BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

(Continued from I Do Not Like The Cone Of Shame…)

Actually, you DON’T get eggroll. You get pudding, a cold turkey sandwich, and cranberry juice – but we will get to that in a bit…

You know those scenes in movies where you see things from the patient’s point of view? The POV as they are being rolled down a hospital corridor and the fluorescent lights are flashing by. The one where pristine acoustic ceiling panels offer up intricate details in a split second before blinking to a light, then more panels, then a light, then more panels… Doctors and nurses are yelling, Code Pomegranate! Trauma 1! Get me 4000 CC’s of Somnobuttwellubrex STAT! Fire up the shocky-thingy, start an IV- D5W Lactated Ringers, and somebody get me the goddamn epinephrine! Some nurse is sitting on top of you riding the gurney and doing CPR while another one is running along squeezing a balloon in your face… All while a loved one is  holding your hand, crying, and murmuring “hang in there…”

Well, it wasn’t like that at all. Not one fucking iota.

The ambulance rolled in to Mercy emergency and kicked off the sirens so that they wouldn’t scare the geese across the way. The dark and not exactly warm (but not exactly cold) interior flooded with light as the back doors swung open, and a few seconds later I was sliding out into the day while the go-go gadget wheely legs on the gurney dropped like landing gear on a Beechcraft and locked into place. A heartbeat later we rolled from sunlight into muted artificial light and a shade more warmth than the back of the ambulance. We made a quick series of turns – or maybe we didn’t, I couldn’t really say. I tend to squeeze my eyes shut when I am in pain, and the jostling about wasn’t doing me any favors. All I can say is that the gurney was on the move and it felt like we made a left or right or two. And, remember, this all took place in a matter of seconds. There was no smooth,  dramatic dolly shot down an endless corridor, here. This was all steadycam, point A to point B as fast as possible. A handful of seconds later we went through a door and all hell broke loose. Now, when I say all hell broke loose what I mean is there was an organized chaos filling the room, BUT, to the crumpled Merp patient guy, it was utter insanity.

Yeah… Just my kind of audience.

Now, at this point, I have to apologize. I cannot remember ANY names. I really should, but I cannot. I suppose given the circumstances I really wasn’t expected to, but given that there were so many characters in this play, it would be nice to put names to them. THAT SAID, I am sure that some of them will be happy that I don’t recall their monikers (other than Doctor One, Doctor Two, etc) because a few of them aren’t going to be portrayed all that well.

Back to the chaos…

Fan meet shit. Shit meet fan. At least that is how it appeared from my point of view.

And now, I shall exaggerate. Not what happened. Just the numbers. Mostly because in my state at that time I was having trouble with the whole counting thing. However, I do have a damn good recollection of what was coming out of my mouth, mostly because it was the only thing keeping me conscious given that the ride and the jostling had taken the pain from a False 6 to a very real 18.5.

(Here’s the exaggerated number –>) Three-hundred ninety-seven people dressed in scrubs and lab coats were crammed into that little room, and every damn one of them was talking at once. Not only that, about half of them were talking to me, not each other.

“Can you tell me your name? What is you pain level? When is the last time you saw an Alpaca on a bicycle? Are you allergic to cheese? Pizza or tacos? Do you really need that foot or can we just toss it in the trash? This is going to hurt. Can you move this? Can you move that? Star Trek or Star Wars? And on, and on, and on…”

I’m going to have to admit that this particular blog entry may not be as entertaining as some of the previous, partly because there was so much going on it is really hard for me to wax poetical about it and have the verbiage be coherent. So, I am going to try to hit the high points, if they can be called that.

Now, remember, at this point I have called Evil Kat and that’s about it. I’m still not entirely sure whether or not I am going to live at this point, especially with everything that is going on around me, but this gaggle of people have now taken my cell phone away from me, taken my glasses so that I cannot see, AND they have stolen my shoes so that I can’t run away since they undid all of the straps. I’m still sprawled out on a backboard with a collar around my neck, and that’s when shit started getting real.

I felt something cold running up my shins and I jockeyed my head into enough of a twist so that I could see a couple of scrub suited individuals with scissors having a fabric cutting contest.

“Just WHAT the FUCK do you think you are doing?” Yes, I said that.

“Relax, Mister Sellars, we have to get your pants off.”

Now, there’s certainly that whole porn fantasy of a nurse telling you your pants need to come off, but this quite obviously wasn’t one of those adolescent, hormone induced daydreams. Also, she had just called me Mister Sellars… Now I’m old and I’m sure I’m going to die because I’m being talked to like a feeble elderly person.

