An open apology to the ER

I am a little country mouse and my experience with hospital emergency rooms had, until this point, been limited to broken bones, a scraped eye, and allergic reactions at our small rural facility and several dedicated seasons of ER and Grey's Anatomy viewing. I was woefully unprepared and, at the same time, both physically and emotionally exposed, during our recent stay at a bustling city hospital's ER and, apologetically, did not conduct myself with the good grace, dignity, and manners of which I had been raised.

I arrived with Mom at 2 am, armed only with my phone, the charger cord hanging out of my pocket like a prehensile tail, and a bra hastily tucked away in another compartment. My white t-shirt proudly proclaimed that "God is my plus one" in red glitter letters. My days of even hoping to be in contention for a wet t-shirt contest were long behind me so I kept my business tucked, not-as-firmly-as-I-would-like, behind the protective layer of my polar coat, good for 20 below. Dog-fur lined sweatpants tucked into calf-covering rain boots finished the look. 

Mom was parallel parked, professionally, in a hallway, tucked between a man in such pain that he could only emit animal sounds, and a Spanish-speaking family with two kids sitting, cross-legged on the gurney, tucked alongside their crying mother. There was no discernible protocol that I could grasp...no big board with names and procedures, a doctor's name comfortingly attached to each one. I orbited my mother's side, drifting to her head or foot to allow for the passage of constantly moving stretchers filled with more manner of horror than I could have ever imagined. My vast familiarity with MASH equipped me with a working understanding of triage so I kind of understood that, in this hellscape we'd found ourselves, Mom's injury wasn't as critical as the tiny newborn, body stiff from an endless seizure, or the violent psychotic episode that went swearing by or the police-escorted man, feet shackled, bleeding from a bullet wound. Brad, my lifeline in the visitor's area, had his own challenges with drunken fights, loud law enforcement intervention, and a verbal threat of being slapped accompanied by racial slurs from an unhappy and uncooperative hospital visitor who eventually got dragged out of the building. Our text messages to one another as we were positioned rooms away but miles apart time-lined my frantic journey with my mother.

Testing would begin an hour after we arrived. 

And me without my Ticonderoga.

Blood drawn. "You just can't siphon it off the gash on the back of her head?" I wondered silently, anxious as they missed the vein in one arm before moving over to the other.

We joined the rush hour traffic and headed to get a cat scan...my Mom's second in a week. Three more on her stamp card and she'll get a free large coffee.

At 5 am, an IV was put in. Mom, recovering from the first fall and a fun bout of the flu, had, prior to this, been sleeping 55 minutes to the hour for days. She hadn't slept since she fell at 1 am. We had been expertly re-parked in our original spot and the man behind us was now screaming for meds. A remedy for ALL situations, I put Elvis on my phone to try to drown out the nightmare around us. A kind nurse gifted us a glass of cold water EACH with a flexi-straw. My Mom and I sighed with pleasure. Delicious.

A very tall doctor began the process of investigating the back of Mom's poor head shortly after that. I
appreciated his care of her hair, sifting through the matted stands as carefully as he could but they were so matted that I begged him to just cut it. "Give me the scissors," I snapped at one point as my mother sat, bent at the waist so they could inspect the back of her head, "I'll cut it." Still in my good-to-twenty-below polar suit, I held my mother in place, shaking and sweating as the medical staff meticulously sought out the source of her injury. Hydrogen peroxide was employed, a plastic rectangular bin was pressed into the back of Mom's neck to try and catch as much of the liquid as possible as the bubbling solution revealed the location as Mom winced and shook and I sweated and shook, holding her in place. There were four of us working at this point when another doctor took over, manning a staple gun. Each time he counted down from three, Mom and I, bearing down together, would blow out, lamaze-style. Four times. She never shed a tear. I cried like a baby in between singing the only song that would come to my mind, Barney the Dinosaur's "I Love You" song. 

I begged for pain medication.

Tylenol.

Brad had to leave a little after 6. I risked leaving Mom for a few minutes to see him, use the restroom, and wrestle a bra on so I could lose the polar suit. Returned to find out that she'd been agitated and fearful in my absence. I wouldn't leave her side again.

It was a gruesome Ground Hog's day...we were on repeat for hours. New people would appear and I would delight each time they'd ask Mom her name. "Evangeline," she'd say softly. They'd ask her why she was here and she'd have no clue. Lie that she wasn't in pain. Laugh when I loudly called her a liar. There was no clipboard of information to review before speaking to us. We began again each time.

Tests came back. 

We'd failed in epic fashion.

Heart and kidneys. 

Dangerously dehydrated.

Malnutrition. 

They wanted to admit her but could guarantee no bed.

 A Russian man, found in a run-off ditch, was brought in and parked ahead of Mom. Hospital staff fought to get him undressed but he was very uncooperative, shouting in Russian and tossing one nurse to the floor and another against the wall. The curtain separating him from Mom shook violently as I moved between the two stretchers. I believe they "offered" him medication. I don't think it was Tylenol.

