Ok So I know I said I would update this the next day, and I have received several comments to that effect. Unfortunately the next couple days I had some major issues with my body adjusting to functioning one organ shy of a full deck. So here is the next update better late than later......
So I was lying there in my morphine induced semi happiness waiting for my friends Cathy and Brian to show up to get me to take me to the Royal Alex Hospital DT. As the ER came to life, all the non church going sick people were filing into the waiting room, several more doctors and nurses had come on duty and the whole ER was bustling like a school bakery on a Monday morning. I was lying there enjoying the afterglow of my new best friend Mr. Morphine finally finding a comfortable position on the narrow hospital bed, and Cathy and Brian showed up. The nurse removed the IV but left the needle in me considering the time we had putting the needles in the first place. I prepared myself for the journey to the van and eventually to the Royal Alex Hospital. Brian jumped in my BMW and was taking that home for me as we didn’t want to leave it at the ER, which although is attached to a Police station, still brought a lot of people through the parking lot at all hours. No sense tempting fate.
Cathy and I headed to my place to pick up Brian as he dropped off my car and then headed to the DT core of Edmonton. It is amazing how out to lunch one can be while on morphine yet still be able to notice the 673 bumps in the road from my house to the Royal Alex.(but who’s counting).
Now haven’t experienced sitting around a waiting room for hours the night before and having being referred by the North East ER I figured I had paid my dues and was entitled to a bed right away as soon as I arrived at the Royal Alex. That was not the case. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even have a seat as we had to stand in a line to see the triage nurses. As i stood there in a hunched over pitiful looking stance, I realized as my morphine was wearing off I had something in common with the incredible hulk at that point, we both were around people with white coats, we both could not control the changes our bodies were about to go through from the pain and anger, and I was going to change to a nice green color as the morphine wore off.
As Cathy and I waited, my transfer paper in hand, I figured that I still should be able to jump the que, as I contemplated this, several more people joined the line up. I am thinking why do you not at least have a numbering system so people can sit down, as this thought passes through the fog in my head, the nurse comes out of the booth and asks us all in line to step back as we had encroached into the area where teh lucky patrons were being served, of course when you move a line back, and the first guy moves first, its inevitable that he will run into the second guy, so as the healthy looking guy in front on me stepped on my feet, it brought me back to the now. I am normally polite in situations like this but saying excuse me after being in pain for 20 hours straight was not on my mind, a slightly louder “Watch it” seem to work. I finally make it to the front and of course and ambulance arrives and my turn is stalled yet again. We were fast approaching the 11th hour of which my ultra sound was booked for. Cathy had mentioned this a couple times to the hard working emerge staff, but I guess in the emerge , time is but a number, of which the only two matter than is the start of the shift, and the end of their shift. Finally having made it to a nurse and handing off my envelope, she looked at me and said have a seat. It was at this time I fully realized there would be no queue jumping here, there would be no favouritism, or extra points for having sat at the other place. Here I was back to square one in the emerge. How I longed to be back in a skinny lil bed lying in a fetal position with an iv in my arm, those were the good old hours. I then had to see teh lady at the registration counter. She prepared a new wrist band and noticed my NE emerge one which now needed to come off. I was in the big leagues now.....the Hospital Emerge! She grabs my wrist band , slips her scissors under the band and promptly cuts off the old band, along with my live strong wrist band. As she realizes what she has done she starts to laugh not knowing that, in 6 years I have never taken off this wrist band it was special to me. Sometimes people don’t realize that the lil things sometimes do matter. I was not happy but in too much pain to really make an issue out of it.
