(Repeat of my Logansport column to explain why I haven't been here for so long)
I haven't been around for a while because I've been sick...probably as sick as I've ever been in my life. I thought I had the flu. I thought it would run it's course but six days later, there was no improvement. I had constant diarrhea, vomiting, aching, felt as if I was freezing. So I took myself to the emergency room, thinking I'd get a shot and a prescription and be on my way.
All the people at the Wabash Parkview Hospital
were great but having said that, I had a few complaints. I spent six hours in
the emergency room. No one’s fault. The hospital was full. They had to
discharge patients to make room for new patients.
I tried to look at the bright side. At least, the
bed in my room would be soft unlike the ER cot. Ho. Ho. Ho. How wrong I was. A
modern hospital bed looks like a marvel of modern technology. It has enough
bells and buttons and whistles to be the control panel for the Starship
Enterprise. The head goes up; the feet go down. You can twist your body into a
donut. You can summon nurses. You can turn lights off and on. The one thing you
can’t do is lay flat no matter how you play with the icons. If you’re short,
like me, your feet don’t touch the mattress. They hang out into space.
And there is a drop off in the middle where the
bed bends. It exactly fits the shape of your derriere. No matter how I moved in the
bed, I fell into this hole. My posterior was already rather sensitive after six
days of “flu-like symptoms” (to be politically correct about it). The last
thing I wanted was to concentrate on that part of my anatomy but there it fell,
inevitably, nestling into its slot.
Because of various humps in various places, you
cannot lay on your side in a hospital bed.
Honestly, I believe, with only slight
modifications, this apparatus could be used as a means of enhanced
interrogation.
To make matters worse, I could only move a few
feet from the dreaded bed because of the intravenous pole. They didn’t want me
to go to the bathroom by myself but they were too busy, so I didn’t even bother
them, I just went. But my i.v. lines kept getting tangled so that I could
barely reach the stool. There I’d be, perched on the very edge, hoping I was
hitting the mark, with my arm extended to its maximum length in order not to pull
out my i.v.
Lastly, of course, was not smoking. They applied
nicotine patches. Someone asked me if they helped and I said, “I guess they
must, I haven’t killed anyone, have I?”
The non-smoking Vicki exerted iron self-control in
order not to take my stress out on the staff. (I think my nurses would agree
that over all, I was a cooperative patient) but I dreamed of doing harm to
others in order to steal their cigarettes.
I loved my doctor, Dr. Gupta. I begged him to let
me go home. He said he would not release me until he thought I was ready to go.
He told me that, of course, I had the option of
checking myself out against his strong recommendation and then he said, “and
when you come back in two days, sicker than before, we’ll welcome you back.”
I told him, “well, Doc, when you put it like that,
I guess I’ll stay.”
He nodded. “Good thinking.”
I’m home now. with a new appreciation for coffee,
cigarettes, computers, long soaky baths and the freedom to move freely.
Update: the following week, I had to go to the lab
for some tests. My clinic almost immediately called back and said my magnesium
levels were dangerously low. Magnesium? Who knew it was so important. They told
me to go to ER a.s.a.p..
They first said they’d have to admit me overnight
because it took several hours for a magnesium infusion but I refused. Finally,
they agreed to do it my way and hooked me up in the Emergency Room. Four hours
later, I went home.
It’s not that I don’t appreciate the hospital and
the hospital staff. I hope they didn’t think I was just being a witch but I
feel so strongly that if I’m going to die (and I don’t know that that’s
imminent), I want it to be at home....in my own bed, not in the hospital.
