A Night in the ER

or
I'll take "Things That Suck" for $200, Bob

Lee Thompson-Herbert
Fri Oct 29, 2004

So I had this stupid cyst in my thigh. After two weeks of antibiotics, the thing still wouldn't die so I had it lanced on Tuesday. I'd warned the surgeon that I bleed like hell, so he told me he was going to really pack the incision. Even though I was all numbed up, when he manipulated the area, I got really queasy and dizzy. That should have been a warning.

So fast forward to Thursday, when I was supposed to remove the dressing and packing. I get in the shower to soak it off. I take off the top dressing. So far, so good. I start to take out the packing. I see stars. Things start to go black. Not good. I flip the water over to cold and put my head down (I use a shower chair so I was already sitting down). When I can finally see again, I crawl out of the shower and thow up in the toilet. I really try and keep things like that in their proper place, even when I'm reduced to crawling, ya see...

Now I have this problem. I've only gotten the packing half out, and I'm not about to mess with it further. So I use the bandage scissors to clip the tail trailing out and pat the area dry and put a clean dressing over it. Dry myself off, get dressed and go take another painkiller. And some more prednisone, since I obviously just stressed my body out. At that point, I seemed to be better. Except that the stupid packing is still moving around, stimulating the incision area. So when the painkiller wears off several hours later...

George is home by then. I don't do a facedive this time, but I do start looking pretty green and have to go lie down. After talking with me a little, George decides to shove me in the car and take me to the ER. We get there a little after 11pm. Lucky for us, the Knife and Gun Club hasn't started yet, so we're seen fairly quickly.

The ER doc informs me that no, I'm not a wuss and she's not suprised that I'm having the reaction I am. She offers to shoot me up with morphine, then numb my leg with lidocaine, then take the rest of the surgical packing out. Sounds pretty good to me.

After a short wait, the nurse shows up. The doc has okay'd me taking my own regular meds, since it's now past time for me to take a bunch of 'em (the triage nurse noted I could start my own pharmacy). I ask the nurse if I could take my pills before he gave me the morphine, otherwise I might be too stupid to remember which ones I needed to take. I take my pills. The nurse starts the IV, takes blood (they always do that because I'm a walking medical experiment), then gives me the morphine. 5..4..3..2..1...here we go. Whee. Suddenly, I no longer feel nauseous. And the dizzy I feel is entirely different from the "gonna faint any second" feeling I'd been having on and off all evening. Yeah, life has improved already. The nurse looks at me, "So you're not feeling pain now?" "Nope!" "See? It's a miracle!" This type of miracle I'm down with.

At this point, the ER starts getting busy, so George and I more or less get abandoned in our little room for a couple hours. But I've gotten my drugs, so it's okay. There was a comedy of errors when I tried to get to the bathroom at one point. They sent George in with me to make sure I didn't fall on my face. They really wanted me to use a bedpan, but uh, you know I think I'd rather risk faceplanting. Hell, my last hospital stay I got in trouble for going from my bed to the bathroom blind after eye surgery to avoid using the bedpan, so since I could both see and sort of hobble...I only managed to drag the hospital gown through the toilet after I'd already taken the urine sample and capped it off, so it COULD BE WORSE. Hey, at least it wasn't my clothing. And George grabbed me a clean gown out of the cabnet when we got back into the room.

So we finally get the doctor back, just about the time the morphine is getting ready to wear off. She numbs my leg with lidocaine and it takes about 30 seconds to remove the stupid surgical packing now that I can't feel anything. The nurse comes back to patch me up and remove the IV line. That's when the excitement started.

Remember, I bleed like hell. The first dressing he put on my elbow bled through. So he went to put a new one on. We both really thought the bleeding had stopped. He takes the dressing off and blood literally *squirts* out like from a water pistol. Good thing I'm not squeamish to start with. And I'm still stoned from the morphine. "Holy shit! Hahahah!" Slap the new dressing on my arm and apply a whole lot of pressure. The nurse keeps saying, "I've never seen it do that before! Ever!" Well, there's a reason my first aid kit at home has a couple packs of Bleed-X in it. But this is pretty excessive even for me. We get the bleeding stopped and George and I can finally go home. I have one hell of a bruise there on my elbow now. It should look even more impressive in a day or so.

So we spent all night in the ER. Compared to some of our visits, this was relatively pleasant, at least for me. They drugged me early on, and gave me good drugs this time so waiting wasn't torture. And well, I didn't have any broken bones, I wasn't bleeding everywhere (uh, well, until the end there), and I could breathe, so I was actually in much better shape than I usually am when I end up in the emergency room. I was just in loads of pain, which they actually did something about this time. I just wish we hadn't spent 6-1/2 hours there. Sleep? What's that?

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