With the health care debate raging...people calling names...statistics being spewed out...I thought I would clear the air for everyone and give you a personal account of my experience in the ER.
I stepped into the corral. Moaning cows were strewn everywhere. Heads, deemed painful (“I promise it’s 10 of 10 pain, Doc!”), turned toward me. All eyes were on me. I made my way up to the registration desk. After watching the (so-aptly titled) receptionist bitch to her friend on the phone for about four point six minutes, I turned to walk away.
“I can help you now.”
“Thanks for your concern.” I only got a stare from the ring laden, red fingernail filing lady. I got the sense my sarcasm wasn’t getting me far, but then again when has it ever worked out for me? What the hell do I care anyway; my freaking heart feels like it is coming through my chest!
“Um, I need to see a doctor? Should I fill out a form or something?”
No words, just a red finger-nail pointing to the box that said “Welcome to the Emergency Department. Please fill out this form first and wait for your name to be called.”
I do so, and find a seat among my fellow heifers.
The one sitting beside me is wrapped in a worn, blue-striped hospital blanket. Her hair is disheveled, and the tattoo on her ankle leaves no doubt as to what Tommy means to her. I stare at it for a second, and think to myself about the state of marriages these days. I decide my neighbor has made a bad decision.
In the back of a pickup truck, the love birds cuddle.
“I promise to love you always, baby. There ain’t nothin’ I wouldn’t do for you.”
Neighbor lady strokes Tommy and his ego.
“Oh, Tommy, I will always love you, too! You’re all I have ever wanted.”
And there goes the tattoo, penetrated into her skin forever. Where is Tommy now? Probably finding a new bessie to love.
This room is a freaking ice locker! Meat could hang in here for days. My mind is focused on my pain. I start to shiver and then slump over. This must be what it is like to get hypothermia or to have a heart attack! I think I am having a heart attack.
“Knee-cho! Mrs. Knee-cho!”
There is no way that woman could be trying to pronounce my name.
“Shelby Knee-cho?”
Oh, for goodness sake. I start to stand up, and my chest violently clenches down. I can’t even stand erect anymore! I want to walk on all fours, but to save face, I only adopt a caveman-esque position, holding my heart as I lumber towards the nurse.
“It’s ‘Nee-coy’.” (Not that it matters at this point).
She just stares.
As I step into the room, a man, whose arm has taken the form of a red-colored log, gets up from a beige chair and limps his way into a hospital bed. It is relayed to the transport nurse that the patient has “the MRSA” and should be taken to the floor.
The nurse points me into the same beige chair. Not one ounce of cleaning solution has touched that chair. I sure as hell am not going to.
“Could you please clean it? That man had an infection, and not cleaning after him is how things are passed in hospitals.”
A half-assessed attempt was made by one squirt of the solution and one swipe of the rag.
My blood pressure is normal. My temperature is normal. Heart rate? Normal. My blood is taken, and I am sent back to the corral.
Thirty-six minutes later.
“Mrs. Knee-cho!”
I get up.
“That’s me.”
I am whisked into a gurney. The halls of the hospital whiz by. The whining patients fill the pastel colored rooms. (My pain has got to be worse than ANYONE else in this damn place!) My final destination is a dark room, with what looks like a machine from NASA. As I lay on the table, there are ceiling tiles painted by children. One says, “For my sister Maggie” and another “Philippians 4:13”. The stabbing in my chest lessens.
Warm goop is squirted on my belly. The nurse starts getting a weird look on her face. “Have you ever had a CATscan?”
“No. Why? Do I need one?”
“Oh, well, I was just wondering.”
Bullshit.
“The doctor will be in to talk to you in just a bit.”
I wait for the doc, and it seems like hours before he gets to me room. He strolls in, a ray of light shines around him, his chestnut brown hair flows even though there is no breeze, and I do believe his eye had a sparkle when he winked at me.
“You’re a special girl.”
How did he know!? I have been trying to convince people of that forever.
“You are part of a group of 0.25% of Americans who are blessed with a duplicate gallbladder. That means you have two gallbladders.”
I think I could have figured that one out.
“You are going to need surgery.”
“If I have two, can I keep one?”
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