“There’s a goddamned zipper on them you know,” I replied.

“This is faster.”

“They’re my favorite jeans and you just turned them into rags.”

“Sorry.”

I should note now that pretty much everyone in the room is chuckling a bit while still doing all this medical stuff and calling out different long-ass, Latin-rooted (or just flat out Latin) terminology at one another, so you know what that means. Yeah, it’s sorta like being abducted by aliens because you can’t understand what they are saying, but they are obviously having a great time experimenting on you. So, what do I say?

“Okay, fine. You can go ahead and take my pants off, but I’d just as soon skip the anal probe.” Again, yes, I really said that.

We now went from chuckling to all out laughter. This room wasn’t going to be hard to work after all.

“How’s your pain?”

“Well,” I said, “It was a 6, now it’s more like 17 or 18.”

My favorite paramedic chimed in, “He refused pain medication.”

“Why?” someone asked.

And so, I explained it all again.

Now, while there are people farting about with my legs, and people farting about with flashlights in my eyes, and people asking me questions, and other people asking me where my insurance card is, and people feeling my abdomen, and people sticking their hands between the backboard and my back, and people making me squeeze things, there is an intern or some such on my left putting in an IV.

Dude tells me he’s putting the cannula in my arm and I say, “No thanks, I’ve already got one.”

“We have to put in another one.”

“Why?”

I never got an answer to that. In fact, he put it in, then the Doc in Charge tells him he put it in the wrong place.

So guess what? Yeah, they put an oil well cap on that fucker, taped it down, then stabbed me again in a different place. Now I have the trifecta – three IV’s, no waiting.

Then someone says, “We’re going to give you some FramoLiptoTriptoDiFremulene XQ, now. It’s a pain medication and it should help.”

“I’d much rather just have a bottle of bourbon and a glass with a couple of ice cubes,” I replied. (Again, yes, I really did say that.)

“How are you able to be making jokes when you are in pain?” someone asked.

“I hear laughter is the best medicine,” I replied.

Now, at this point the frenzy of activity is calming just a bit. Not completely. Just a bit. The Doc in Charge – and I really wish I could remember her name, because she was the shit. Seriously. She had a great bedside manner and really knew her craft. I later discovered that she is one of the top ER docs in the area and that everyone is always trying to steal her away to other departments, but she staunchly refuses, electing instead to stay in the ER. At any rate, the Doc in Charge says to me, “It looks like you shattered your calcaneus.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

“Can you feel this?”

“Yes.”

“How about this?”

“Yes.”

“And this?”

I tried to sit up on the table, “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!”

“Sorry.”

When I caught my breath, “Don’t mention it.”

“We’re going to get some X-rays.”

“Cool. Put me down for a set of wallets and a framed eleven by fourteen.” (As if I need to note this gain, YES, I really did say that, as well as everything else I say in this post – and the others for that matter.)

Now, at this point I really have no idea how long I had been in the ER. I suspect it had been a while, but I can’t really say at this particular point. I stress that because I DO know that by the time everything was said and done, I was in the ER for right at 6 hours, hence the name of this installment.

By now a couple of X-ray techs have arrived with a portable radioactive laser death ray machine, and they are very carefully attempting to get the necessary 8×10’s with the circles and arrows and paragraphs that had been ordered by not only the Doc in Charge, but the numerous other Egos that had been called in to consult. I call them Egos because that’s pretty much what they were. In fact, they were even having pissing contests with one another whenever they were in the room together. The only one not engaging in the bullshit was the Doc in Charge, because she was a Doc, not an Ego. The rest of them just wanted to be in charge, but near as I could tell they were all too busy pissing on one another to know what being in charge really meant.

So, anyway, back to the X-ray thing… My daughter had been contacted by EK and she had hightailed it to the hospital and they had sent her back to see me. She had only just arrived and I have no idea what it must have been like for her to see her dad sprawled out on a table, mostly naked, bloody, with tubes and wires attached, and grimacing a lot. At any rate, since they had to irradiate the premises they sent her right back out the door within a couple of minutes of her arriving. So, she was standing outside the room while all of this was going on – I point this out because she has noted that everyone in the entire place could hear me. Hear what, you ask?

Well… In order for them to get the proper 8×10’s it involved moving my shattered foot. A lot. Into all manner of positions. I should also note that there were pictures of my back, too, because it turned out that I had broken that as well. But, we will get to that in a bit. Maybe.

