The holidays were over and there were no events or obligations
on this day. My wife and I looked at each other and knew what we had to do. It
was to go to a place that we both dreaded. It’s a place that I am familiar with
visiting. Most of the time in my life I am confident, happy and at ease with my
surroundings. Yet the trip we were about to take was to a place that made me
feel helpless with no control in my life. It is a mind-numbing place where time
drags exceedingly slowly. It was a trip to the emergency room with a possible
hospital stay to follow. This time the patient was my wife.
I had prepped myself for the journey. While I am very good
shape for a 66-year old man and have been fortunate enough to be fairly
healthy, I am still pretty experienced at going to the emergency room and
hospitals. As we age, even if we are healthy ourselves, the people around us
may not be that lucky. In my case my 98-year-old mother has had numerous emergency
room visits over the years for various reasons such as falls and severe UTIs.
There are consistent sights and sounds that you experience.
The beeping of the monitors keeping track of all the patients’ vitals. EMTs
coming into the hallways with gurneys and new patients. You can’t help but overhear
some patients moaning and their conversations with either medical staff or a
loved one. Medical staff are scurrying around, although it is hard to tell what
their job is because even with name tags it is difficult to tell who a nurse,
doctor, or technician is. For me personally, there is negative energy in the
air even though most patients are getting great medical care. While it is a chaotic scene it moves in super
slow motion if you are a patient or caregiver there to support a loved one. Various
staff members come in to set the patient up or maybe take them to get a test.
The doctor comes in before and after the test results, but the minutes soon
turn into hours, and you have no answers. You spend hours doing nothing but waiting
to see who will come next.
As I mentioned, I prep for these visits and for all that downtime. I always bring a book and my cellphone. Often, I bring my laptop. Many times, my mother will doze off so I would sit there quietly maybe texting my family to update them but there is little to update them on until the very end. While your focus is on your loved one you can’t help but feel a bit helpless. You have almost no control over what is going to happen. Your job is to be positive and supportive for your loved one.
Going with my wife was a little different than my frail
mother. I saw this coming for a while. She had a procedure that was supposed to
solve a problem with her esophagus (A very rare condition.) that prevented her
from eating solid food and even some liquids. It had not worked and three weeks
later she was no better, in fact she was getting worse. Losing weight and
energy. She had somehow survived not eating during the holidays but the
adrenaline that got her through the holidays was now gone. She knew she had to
get treatment. Our son and I had been pushing her to be more aggressive in
getting medical treatment, but she had resisted. She works at a hospital and
knows how the system works. An emergency room visit is never a quick undertaking;
it is a long journey.
I wanted to be as supportive as I could for my wife on this
journey. Yet it is hard to be positive in such a chaotic environment. As is the
case with many emergency room visits, this one was an ordeal. It was
overcrowded and patients were on gurneys in the hallway. Even our walk to her
hallway bed was detoured because of a gurney traffic jam. The patients’ ailments
ran the gamut. I don’t know how the medical staff handle it at an emergency
room. There are people with almost any injury or disease you can imagine, and
the staff has to deal with individuals who are having psychiatric issues, heart
attacks, or orthopedic issues. The older woman about four feet from my wife was
holding a baby doll as if it was her baby. She was suffering from dementia but
had also collapsed. She held on to baby
for dear life and fought the help of the staff until her son came.
I could not even stand or sit next to my wife because the
constant gurney traffic made me stand or sit in a chair at the foot of her bed.
My wife who is very practical said to me “You should go home. There is
nothing you can do here.” I ignored her because I thought that was a
preposterous request but also because there was something I could do there. It
was to get answers to her condition. One of the other things I learned with my
mother’s visits was how critical it is to take in all the information the staff
gives you.
The other thing about emergency rooms is that you are
surrounded not just by chaos, but it seems like you are in an environment that
is so unhealthy. I get bad health vibes because no matter where you turn there
is someone in a bad way. I am afraid to touch anything. I feel that there are
germs all around me trying to take me down. I feel vulnerable in this
environment. As part of my prep for these visits, I also wear a race shirt (I
am a very avid runner.) hoping that that helps stave off the bad juju of the
emergency room. The germs I envision are like a lion picking out the weak and
injured in a herd. The germs will ignore me and seek easier prey. I know…this
is not exactly scientific, but it gives me a sense of confidence.
We finally got answers and we learned that my wife would be
okay, but it would take some time including a hospital stay. I would then be visiting her daily and hearing
her regularly say “go home and do something useful” which I of course ignored.
I guess a trip to the emergency room is an admission that
you have to put the life of someone you love in the hands of others. You are
seeking both treatment and answers. It is very difficult to endure just being
almost a bystander in the life of someone you love. But the most important part
of being in this environment in which time seems to stand still is that you are
there. Think about a loved one being there all alone. For me I think having
someone by your side, even if they feel helpless, makes a difference. Even if
my wife will not admit it.
As I age, I know that there are more trips in my future to
emergency rooms and hospitals. While I have acquired the skills to better
handle these situations, there is no joy in having this expertise.
