Part Seven: People come, people go. I don’t want a scan.

After my traumatic health crash in the emergency department (ED), the rest of the night is rather uneventful. I have several roommates float in and out of the bed next to mine. A woman arrives via ambulance who had several seizures during the day. Although she was conscious in triage, she now is unresponsive. Eventually, she retains her faculties. As her body recovers from the seizures and seizure medication, the woman becomes frantic. She does not want to be in the ED.

“Get me out of here! I can’t be around sick people. Where’s my neurologist? He has been contacted that I am here. Why hasn’t he come to visit me?” The woman grows more and more agitated by the minute. When the female is told she is going to be moved into the hallway to make room for another patient, my roommate grows belligerent. The woman is rolled into the hallway. She subsequently leaves against medical advice.

Very shortly thereafter, another woman is rolled into my room. She has been stabbed in the leg. She was stabilized at another hospital and transported to this facility as it is a level one trauma center. A medical team surrounds the woman and quickly takes her medical history. A physician views the imaging done at the other hostpial. In a very short time, the woman is told she needs surgery. A nurse collects the patient’s jewelry. And in the blink of an eye, the woman is rolled out of the ED and into an operating theater.

My next roommate is a man who fell and broke a vertebra. The man has dementia. He cannot remember what the medical team tells him. He constantly cries out, “Help! Someone help!” When a nurse answers his pleas, she has to over and over again explain he has a broken vertebra. The patient complains he has to urinate. The nurse reminds him he has a catheter. He doesn’t need to go to the bathroom. Over and over again, this situation plays out throughout the night. The man constantly tries to sit up and tries to escape his bed. The bed alarm sounds; a nurse runs in to get him back in bed. Through this all, I am amazed at the patience of the entire medical team. They are kind and repeat themselves numerous times to the patient. Through all this chaos, I am able to sleep very little.

Around 4 a.m., I am taken to radiology to have a CT scan of my abdomen. I have objected to having the scan done for the last five hours. I am not feeling well, and I don’t want to be exposed to any more radiation. The overnight ED physician gets fed up with my excuses. She tells me I am going to have the scan. I am given a small dose of Ativan (a sedative) and am rolled just three doors down to the CT scanner. (I am shocked there’s a CT scanner in the ED!) A medical team slides me from my gurney to the CT bed. The scan is completed in a jiffy. I am soon back in my room.

Although I was very against having the scan, in the end, it was extremely useful. The CT scan of my abdomen included my lungs. The CT revealed I had diffuse infiltrates in my right middle lobe and both lower lobes of my lungs. The CT scan showed my pneumonia was much more severe and extensive than what could be seen on the chest X-ray. Again, I knew God was directing my care.


(Link to Part Eight, click here)