My Turn

For years I’ve heard all the ailments of my friends and family. Bad knees, tummy tucks, broken bones all requiring a trip to the hospital. I’ve visited some when I could. Some came home, some didn’t.

I’ve tried to avoid the hospital because that is where they keep all the sick people. I’ve avoided the doctor because getting a exam will always find something wrong (just like taking your car to a mechanic). As long as I was not bleeding and felt OK, then I was healthy.

Then the other day my body started acting up with something I couldn’t shake off and rub some dirt on.

It was my turn.

On June 18, the year of our pandemic 2020, I checked into a hospital.

Backstory: I had a red spot on my leg. It didn’t itch or hurt so it was ignored. Self-evaluation was it would go away. Cause? Some unknown weeds in the yard or a spider bite were all good choices. Shake it off. Rub some dirt in it.

Then I pulled my back and started hobbling around to stretch it back out. After a couple of days of stretching, the back was getting better but that red spot was getting bigger.

Due to the back pain, I could not lie down in bed. I slept in a chair sitting up. My feet were never elevated.

The red spot was bigger and now my legs started swelling up. All my lotions and creams were not having an affect. Now my legs felt like the Stay Puff mans tight sausage legs.

Whatever this was… Gout? Diabetes? Scurvy?... was happening on the inside of my body.

The decision was to go to a professional medical worker was made.

The first stop was the local Doc-in-a-Box. They did their prep work with height, weight, and temperature plus take some blood. When the doctor came in, she took a quick look and said I’d have to go to the hospital.

Still ambulatory, I rode my bike back home, scanned the papers they had given me, then walked the 3 miles to the emergency room.

Entering the doors pass the covid-19 testing stations, I handed my paperwork and asked for help. A guy in scrubs (everyone wears scrubs in a hospital) looked at my legs, listened to my story and sent me to another room to get a paper bracelet. That bracelet was to become my new identity.

Then he walked me down the hall to the Control Room.

This is a room with a center surround desk full of computer screens, lots of people walking about and surrounded in gurneys. Like a scene out of some space movie of chaos with no commander there was an orderly pattern of hubbub.

I was plopped on gurney #14 and left for the next person to interview. From here on everything was out of my control.

I was walked into a room, laid on a cold aluminum table and had my legs scanned. Then back to #14. Some woman came by and took my blood. A nice black guy asked me to lie back on the gurney and rolled me out through a row of doors that magically open automatically to an elevator down to the basement for some more scanning. Back upstairs and rolled by to my pit area, I gave more blood. An oriental woman wearing a stethoscope mumbled some questions through her mask while looking at my legs. Again I walked back to the scan room and had my chest scanned. Plopped back on #14 I gave more blood and a temperature. All around were people scurrying about; rolling computers that took information, blood pressure and all sorts of medical wonders. Firemen brought in patients but surprisingly with all these people there was no screaming or crying. A young cutie came by and typed some more information into a rolling computer that seemed like a repeat of what I’ve already told several times before.

Then the Indian Medicine Man arrived. Not that Indian; India. Dr. Raiyoni said he was checking me into the hospital for the night. Seems right because it had been 5 hours and they have a gallon of blood to test. I hadn’t planned to stay so I just had what I walked in with. A pair of shorts, a long sleeve shirt and sunglasses. I’d not brought another pair of glasses so I would have to wear shades inside.

Then came the big question: If I died would I want to be revived?

Clinical death that occurs unexpectedly is treated as a medical emergency. CPR is initiated. In a United States hospital, a Code Blue is declared and Advanced Cardiac Life Support procedures used to attempt to restart a normal heartbeat. This effort continues until either the heart is restarted, or a physician determines that continued efforts are useless and recovery is impossible. If this determination is made, the physician pronounces legal death and resuscitation efforts stop.

If clinical death is expected due to terminal illness or withdrawal of supportive care, often a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) or “no code” order is in place. This means that no resuscitation efforts are made, and a physician or nurse may pronounce legal death at the onset of clinical death.

Answer: No!

If I die, why should I be resurrected? I’m not Jesus.

Up to the fifth floor into cell 516. Change my shirt to the backward cape gown but I get to keep my pants on. Then my jailer comes in and takes some blood. A gurney shows up and I’m off on another adventure to a dark room where I’m slathered with gel and rubbed all over my chest and sides with some handheld device. Then off to another spot for more scanning into a computer that beeps and makes sounds like some sort of video game. I can’t see the screen so they all must be playing the same game online. I just hope I don’t hear “Game Over”.

