 |
| Robin Rocky Mountain Stroke Survivor |
It took all day to get two simple tests and escape. I’m having trouble writing about this. On Wednesday I had gone from doctor to patient. I’d had terrifying news. I hadn’t slept all night and desperately wanted to be home with my family. And then I spent the whole day waiting for an echocardiogram (an ultrasound of my heart) and an MRA (an MRI of the arteries of my neck). Each test only took a few minutes.
The echo tech told me that every patient on the floor got an echo, often repeat echos when one doctor apparently hadn’t reviewed an echo ordered previously by another doctor in thick hospital charts, and almost every one was normal. She wondered if they were doing it just because it was another test to bill. That was really demoralizing for me because I was kind of wondering the same thing. I’d already had a CTA, was an MRA really necessary? When I had asked why I needed the echo, I’d gotten a different answer from every doctor. First neurologist: to find out why you had a stroke. Second neurologist: because it’s a good idea. Hospitalist: to make sure you don’t have peripartum cardiomyopathy (flat out stupid answer because I had no signs or symptoms of it and was seven months postpartum). Nurse: it’s protocol.
I tidied up my room, stripped the bed, wiped down the board where they’d written the names of my doctor, nurse, and patient care tech.
Still waiting.
I asked if there was anything I could do. They found me a puzzle. I sorted out the edge pieces and assembled them. There were at least a dozen missing. What was this, some kind of torture?
Still waiting.
Lunch came and went. It was the worst hospital food I’d ever eaten. As a physician, I’ve eaten in a lot of hospital cafeterias and have learned how to order, which foods are mostly likely to succeed in that setting. Unfortunately, even those foods were inedible.
Still waiting. The sun was starting to go down. There was no way I was ordering supper.
Still waiting.
Then suddenly, everything started happening. A guy came with a wheelchair (a wheelchair! Up til now I’d been pushed everywhere in a bed…a wheelchair was freedom indeed!) He wheeled me down for my MRA. I was left to play in a little waiting area. I had a lot of fun learning to wheel backward and forward, turn right and left, but then I got dizzy. A radiology tech wheeled me back for the MRA. By now I was an old hand at imaging. I actually dozed off briefly. I could hear the tech chatting with someone as he came to pull me out of the machine and unhook the contrast from my heplock. Then, glory be!, he removed the IV entirely! Then I heard the person who was chatting with the tech. I thought hard. Who was that? Someone I knew well. I reached hard for the name…? My boss? Medical director of my office? After much thought, I found the name.
My boss wheeled me out of radiology and back to my room, went and got a CD with my imaging on it while my nurse had me sign the discharge paperwork, and then helped my sister and I carry my stuff to her car. Was that why everything suddenly happened so fast? I don’t know for sure…but it was quite the coincidence.
I was in the hospital for a little over 24 hours and yet it felt strange to be out. If that’s how I felt after only 24 hours in the hospital, I can’t imagine how it feels to those who are in longer, who lose more independence and function. It was strange to be riding in my sister’s car away from the hospital, the doctors, the IV and those dratted SCDs. Strange to clumsily climb out of the car and walk up the front steps while my sister hovered anxiously. Strange to hug my husband and hold my two little ones in my arms. Strange to eat the food my brother had spent the whole day cooking in preparation for my homecoming. Big Brother and Little Sister clung to me and cried. That night I slept in my own bed in my own house and marveled at it.
And that is why, despite the fact that my life has completely changed, I still know I am blessed.
See the original article:
No comments:
Post a Comment