TAKE TWO ASPIRIN ...
AND
LOOSEN THE THUMB SCREWS
By sonya hammond
Arguably, the most unpleasant aspect of a surgical
experience is that it must be performed in a hospital. There may have been a time when
hospitals were havens of care-giving where, enveloped in their bosoms we could be assured of hot
and cold running nurses devoted to our health and welfare. Cool hands would sooth our
brows, fluff our pillows, rub our backs.
That was then. Due to an unfortunate attack of arachnophobia resulting in a broken kneecap, [see A Moving Experience] I recently had occasion to observe the latest advances in the care and feeding of patients.
Prior to incarceration I was admonished not to eat or drink anything after 8:00 pm, and ordered to appear at 2:15 the next afternoon, a ploy ensuring that I would be too weak from hunger to protest anything. On my arrival at Sacred Heartless Hospital I was led by a grim attendant to its lowest bowels and dumped in a windowless room furnished with a bed closely resembling a Rack left over from the Spanish Inquisition.
An adjoining bathroom featured a sink apparently used recently to launder incriminating bloody evidence of a sinister crime. Offering me a hospital gown missing most of the ties designed to keep it from falling off, the attendant, well trained at possibly Dachau, took away all my clothes and left me to cope with what she insisted was a 'bed'.
Since there was no stool to aid my ascent up onto this appliance, raised approximately 3 feet higher than my broken kneecap would allow me to climb, I engaged in 20 minutes of gymnastics prior to landing on a slippery surface, constructed of reconstituted retread tires, that resisted all efforts of the flimsy dishtowel masquerading as a sheet to cover it. An antique tablecloth was apparently meant to serve as a blanket. The temperature of the room was set at around 24 degrees.
An hour later, my body suitably frozen for cryonic storage, my ulcers screaming for nourishment and my call button out-of-order, hope faded. The nurse's station visible from my open door had shown no signs of life since my arrival, although its phones rang so incessantly I would have answered them myself had descent from my perch been less precipitous.
Two hours later, my piteous cries echoing down the vacant corridor to no avail, I tied my tablecloth blanket to the bed frame and clinging to it, slid down and escaped to the bathroom. Thus calls of nature do make inventors of us all.
Partially revived, I hobbled out on my crutches to survey the situation. Several blocks past an endless corridor of empty holding cells, a security guard/receptionist frowned disapprovingly at my gaping gown and disavowed all knowledge of my fate. In despair I returned to the nurse's station where, during the ensuing 2 hours, I called long-suffering friends to advise them of my plight and bitterly complain.
At 6:35 ... 4 hrs and 20 min. after my arrival...a marginally more cheerful attendant wheeled me to Surgery where the thermostat was apparently set to accommodate a visiting penguin tour group.
Several hours later I awoke in a dormitory of recovering victims where I revived sufficiently to protest the news that morphine, in spite of a large red warning on my chart, had been prescribed by my surgeon. It took only 5 hours to find a drug to which I was not allergic that would actually alleviate pain. During this period I learned why kneecap smashing is a motivating process favored by interrogators of spies who, if I am any example, would give up every secret in their possession before enduring the consequences.
12 hours after my arrival, [30 since I had last eaten] I was promoted to a room with a reasonable facsimile of a bed, and treated to a crash course in how to translate responses to call-button requests:
None of the requests that elicited these responses was of a frivolous nature. For a person unable to move, let alone stand, while experiencing excruciating pain when any portion of her anatomy is touched, a fluffed pillow is not a high priority.
The need, however, to dispose of the 40 gallons of fluid being pumped intravenously into her arm was periodically urgent. And it did not seem excessively picky to request adjustment of the 107 degree heat that blasted my room for several hours until someone finally thought of turning down the thermostat, thus leading to a new Ice Age.
Other than this temperature control incentive, successfully designed to encourage patient prayers for early discharge, what may seem to be a lack of caring was hardly the fault of nursing personnel of which there is less by the hour even as we speak, thanks to hospital policies that consider patient welfare a budget buster.
Rarer than sunny days in Oregon, RN's are responsible for impossible numbers of patients with whom they have little time for personal contact. The remaining caretakers may at first seem a grim lot until one considers the loads they are expected to carry. A little patient sympathy went a long way toward encouraging an occasional smile and, often, a litany of the conditions that provoked their understandable discontent.
Nevertheless, it was with considerable relief that I greeted the news of my parole. Bundled into a wheelchair, my knee encased in a brace sized for a Pittsburgh Steeler lineman, I actually almost made it to the elevator before the attendant in charge of me set the brake and uttered the fateful words 'I'll be right back' before disappearing.
Abandoned, I passed 20 minutes gazing longingly at the more able-bodied escaping on elevators to freedom before I spotted my wheelchair operator flitting from a patient's room.
Reluctantly responding to my snarl of discontent, she returned to escort me to the Sacred Heartless lobby. But her parting words to the patient she left behind had been 'This may take a few minutes'.
I can only hope he wasn't waiting for a bed pan.
© sonya hammond, 1997