Excerpt from My Memoir: Return to the Emergency Room, Part One

Late Tuesday night (actually early Wednesday morning) when I got into bed, my entire right side went straight as a board. I was terrified, fearing that I was having another stroke. I had no choice but to call 911. Two paramedics arrived with a member of Manhattan’s finest (police officer). They asked if I wanted to go to the hospital. I didn’t want to go (who in their right mind does)? but I figured I’d better, just in case. . . I arrived at the Mt. Sinai emergency room at 2:30 a.m. I quickly figured out that this was going to be a nightmare. When I had the stroke I was seen immediately and had lapsed into unconsciousness before things became really bad. It’s easier to be unconscious than to face the ordeal of being trapped for thirteen hours in a packed emergency room. They did a cat scan and took enough blood from me to feed a dozen vampires. The attending (doctor) referred me to a neurologist. Coincidentally, the neurologist was the same one who initially saw me in August. He said the cat scan showed a big scar where the aneurism had been, but (thank God) I didn’t have another stroke. He explained that I was still in danger of having a seizure until the scar healed. (Note to self: Must get job so I can afford to keep taking very expensive anti-seizure drug.) He said he was pleased to see me recovering so nicely. This was encouraging; I was terrified that my diagnosis of “spasticity” would undo all the goals I had accomplished. He wrote a prescription for a muscle relaxer and said I wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while; they had to wait and see if the prescription worked and for the results of the remaining blood tests. I might have to be admitted to the hospital. It all depended on the test results. In the interim, I had to pee twice. I hadn’t had anything to drink; I guess it was nerves. I was lucky enough to have a male nurse called Darwin who cared. He hadn’t stabbed me to death when he took (most of) my blood. He brought me the bedpan. For the first time ever, I was able to use it. It usually hurts my ass so much that I’m unable to go. The expression “royal pain in the ass” was coined when a queen was asked to use a bedpan. It was impossible not to overhear bits of conversation; we were practically piled on top of one another. One man asked if this was a detox center. Another was the poster child from that “scare people into not smoking” ad campaign; he had no legs, and only one arm with which he used to drive his motorized wheelchair. He kept leaving the e/r to have a cigarette. While he was outside, he kept trying to hit on unsuspecting women. (I saw the unsuspecting women while I was being loaded onto the ambulette thirteen hours later. If I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t have believed it.) When he returned to the emergency room, he began to curse and moan. They put me with the mental patients. Across from me was a manic depressive woman looking to refill her prescription. She told her story to a lazy hospital transporter who pretended to listen but was really fast asleep. They paged him repeatedly, but he ignored the pages. She was from California. She had no idea where she was or how she had gotten there. She mumbled something like “I hate Kennedy”. If I didn’t feel so awful, I would have asked her which Kennedy she hated and why. A couple of beds down was an elderly Spanish woman who was hearing imaginary voices. The Spanish nurse spent an hour consoling this woman, and her imaginary voices, in Spanish, while she ignored everyone else. An elderly, frail, white woman had the audacity to ask for her medication, which had been promised to her “immediately” (It had been two hours; she was still waiting.) The nurses called security. They said she was a threat. I heard the entire conversation. She didn’t threaten anybody. The only threat was that the nurses might be forced to do their jobs before they were darn good and ready. “I didn’t threaten anybody. I was just exercising my right to be treated like a human being. Patients bill of rights; ever hear of it?” Security left. The woman received her medication shortly thereafter. Reverse discrimination ran rampant in the emergency room. They were targeting elderly white women who dared to ask questions. If I had been able to move, I would have handed out my business cards. It was now approximately 7:30 a.m. My anti-seizure medication was an hour overdue. I still hadn’t been given the magic muscle relaxer that had been ordered several hours before. I suspected that the pharmacist was on an extended hiatus or simply not there. I had flashbacks of my inpatient stay. Stuff like this happened all the time. Darwin was long gone. The Spanish nurse was only dealing with the Spanish community; if your name wasn’t Hernandez or Lopez you were out of luck. I didn’t see anyone except a guy who muttered “No Speak English”. He brought me a container of mouthwash, a small tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush. This would have been appreciated if I’d been able to move. I wasn’t given any water or anything to spit the toothpaste in. Oh, well. It would make a lovely parting gift if I was lucky enough to make it out of here. 8:30 a.m. Still no sign of anyone. I had the main telephone number to Mt. Sinai on my mobile phone. I dialed the number, and asked to be connected to the adult emergency room. It rang several times before a man picked up. “Emergency room.” “Hi. I’m here, in desperate need of a bedpan.” “What is your exact location?” “I’m wedged between the schizophrenic Spanish lady and the manic depressive woman from California. Near bed 11; I’m in the hall.” “I’ll send someone right away.” A half hour later, a man appeared with a giant bedpan the size of Texas. “I can’t use that.” “We don’t have anything smaller right now.” I am prone to “stage fright”; the inability to pee unless the circumstances are right. After an hour on the giant bedpan, I had to remove it. It had taken on a life of its own; it was starting to become part of my anatomy. I could feel an enormous, extremely painful dent forming on my ass. I had no alternative. I had to pee in my pull up panties. The attendant was very nice and put extra padding on my bed, to prepare for this added humiliation. 10:30 a.m. I finally got the magic pill. I still did not get my anti-seizure medication. Since August, I have been mistreated by a plethora of bad nurses. They were angels compared with the nurse that I was forced to deal with now. I will refer to her as Cruella DeVille. If there was a prize for worst nurse on the planet, Cruella would win it, hands down. “I need my anti-seizure medication. My neurologist will confirm this; it’s clearly indicated on my chart. Maybe if you read the patients’ charts occasionally, you might learn something.” “If you have a seizure,we’ll deal with it then. I am not allowed to give you medicine unless an emergency room doctor approves it. There is no such approval written in your emergency room chart.” WHAT THE HELL? I decided to scream; I was not about to take any more crap from this witch. “What happened?” The rotten nurses always ask this question, in a menacing tone that makes you feel like you must apologize for interrupting their perpetual coffee break. “I need my Keppra. I am not going to be quiet until I get it.” “You’re making the other patients think that we’re not taking care of you.” “If the shoe fits. . .I’m sure they’re already aware. You’re not taking care of them, either. I can hear them complaining; are you deaf?” I began to moan. 10:45 a.m. I get my Keppra anti-seizure medication. “Can I please have some water, or does someone have to approve it?” 11:30 a.m. The magic pill hasn’t worked. I’m still a human diving board. The side effects are working, though. Now I have a raging headache, accompanied by a full bladder which I cannot empty. I dialed the emergency room again. Cruella answered the phone, after it rang about one hundred times. “This is your favorite patient. Can I please have some Tylenol?” She hung up on me. I continued to call the emergency room. I hung up as soon as she answered. I repeated this procedure periodically for the remainder of my time at the emergency room. They couldn’t prove that it was me. I started to cry, loudly. I’ve perfected the art of crying at a volume that’s going to get things accomplished. I don’t like to do it, but if nothing else works, I won’t hesitate to pull out all the stops. It’s somewhere between many decibels and breaking the sound barrier. A female doctor walked by and asked Cruella why I was crying. I heard her inform the doctor that I’d requested Tylenol. Apparently the doctor was not happy with Cruella ignoring my request. I got my Tylenol, and I got her in trouble. Win, win. Good for me.