In all of the years of Huber medical emergencies, I haven't written a word about it. Not my brother's head injury nor my mom's decades long battle with Lupus. The stories could take up volumes. Now that I'm blogging again, I feel compelled to write a bit.
The tightness in my chest is considering whether it will dissipate, because I've just boarded the train to DC after an unexpected extended stay in NJ. We took my mom to the emergency room on Monday night. It wasn't a major emergency, but she was definitely unwell for a while and reached critical mass after a night of vomiting.
The drive to St. Peter's Hospital in New Brunswick evoked vivid images of past dreadful journeys. I tried, as I'm sure my parents did too, to shut out the night of my brother's accident. When we entered the ER, the experience became less about flashbacks and more about the current anxiety of her illness combined with hesitance over where to go. It was packed with stony faced brave warriors who were all doing their best to endure the ER wait with whatever affliction they have no doubt tearing at their being. I maneuvered my mom through the bodies to where I thought she should check in while my dad slalomed snowbanks to find a parking spot. Kind but business like people take her basic info first from her and then from me when she stumbles with fatigue. Thirty minutes later an affable triage nurse takes my mom's vitals. BP normal! No fever! Heart rate is high, but that's no unusual for my mom. The high heart rate gets us to the top of the queue and soon enough we pass through the ominous doors to the ER proper.
As we pass through I have two thoughts. The first is that I'm shocked to see that every inch of the place is lined with ailing bodies. Pathetic bodies are strewn everywhere. Hundreds of stony faced brave warriors were waiting in silent agony to be fixed. The second thought I had was a memory of a conversation with Alexis' sister during the height of "ER the Clooney years". I thought it was my lucky day when I had a chance to ask her if a real ER was like the show. She told me it was medically fairly accurate, but the pace is highly exaggerated. I can concur this is true. Shortly after settling into an ER bed, things came to a stand still.
Frequent hospital visitors wil agree that the pace of hospital care is excruciating. At the same time, I'd like to insert a plug for St. Peter's Hospital for it's emphasis on humanity. We Hubers over the years have realized that this hospital is our first choice for an ailment du jour even though it's not the area trauma center, because of the wonderful people who work there. It may take 14 hours to get a CT scan, but everyone is super nice and super patient. Frequent visitors know that this may even be more important than the medical care itself.
There are of course also things, particularly in my mom's case, that are extremely stressful and frustrating. Number 1 is that despite the myriad visits to the hospital over the years for Lupus-related illnesses, we always have to start from scratch getting doctors on board with how the Lupus-factor is effecting whatever it is that has brought my mom in. Just because the Hubers don't have medical degrees doesn't mean we don't know Lupus. (Dial back to the Salmonella incident where my father tried to tell the ER Chief of Surgery that perhaps it was food poisoning and not an obstructed bowel. My mom had majorly invasive surgery only for them to discover that my dad was right.)
This time it wasn't nearly that bad, but the ER doc ordered a head CT scan and when my dad and I protested, he pushed back with some medical mumbo jumbo. We backed off until a few hours later when my mom's doctor came in, had the same reaction as us and called it off. This may have been the moment when my chest tension took up residence. Second guessing medical doctors is petrifying and risky, but unfortunately ofter necessary with my mom.
My mom eventually got sent up to a fantastic single room where everyone is very nice and very good at their work - the nurses (aka heroes), the nurses' aids (super heroes), the cleaners (champions), technicians (ninjas), transport people (indy drivers) and nutrionists (miracle workers.)
This morning my plan was to de-ice the car, visit with my mom and then head back to DC around lunch time. My mom called when I was on the way. She was hysterical and I couldn't tell if she was worsening. This is my biggest fear. It is not unusual for my mom to actually get sicker during hospital stays, because her immune system sucks and hospitals are cesspools.
When I arrived she burst into tears and after some panicky debriefing I figured out the problem. She wasn't sicker, she was scared shitless. A staff doctor, unfamiliar with her case, came in late last night and said he heard some crackling in her lung. He then walked out and she received no further explanation.
Imagine. You're feeling crappy, in a strange place and an expert finds a new serious problem but doesn't stick around long enough to explain it. Or even worse, he didn't bother to understand my mom's full medical picture, which includes a lengthy and frustrating bout with pneumonia last year. My mom had worked herself into a near panic attack (which was no doubt staved off by the anti-anxiety medicine she was already on). It took me two hours of sweet-talking, shouting and sleuthing to calm her down.
We called her doctor who was MIA the previous day. He immediately dismissed the crackling. We got the nurse to divulge that my mom's blood work was more or less normal. We got a cardiologist to explain why he wasn't concerned about her heart rate and to do so in the context of her specific history. We watched The View. Incidentally, Ricky Martin's new song blows.
Finally we were able to characterize this hospital stay. It would not be an extreme visit. She would not be getting worse, staying long or moving to the dreaded 5th floor (ICU). She was sick and the visit was necessary for the saline alone, but she was getting good care and was out of danger. At 2:29pm I bolted to a stand, kissed my mom and ran out the door to catch a train. In that instant I knew she'd be ok and besides I need to get back to DC before the next freaking snow storm!
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