Sunday Night in the Emergency Room

Sunday night I went to see my friend Stephen play softball. After a few afternoon pleas from him of "please come play, we're short a woman", I had to confess my deep seated fears of Softball, Baseball, all verions of sports utilizing sticks of any variety & balls. Bats & balls & I just do not go together.

When I was in elementary school I was over at my classmates house & was hit in the head with a bat. Yes, hit in the head, knock down fall on my butt crying bloody murder hit in the head. So at the tender age of 6 I already had a bit of an aversion on baseball and softball. Now add to that the seeming inability to catch any ball whatsoever, particularly one as small as a baseball or softball, and the apparent inability to hit either of the aforementioned hard little obelisks of terror with a bat, and you have a very teased, always last-to-be-picked terrified 5th grader in gym class who can't hit & can't catch. Yes, gym class was a little traumatic. It's true. So I gave in and told Stephen that I couldn't play because I was afraid of the ball. And it is the absolute truth.

But- I am all for supporting OTHER people hitting the crap out of the hard little obelisks of terror so I went to the game to cheer him on. I arrived about 30 minutes after it started & was sitting on the bleachers not 5 minutes when the ball was hit directly at Stephen- he leaned down to catch it as it hit the ground, but instead it bounced up and straight into his Eye. His hat went flying one direction, the glasses went flying another direction, one of the lenses in another direction...There was some serious ball payback going on here. So out he comes & they get the blood to stop and bandaged up, I found some ice and they finished the game.

Remember This Post? It seems I have a little experience with Emergency Rooms & stitches- although mine was nothing compared to Stephen's Eye. There was a big cut over his eye, a whole bunch of swelling, and a mention of losing vision for a minute or two right when it happened.
Me: Um, YES, let's go to the emergency room!!!
Him: Let's see how it looks and see if we have to go to the Emergency room...
No worries though because we came to the same conclusion...So off we went to the Emergency Room.

Turned out to be a very busy night in the Emergency Room. The parking lot was so full we had to park a little distance away in the Parking Garage and walk back. When we arrived the registration desk the woman told us it was going to be quite some time, so we settled in for a bit of a wait. Stephen was called up shortly after for what I thought was the Triage blood pressure/temperature/what's your name 5 minute thing they did when I was there last time, so I waited in the waiting room. After about 30 minutes I realized he wasn't coming back, so I checked with one of the people there who said he was sent back to Expedited Care in one of the small rooms, and it was too small. I asked if I could go back (feeling incredibly guilty for not following the first time and now abandoning him completely!)- but after checking the guy came back & said no, it's really too small & he'd be out soon.

I had ample opportunity to observe the various people in the waiting room because apparently "soon" is a different measure of time when quoted by Emergency Room Staff. We were probably there around 3 hours in total, although it really didn't feel nearly that long. There was a single page of the sports section of the newspaper. Remember that "I'm afraid of the ball?" Subsequently I'm not a huge reader of the sports section of the newspaper, but given there was no other reading material, I made my way through every word on the page! Once I got through that, I found a childrens book about the Dragon Librarian. (Miss Lotta Scales) Cute little girl charms the grumpy Dragon in the end and all her Scales fall off & she has story time again & all the children love her & she becomes Miss Lotta. Nice Story. That finished, I started looking around for something to do again...

It's amazing the cross section of people you see in an emergency room. When I'm in those sorts of situations I feel like I should be learning something. I can't find the post now, but I had a post maybe a year ago on "messages" that you get from people. I think it's about opening your mind to accept what verbal or non verbal messages other people are relaying. Sometimes it's not that it's a message you need to do anything about, but rather a message that you take in and remember as a learning experience.

As I sat in the Waiting Room at the ER last night, I looked around at the variety of people who had gathered there. There was an older woman with a younger woman who had to wait a very long time, but they were incredibly patient. There was a young man who may have been just 19 or 20 in a wheel chair with his leg propped up and one arm propped up and well bandaged up who also had to wait a long time, but both also waited patiently. At one point I heard him say "Dad, what would I do if you didn't live so close?" It was nearly so quick as to be an offhand comment, but there was a lot of meaning behind it. There was a woman and man I mistook as people of Asian decent- possibly from Laos or Vietnam, but when they spoke they spoke fluent Spanish- possibly Indigenous Mexican. The woman seemed to be hallucinating, but for some reason I felt very strongly that it was from illness and not from drugs. There was a very tired and weak woman who came in with a man, and the man was quite rude to her- he told her she should just go home and see her doctor tomorrow because she wouldn't get any care at the ER that night. She responded to him in such a small voice "I'm scared to go to sleep tonight." He made a few more comments & left her there alone. Before long a nurse came out and brought her some tylenol and water and sat down next to her to talk to her for a few minutes. She asked whether she should leave, and the nurse- in the warmest voice said "no, you've had a 104 temperature for 2 days, you have a very valid reason to be here." The woman sounded timid and weak and said "If you were me, what would you do?" The Nurse assured her that it was a good idea to stay, but said if she felt she needed to leave to let her know. It was reassuring enough that the woman stayed. I could have kissed that Nurse right then and there- it was so awful to see how the man had talked with this woman when you could see how awful she felt. I hope he was not a boyfriend or husband. There was a young girl, maybe 18 or 19 who was brought in by a policeman and left in the waiting room by herself. She was crying on and off and looked like she was coming off a high of some sort- just in the way she walked, the way she seemed to be looking at people. The younger woman who was sitting with the older woman brought some tissues to the young girl, then went and found her a tissue box. She was called up for the 5 minute Triage then came back & sat at some chairs across from me & started making some calls. I saw her switch over from one call to another and heard her say "Mom, I have dad on the other line, let me tell him I'll call him back, I want to talk to you," then I think something like "I was scared I'd do something to myself, so I called 911"- I heard her give both of her parents the address to the hospital. I wasn't there long enough to see her Parents come, but I was reassured she had called them. I saw a woman come in with her husband and their new baby who looked to be not more than a Month old- such a beautiful little baby with this thick head of dark curly hair- when I smiled at the Mom she smiled back so warmly.

It's amazing that even in a place as stressful as a hospital emergency room at midnight on a Sunday, the little joys that happen- The woman bringing the girl tissues, the son thanking his Dad for being close, the the possibly suicidal girl calling her parents for help, the new mom beaming her pride over her new baby. I strongly believe that this world around us is what you make it. A friend passed on some wisdom a few months back that had been passed to her by a very wise woman, she said: "When we give energy to something, it expands, always in proportion to the amount of energy we have given it." If you give energy to negativity- you will see negativity- if you give energy to positive things in your life, it will come back to you. A little bit Karma, a little bit "Fritzy Wisdom" sent via Walternatives.

And my friend Stephen- yes eventually he did emerge once again into the Waiting room, scarred, in pain, a little down for the experience, but mended once again. 5 stitches and a cat scan later (They wanted to make sure his eye socket was not cracked), he was out and we were headed back home again. It was a late night and made for a pretty sleepy day, but I'm appreciative for what I learned from it. Not only all of my ramblings above, but also, that I have a pretty good reason to be afraid of the ball!