Over last weekend, I made an unscheduled visit to the Jefferson Hospital emergency room. I woke up Saturday morning with the kind of pain that quickly makes you place your life on hold. The Phillies game no longer seemed so important. Pain does that to you. Pain tends to block out all other feelings. Pain reduces you to one simple goal: How do I stop it?
I was lucky; Jefferson Hospital took my pain almost as seriously as I did. In the stereotypical situation, the receptionist is oblivious to your agony, asking an endless series of questions while you feel as if your life is ebbing away. Not the case here. Certainly the questions had to be answered, but my wife did most of that while I was quickly whisked to a triage nurse whose job it was to assess the seriousness of my situation. It wasn’t long before I was wheeled into the ER.
I have never seen a big city ER that wasn’t short-handed and forced to improvise, and this was going to be no exception. As you lay there thinking the worst, the sights and sounds overwhelm you. Patients are wheeled to and fro while orderlies and nurses manage to show concern while at the same time enjoying the kind of joking and light conversation you would see in any office. I could hear discussions on Showtime’s "Dexter," a popular series about a serial killer.
My "room" was no room at all, just a spot in the hallway where the incredible energy of the ER dominated. A woman lay facing me in the opposite direction. Her pain seemed worse than mine. About the pain: It came and went, but it was never far away. It helps tremendously if you have a healthy loved one watching out for you. My wife made sure I got some attention. I was there about an hour before Joan the Kindly Nurse came by. Joan explained that before I could be given a painkiller, I would have some tests. She took the requisite samples and got things started. I felt comforted.
At 10 minutes of two, I was visited by Jason, a young resident. After a few questions and the test results, Dr. Jason was pretty certain I had kidney stones. He had a magic pill known to act quickly on the pain associated with kidney stones. It was administered, and in 10 minutes, I was off in a dream world where there were no diseased kidneys and the Stones were a famous rock group. In the meantime my wife made some new friends, which was a small reward for watching me sleep.
When I woke up, my son called and caught me up on the Phils (they were losing) and Temple (they were losing, too). The pain had disappeared and my life interests had reappeared. I even noticed a tall blonde nurse occasionally walking up and down the aisle with some old-time interest. Some orderly came and wheeled me in for a CAT scan.
I don’t like CAT scans because I am claustrophobic, but without the pain I was feeling a bit chipper. After the technician was done, I asked her if there was any chance I would be keeping dinner arrangements at an upscale Mexican restaurant in Old City. After all, Center City Restaurant Week waits for no man. She decided I wasn’t serious and the pain medication was talking.
By the time the orderly wheeled me back into the hallway, I noticed none of the now-familiar patients had been discharged. They were all there including the poor woman facing me, whose face was now a beet red from the neck pain she was feeling. I felt guilty my own pain had been disposed of relatively easily.
My wife got me a container of harvest pumpkin soup, which I greedily devoured. An older orderly appropriately named Jeff came around to attach me to an I.V. He couldn’t find a pole for the bags so he got creative and attached them to a bookcase on the other side of the cubicle. Somehow it worked. Jeff was proud. My wife was proud of Jeff. I was wondering if the pain was truly gone and would I get out in time to have my pork short ribs.
Time dragged on. My resident consulted by phone with the physicians I see on a regular basis at Jefferson. Thankfully they decided the CAT scan showed I had passed a stone. (I wondered whether it was Mick or Keith). After giving me the option of staying in the hospital, which took me a second-and-a-half to reject, I left with my faithful lifetime companion. The Cherry Hill lady with diverticulitis also had been discharged, but the lady with the neck pain was still there looking very sad.
We went home and were out with friends in an hour. The pork short ribs were fine.