I was now ready to sell my soul to get Mom to my small rural hospital.

A kind nurse named Emily who had the voice of a kindergarten teacher watched me unravel. "I want out," I told her, "I want to talk to a hospital administrator," I said, trying to summon some sort of dignity and adopt a semblance of professional decorum despite my weird white t-shirt, sweat pants, rain boots and crazed expression. Two doctors appeared relatively quickly. They were incredibly sympathetic. None of the options were ideal. I signed the dispatch papers. 

I wanted Mom transported to my little country hospital. 

They couldn't do that.

I was going to have to drive her there myself.

She couldn't stand. She was in pain.

I called my little hospital to tell them my plan but, because Mom had already had tests done, they couldn't guarantee admittance. 

My brain wouldn't work by this time. This could not be real.

I sobbed.

Snot-sobbed.

My poor mom was comforting me at this point.

Emily came and I cried, apologizing, begging for a chance to retain the rights to our parking spot. 

I was failing my mother.

The dispatch papers disappeared and my Mom resumed her peeking through the curtain I kept closing to try and give her some rest and privacy. But Vee DeLong was not having it...this was the most action she'd ever seen and she wasn't missing it. We saw a dismembered foot and had to ask each other if we'd actually seen what we just saw. 

Emily upgraded our parking spot to closer to the nursing station (and the guard on duty) because (a) she realized she was dealing with an emotionally-unhinged lunatic and (b) Mom was getting feisty about staying in bed, rattling the bars of her bed like a little zoo animal.

The nursing shift changed and the evening shift brought large male nurses. 

I completely understood.

We'd now witnessed two drug overdoses and a boisterous exchange as hospital staff tried to discharge a homeless person who'd been there for 24 hours. 

Our exasperating routine began again. "What is your name?" Tylenol. Oh great...that'll do a lot. I considered having my own psychotic episode in hopes of scoring Mom something more substantial. They didn't know Mom couldn't suck from a straw without verbal cues. I flagged the nurse down to explain that we'd been there for sixteen hours and haven't had a meal. "You haven't been admitted to the hospital yet," he told me briskly but by now, I cried on a dime. "Let me check." "Let me be more clear," I gasped, "She can't eat a meal. We just want applesauce." Applesauce appeared in minutes and my heart soared as Mom reveled in it, savoring it in her mouth as I spooned it in, and letting the coolness stroke her throat as she swallowed. 

This poor guy had to deal with my idiocy an hour later as a beautiful dinner tray was delivered and, again, understanding dawned. There were no bedside tables to accompany hallway accommodations. ER patients don't get fed (except for the doctor who slipped me an Uncrustable...I fed Mom like a baby bird and her eyes widened at the taste of peanut butter and she sighed, "Ohhh...."). The tray sat, balanced on my knees. A chicken breast. Mashed potatoes. A salad. Peaches. Slice of cake. The entire night/day/night, I kept imagining if Mom were here alone. I looked at this beautiful tray of food, imagining it being delivered to my mom. She can't feed herself. I cried. The male nurse was confused. I had, obviously, gotten what I wanted. "My mom can't eat this," I tried to explain and he tried to help by encouraging me to eat it myself which, in retrospect, I should have. I hadn't eaten in days. I haven't used the restroom since 6 am. I had forgotten the airplane rule of putting my mask on first. How could I eat when my mother can't?

"She can eat the peaches," he said, removing the source of my tears. He caught me trying to rip the slices into tiny pieces with my fingers as he passed by and returned with a plastic knife. A naked woman weighing well over 500 pounds came in and distracted us with her salty language. Another man came in in restraints. The Bills were tied. I placed the first bite of peach into my mother's mouth and she sighed with pure pleasure. The automatic doors to the emergency room got stuck open so I stood at the end of my mother's bed, shielding her with my body. She eagerly ate six bites of peach, watched the hideous show going on around us, and kept telling me it was time to go. That she'd be fine.

Vee Delong hadn't slept except in odd five minute increments, here and there.

Hadn't shed a tear.

Hadn't complained.

Heartbreakingly, the Bills lost.

And finally, my mother slept.

My sister-in-law was nearing the building so I conceded defeat and gathered myself to leave her.

The nurse, seeing my intention, led me, dazed, through the confusing passages to the corridor that would take me outside, to where Brad Mosiman was waiting for me before returning to his job...his awful, thankless, miraculous job. 

My sincere apologies to the staff of the ER.

I didn't know.

You each deserve a million dollar salary and the gratitude of a nation.

Please forgive my rage, fear, tears, confusion, and tired stupidity.

Mom would get a satellite room in the ER a half hour later.

She would be transferred to a beautiful and peaceful room in Palliative Care in the morning. 

The ER would be the last time I would get to talk to my mother. Over sweet peaches.