Back in the cell, on my accordion bed, my jailer comes back with bags of clear liquid hooked to a pump and then stabbed into my arm. When that isn’t good enough another machine is rolled in and stabbed into my other arm.

I got to pee.

Luckily they have a travel bottle that I can stand up and relieve myself while in bondage. The jailer said that would be a good sample too.

I’m finally calming down when a meal is brought in. I didn’t see the menu but I’d not eaten all day and was probably hungry.

The three square a day were pretty good and more than I normally eat. Meatloaf, French toast, tuna salad, salmon, scrambled eggs, tomato soup, chicken fajita salad, pancakes, Brunswick stew, pot roast, beef pepper steak all with desserts. When cut loose from my bondage I had to walk the halls to work off all of this grub.

Then the routine settled in. Different folks in lab coats would come in every half hour to poke and prod and draw more blood.

Note to all the fella’s out there (and the gal’s for this is the 21st century). Forget about clubbing and partying. Don’t hang out at bars, but instead go to the hospital. This place is loaded with cute girls. And they are all sweet enough to laugh at an ole man’s jokes.

Luckily I was not in pain, just discomfort.

On shift change the two jailers would compare notes speaking in medical talk so I could not understand. Numbers and procedures were discussed to follow a pattern where I was just the guinea pig.

Every pumping in or draining out was typed into a computer after scanning my bar scale bracelet. I told you this was my new identity.

On a white board at the food of the bed were written the names of my witch doctor, the current jailer and the commander. The concern was each day a new date was written on the board with no end in sight. There were also the names of the PCT’s.

The PCT is a Personal Care Technician. They are like ‘junior nurses’. Younger than the rest, these folks moved the gurneys, remake the bed, bring in a new backward cape or fill the water. I fell in love several times but I don’t think they would let me take Madison home with me. How do you put that on the bill?

On the third day the swelling was noticeably less. Whatever they were pumping in me seemed to be working. I wasn’t dancing yet in my rubber bottomed socks (because you can’t have bare feet on a hospital floor – it is too dirty).

Sleep was interrupted every night by another needle.

Otherwise I had a good view through my window. The clouds were wonderful with storms rolling through and foggy mornings.

Still without a laptop or a writing pad, my boredom turned on the television. The first time I’d watched TV in three years. Most of the shows that I remembered seemed the same and I quickly scanned through until I found the news channels.

There was talk of a rally in Tulsa. The talking heads did a build up live reports of a small crowd but none seem to cover the speech – except  for Fox.

While watching in amazement I had my blood pressure taken and the result was (another medical term) “wonky”. I figured one thing had to do with the other.

As soon as the talk was over, the Fox talking heads start their spin and I wonder what they were listening to. I change the channel to CNN and then MSNBC who seemed to have heard the same words I had. The rest of the night was repetitive chatter of what just happened from different points-of-view. It will dull you into a nap.

This floor was very quiet. I’d see the occasional cellmates shuffling down the hallway pushing a walker and trailing bags of meds-on-the-rack. Occasionally there would be an announcement of some emergency with some code and location. I didn’t see anyone running with carts and wheelchairs like on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’. Best of all they were not running in to my cell.

I asked my jailer if I was on the ‘ole folk’ floor and what was above on the other floors. She said the top floor was Intensive Care and the next floor up was the Psych Ward. Don’t get on the elevator saying “Going Up”.

After all my Auntie Bodies, saline, ultrasounds and echocardiogram with volumes of pressure reports and enough blood to fill Lake Gaston, I was cut free.

My jailer read me the rites of going back into the world and gave me a bag for my socks and paperwork.

The day was warmer than when I arrived so I took my time walking home stopping occasionally under a shady tree. My neighbor saw me walking down the alley and I told her of my adventure. What started out as a strained back turned into 5-days at the St. Mary’s-ott Hotel, Resort and Spa.

The medicine man told me that I’d be getting some prescriptions but I didn’t wait for the scribbled paper. Instead when I got home a bag was on the doorknob with 13 bottles of pills and instructions on when to take them.  This was the same medicine they had been pumping into me except in pill form. Everything from stool softener to keep the chocolate choo-choo running to vitamins to blood thinners with an Auntie Body or two with instructions of one to three a day was my follow up. I can still drink water with one hand.

So along with the high blood sugar (diabetes?) and the Cellulitis skin infection, seems one of those scans showed fibrosis of the liver. NO BEER.

Every day I was asked about my birthday and my name. I found out that was the question to see if I was going through detox or withdrawal.

Back on my feet and feeling better everyday. I would advise if you have any stock in Coors, sell it now. I predict it is going to drop.