So, anyway, as they were moving my foot the pain, which had been blunted by the FramoLiptoTriptoDiFremulene XQ from an 18.5 down to a 12, now shot up to the 20 territory. They ask me about the pain and I relay this information. They say, “Well we will get you some more pain medication.” I say, “Just go ahead and get this done, then give me a goddamn bottle of bourbon.” They say, “Are you sure?” To which I reply, “Hell yes, and I don’t even care if it’s cheap bourbon.”

So, they continued, and the pain went from the 20 territory to around 35-37.

I grabbed the side of the treatment table and pulled myself up – which they really sort of frowned upon – and screamed, “THESE TWO GUYS WALK INTO A BAR!”

They looked startled.

I gasped in a breath and continued, “THE FIRST GUY SAYS TO THE BARTENDER, I’LL HAVE H2O.”

They still look startled.

“THE SECOND GUY SAYS I’LL HAVE H2O TOO.”

Now they seem curious, and startled.

“THE SECOND GUY DIED!”

Again I get asked, “How are you cracking jokes when you are in this much pain?”

“It’s what I do…”

So, now that the X-rays are done (and, I should probably note, this was only the first round. They did another round of them about 30-45 minutes later) more nurses and doctor types come back in and inspect, detect, and otherwise inject me with stuff. By now they have let my daughter back in and she is sitting across the room in a chair watching all of this shit happen to me. To this day I am really sorry that she had to see all of that, especially at the age of 18. You aren’t supposed to see a parent helpless, at least not until you have a shit ton of life experience under your belt, and 18 doesn’t qualify. At any rate, one of the medical types (I say medical type because I am not sure if he was a doc a nurse or some other sort of assistant that works in the ER) engaged his “take the patient’s mind off the situation” training and asked, “So, did you have some big plans for tonight?”

To which I replied, “Yeah. Sex. I’m married to a smoking hot redhead who is my best friend and we are pretty damn active in the sex department, but I guess that’s right out.”

The ER Doc in Charge then says, “Wait? What? You’re going to dump me for the redhead?”

See why I say she has a great beside manner?

So… In truth, the next couple of hours were pretty damn boring. It was just me, the Teen of Doom, and a nurse in the room while all manner of decisions were being made about me. A doc would come through every now and then and lay some news on me – most of which would be, “We’re going to order this test or that test, so hang in there,” to which I would reply, “Yeah, well, it’s not like I’m going anywhere. You wingnuts took my pants.”

I need to note here that FramoLiptoTriptoDiFremulene XQ kinda sucks.  It may do great shit for others, but not for me. So, they finally decided to give me Morphine. Now, I have experience with Morphine from the appendix incident. I was excited. I knew that shit would knock me right out. This time, though, it didn’t. BUT, it did take the pain back down to the False 6, which was now probably a real 6, but it would still spike to 15 or so on occasion, and when it did I would hold my breath and grunt my way through it. This is when my nurse decided that my Pulsox of 88 wasn’t all that good and slapped some O2 on me. She expressed concern about the Pulsox and I said, “It’s because I’m holding my breath when the waves of pain spike.”

She said, “Stop doing that.”

I said, “Easy for you to say.”

She said, “I know.”

At this point, since there weren’t any egos in the room I thanked her for being there and told her, “Look, between you and me, I trust you and all the other RN’s here. Maybe a couple of the docs, but most of them not so much. I know good and damn well that RN’s are going to keep me alive, AND keep the egos from killing me. So, thank you.”

And here’s the thing, I wasn’t just saying that. I was sincere, and I believe it with all my heart. I know some fantastic docs that I trust with my life, but they are few and far between. Most of them – that I have dealt with over the years – are egos with legs. Nurses, on the other hand – I’ve only met one that I didn’t like and that was during the appendix incident. She was ready to retire, and believe me, she was about 10 years behind schedule on that given her crotchety demeanor.

Anywho, there’s more but I am going to save it for the next entry because I have probably bored you enough at this point. The last bit for this post was the fact that the RN gave me my glasses and phone back so that I could make some calls. As it turned out, though, there was no cell service, so I was sorta hosed. UNTIL… You knew that was coming, right? The Teen of Doom pointed out that there was free Wi-Fi.

Yeah, leave it to the teen to find the Wi-Fi immediately.

So, I got signed in and jumped on messenger. I’ll leave this entry with what my loved ones who had yet to be contacted received that afternoon, along with the caption, “Now don’t panic…”

 

More to come…

(Continued from Operator, What’s The Number To 9-1-1?)