I went back and sat in the waiting room, looking around and seeing a couple familiar faces; The Mexican fellow sitting under the no cell phone sign talking a mile minute on his cell phone, the girl with sore foot, just to name a couple. After what seemed like hours (and was only 7 minutes, I heard my name being called between labour pains along with 3 other members of the Royal Society of the Waiting Room Patrons. The porter lead the way as we all fell in behind him, heading to the ultra sound area of the hospital. My next observation was the people on front of me were not in as much pain as me, or they were hiding it better. Within the first 100 meters I had fell behind the pack by a good 20-25 feet. As we rounded teh next corner they were totally out of sight at this point. Cathy trudge along with me and I kind of looked like an old china man the way I was walking, you know short lil quick steps. One more hallway, and one more turn and we were now in the ultra sound waiting room. I realized at this point that this hospital had more waiting room chairs than hospital beds! Although coming in last in the amazing race to the ultra sound area, I was called first to have the ultra sound. I went in and removed my shirt and trie to get comfortable on this ultra sound bed. The technician started her procedure and put the cool jell and warm instrument on my belly and started. For the most part the ultra sound felt more like a massage of my abdomen area with a couple sharp pains every time pressure was applied to my gall bladder. The ultra sound took about 20 minutes and several hundred beeps later, the tech announced that the doctor would come in and review it with me in a couple minutes. She then ran off to another room to perform the next one. Again I wa amazed how to me the whole emergency room and hospital looked like organized chaos, yet these people were maximizing their time and equipment to meet the needs of the hundreds of patients flowing through their doors daily. Dr Doogie Howzer then shower up...ok...really..I am not being funny, I thought I was in the children’s ward when this kid sat down and started to do a couple checks on my belly and introduced himself as a doctor. He looked like he was 17. Ok back to me, so the doc explained that I did have gall stones but my gall bladder did not look all that bad. He said he would give the pictures to the emerge doctor and they would decide what to do. I was not sure whether I was relieved or pissed off. If my gall bladder was looking good, why was it being so mean to me! So I left the ultra sound place and shuffled my way back down to the emergency room with Cathy to my right. Once in the emergency room it didn’t seem very long before again my name was called and was brought back to another little waiting room in the observation area where several doctors and nurses were located. Cathy and Brian were no where’s to be seen at this point, having stayed out in the main waiting room finally, back in bee hive! I sat there for all of 2 minutes and in the distance i heard the Attending doctor talking about me, he knew everything about me, he was updated by the NE emerge doctor, and was waiting for me. Here, I thought I was just another new face when I arrived at the Royal Alex. My level of confidence and admiration for the emergency services of our hospital system was surging at every step of my adventure. As I sat and waited for my next interaction, after only about 3 minutes, I was promptly moved to a bed in the corner. They did my vitals and hooked me up to an IV. The first nurse chatted me up a bit and then the emerge doctor chatted to me about my gall bladder, and some options they may consider. Suddenly Cathy and Brian reappeared having paid someone off I am sure to sneak back where I was. I must admit at this point again many things were foggy and the pain I was in was occupying quite a bit of my waking thought processes . A new doctor appeared and he was from the surgical department. He started asking me questions and prodding me and poking me, and at point decided it was time for a prostate exam. Now I was in no mood at this point to have someone’s finger in my bum however my second thought was the pain I was in at that moment was pretty intense and this was probably the right time as I probably wouldn’t even feel it........I was wrong...anyways. Again he mentioned that the ultra sound showed my gall bladder being ok, and it might just be a stone and they may treat me and release me and have me come back...or they may operate. He would let his bosses decide that. In the meantime, they were going to admit me to the hospital. With that being said, they moved me three doors down, in front of the nurses station to keep an eye on me, and to wait for a bed. AT this point, it had now been 24 hours since the pain started. The good thing with my new status was I was now given some more morphine and my life was going to get better again for a couple more hours. At this point I was mentally and physically exhausted. As I settled in Brian and Cathy headed home for a couple hours before going to my house and grabbing me some stuff, and I sat back and relaxed and tried to sleep a lil bit while the morphine was doing its job.
After a couple more hours, I was chatting to the nurse there and really was impressed with him and how he handled this irate daughter of a patient. She was a nurse at the hospital and was pissed off because of the process and how beds got assigned ect. He stick handled here all the way out the door and up to the ward. I mentioned to him, that I was very impressed. Suddenly the word came; they had a bed for me upstairs! I was wheeled upstairs to my new residence for the next 24-48 hours. I can’t remember at this point if my buddy Marv was with me in emerge or had come by upstairs to see me. I do know that he was visiting me there and brought me some magazines to read. He was very worried and I must say it was great to see him. Without Cathy and Brian and Marv, I am not sure I would have been able to make it through this ordeal. I was happy that I had some close friends, that took the time to make me feel better and to fill the gap of not being alone during this ordeal. I know I was visiting with Marv when they brought me some more happy juice and as I sat in the foggy afterglow, Marv had left and Cathy and Brian had showed up with some things for me. They didn’t stay long as I drifted in and out of consciousness. I figured it was going to be a rough night.
Day 3 coming soon!
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