictures of my chest.
Passing through the opening in the curtain to my ER bay the X-ray tech and IV tech pass. She introduces herself as ‘sue’ and that she is the best of the best in putting in IV’s. She is a joyous person and seems to dance as she prepares to do her job.
“We have to take some blood and we are going to do that by starting an IV.”
And so I gotta ask, “Why?”
And she said, “Because it is the way we do things around here.”
“But I don’t want and/or need an IV!”
“You’re going to get one anyway!”
And so the argument went. I told her I was a hard stick due to too many previous IV’s from other hospital visits which is one of the reasons I didn’t want an IV… and for being the best of the best (we verified that by others in the emergency room) it took her three hits to get one to work. She was just about in tears of frustration when she got the third one to work… and then got so excited that it was working that as she started to dance around my cot she tripped and almost fell on the floor. I had tears in my eyes attempting not to laugh! She withdrew her blood samples and started the saline solution.
The IV tech packs up her equipment and heads out of the bay passing another nurse on her way into see me. She is carrying a large hypodermic needle filled with something. I ask… she explains. They want to give me 4 mg of morphine.
“Why?” was my pleading inquiry.
“It will help you relax so that you don’t cough as much.” She said with confidence as she injected the morphine into the IV tubing.
“But I don’t want any morphine nor do I want to relax. I want to get rid of this nasty cough and go home.”
“this will help you feel better faster.” She assured.
“Have you noticed that I haven’t been coughing since I’ve been in here?” I stated.
“See, it’s working.” as she withdrew the now empty needle from the IV tubing. Then she smiled and said, “There… that wasn’t bad was it?”
I was about to say something but went silent as this wonderful feeling that I call the ‘human puddle’ took over my body. I felt like a puddle lying there on the cot thinking that perhaps I had just had an accident in bed. My wife Sue took my hand and tried to comfort me from having lost that battle. At that point I really didn’t care. I could have cared less. Morphine has that kind of effect. lying there pretty defenseless you could have ignited my toes on fire and I wouldn’t have cared. I hate morphine… that feeling of not being in control.
Now, for entertainment purposes, or at least I was thinking it was, the next nurse comes in carrying a miniature bowl. She wants me to cough something up into this container.
“But you just gave me 4 mg of morphine so I wouldn’t cough?”
She smiled kindly and looked at Sue with some sort of signal, turned and placed the container on the bed stand, and left. Again passing through the opening is coming another nurse with another container. She wants a urine sample.
“Ma’am, you just shot me full of 4 mg of morphine and now you want me to pee?” I looked at her and her cup and said, “I’ll be lucky if I pee a week from next Tuesday!” She smiled and looked that looking signal at Sue, left her container next to the plastic bowl, and left the bay as well.
“We will need a urine sample from you before you leave today.” She reminded me as she walked out through the curtains.
It suddenly got quiet in my ER bay. There were no nurses asking questions, bringing containers, or requesting things. Sue turned on the television in the room hoping that we might find the Brewer’s game that was taking place. It wasn’t on the hospital’s cable system. However, we did notice that better than television was listening to the conversations of another patient in the next bay. The patient wasn’t sure why he was there. He also couldn’t understand why they couldn’t reach his wife at home. He, like me, didn’t wish to stay. Whereas they had taken my fake leg so I couldn’t escape… he kept attempting to get out of bed, IV’s and all. They called in a Security Guard and it became his job to keep this patient there. It did become rather entertaining as this Security guard was good!
Listening to the conversations throughout the emergency unit along with feeling the effects of the morphine, I started to dose off to sleep. I’m not sure if I started dreaming? Or perhaps hallucinating because of the morphine? Or a good combination of both… and suddenly the room is filled with a wonderfully delightful presence. The emergency room tending doctor came in. I noticed how cute she was. She was actually drop-dead gorgeous!
“Mr. Schowalter?” she said softly thinking that perhaps I was sleeping.
“yeah right! I’m awake! I’m still here. What’s happening? And who may I ask are you?”
She introduced herself as the attending doctor. I’m excited! I am now thinking of how much fun the ER could be. I have to admit that I thought drop-dead gorgeous doctors like this only existed on those television hospital shows. But here she was, in living color right before my eyes. She started to go through her litany of the usual and routine questions. Since I have been a patient so many times I almost knew the chart and questionnaire by heart and could answer before she finished the question. She got done, took the E.K.G. chart, and left.
Now I am deciding that the effects of the morphine along with this gorgeous doctor and that I have my drop-dead gorgeous wife Sue with me… perhaps my trip and visit to the emergency room isn’t all that bad. I started to relax back on the cot which because of the morphine was feeling much better. The conversation between the Security guard and patient next door had turned to a piece of apple pie that had arrived on the lunchtray, and I started to doze off again for another nap. Who could ask for anything more?
But then another male nurse walks in. He is carrying this funny-looking Q-tip. “Mr. Schowalter, we need to get a culture, please?”
“fine.” I responded thinking they were going to finally culture my throat which has been the problem all along.
“Hmmmm…no. that’s not where we are going to get the culture. We need to go up your nose.” He informed us.
“How far?” I quearied.
“About 6 or 7 inches.”
“Do you knock me out for this?”
“No, you’ve had morphine.”
Silently to myself I am beginning to think of some nasty things I could say. I took a deep breth and said, “Alright, get it done!”
I didn’t know there was a passage that far up my nose between my eyes and beyond. And once he was up there he had to twirl it around for 10 seconds. I stuffed my hands beneath my body so that I wouldn’t slap this poor fellow and held on for the duration of the culture. Sue held my arm to reassure me, too. It darn near drove me crazy, off the cot, and out the door! Ah yes, remembering that the gorgeous doctor was coming back in to see me… I survived the test and took a deep sighing breath as the nurse withdrew all of that Q-tip out of my nose.
It was quite awhile before the gorgeous doctor returned. In the meantime, I took a nap, sue watched television, and the Security guard ate the piece of apple pie. Then the doctor arrived! She came back in and explained the many tests they were taking. They were suspicious that I might have pertussis… otherwise known as “whooping cough”. So, until the labs come back, I was to change my antibiotic and go home with some loaded cough syrup… and stay home.
“what do you mean ‘stay home’?” I wanted clarification.
“Well… you are sort of kind of almost, but not really under quarantine.” She said with a smile that could have melted the Artic circle and definitely melted my defenses.
“What about Sunday?” I had to ask.
“You ain’t preaching.” She said.
“And are you going to come along home and be my personal physician?” (no, I really didn’t ask that question… but thought it!)
We continued to converse about the many other possibilities of what I might be suffering from that would include such a nasty cough. Mind you, I’ve now been in the emergency room for over three hours and still haven’t cough. Then she informed us that her 17 year old daughter had this pertussis about 5 years back. I called her bluff. I looked her right in her beautiful eyes and said…
“You aren’t old enough to have a 17 year old daughter! Now it was my turn to smile for the first time during my visit in the emergency room. My wife Sue slapped me for embarrassing the doctor.
First she accused me of not being blind. Then she thanked me for the compliment and said I could go home. So I did! (but not with the doctor) Sue helped me get dressed shedding the awful gown and returning to my jeans and T-shirt. When I stood up off the cot and returned to having my prostetic under me I suddenly needed to empty my bladder. They got their urine sample but I never did cough up anything for that lab sample. I signed on the dotted line and headed out the door… wibble wobble to and fro because of the effects of the morphine all the way to our van in the parking lot. What a way to spend 4 hours of a Wednesday afternoon.
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