George Clooney, We Hardly Knew Ye...

Recently, I had the dubious opportunity to check out our local hospital emergency room. According to statistics from a 2010 New York Times article, one in five Americans visits the ER every year. For people over 75, it's one in four. I can certainly attest to that, as I've spent a few long days in the ER with my 86-year-old mother—once when she broke her toe and another time when she was feeling fatigued. As fate would have it, this time the ER bell tolled for me. Why? Because my doctor couldn't see me and strongly suggested that we make use of the ER rather than waiting a day.

“The advantage that hospitals have over other institutions is that hospitals are community-based. You can't outsource your work; you can't move your emergency department to Pakistan.”—Mark Shields

Steve drove me there. We arrived at the ER at 8:15 in the morning, figuring we would be there for three or four hours and then return home with the problem solved. (Just like George Clooney used to do on television.) How naively optimistic. We waited more than an hour to get registered. That's because there were two cardiac-arrest patients already in the ER struggling for their lives. Everyone gladly deferred to those poor individuals.

Eventually, we were admitted, but because the ER was so overflowing with patients, I lay on a gurney between two nursing stations. It did not allow for much privacy but did offer a ringside seat for everything going on.

A panicked mother arrived in bare feet and pajamas, clutching a five-day-old infant who wasn't breathing properly. A man in a gurney next to me had taken a medication and had a potentially llife-threatening reaction involving rashes and a swollen face and neck. A 95-year-old woman demonstrated surprising lung capacity by screaming loudly for hours, primarily because she appeared to be senile. Another man, who I coincidentally knew from my freelance work, came in with a bad reaction to a new blood-pressure medication. (Small world.) And one man who had been rushed in by an ambulance crew, we overheard, would require a priest.

My husband, Steve, watched an electronic board that listed us all by room number (I had none), age, doctor, and elapsed time since we were admitted. Our total time in the ER clocked out at about six hours, 45 minutes because the doctor was too busy with serious cases to review my tests. Several other not-all-that-serious patients were held hostage to the same low-priority paperwork dilemma. But the staff was good-humored and did their best. My nurse, Susan, cheerfully explained to me that the air bubbles in my IV tube would not kill me because they were too small. Very reassuring.

Every once in a while, we would hear the opening chords of Brahm's lullaby. We later found out that they play those chords on the intercom whenever a baby is born in their maternity ward. About four babies came into the world during our stay.

“There is something so settled and stodgy about turning a great romance into next of kin on an emergency room form, and something so soothing and special, too.”—Anna Quindlen

Alas, George was not there.

Before I left, I saw the young mother wheeled out with her properly breathing baby in her arms and a relieved husband following. My hallway gurney mate with the allergic reaction was better and awaiting discharge. The screaming old woman was given oxygen, which seemed to immediately calm her down and restore her sanity. On the way out the door, I stopped in and wished my friend a speedy recovery.

Sadly, George Clooney was off that day. My husband amused one of the nurses by remarking sarcastically that I was a great date.

As for me, fortunately, it was nothing serious—just dehydration from the unseasonably warm weather in May. The remedy was to drink more water and turn up the air conditioner when we sleep. And so ended our eventful and excruciatingly long episode of ER.

Tenacious G at Rehab

Or... Grandma Rages Against the Machine

It’s not exactly what you may think. My 84-year-old mother is not at the Betty Ford Clinic drying out from a binge of alcohol or recreational drugs. After she was released from the hospital, she was required to go to an acute care rehab facility before her assisted living facility would take her back. Mom was not pleased. Her walking was a bit wobbly, so I could see the logic.

I drove her over to the facility, helped her settle in and finally left. The next morning at 7 a.m., I got a call from the facility that she was trying to “run away.” Actually, she got dressed, decided she did not want to be there and took action. The staff had their viewpoint, she had hers. Fortunately, a social worker my family had hired as an advocate intervened and convinced the staff that my mother was just disoriented because she was not at her home. They finally decided to let her stay rather than discharging her.

I was traveling for a few days and when I got back, Mom was walking like a pro. No more wobble. I asked to meet with the director of nursing and the physical therapy director and suggested to them that she was ready to leave. They thought she should stay for three more weeks—exactly the amount of time that is paid by Medicare. I disagreed strongly and they finally relented to let her leave the following Monday.

Unfortunately, Mom came down with something from the facility, which I then caught, so I was not able to visit her for a few days. When I finally returned, she was so tired she could hardly sit up and behaved like a zombie. I was puzzled. I’ve never seen Mom like this. Then the social worker there told me that because Mom had been agitated when she first arrived, the psychologist there put her on a medication to “calm her down.” Apparently, even though I am legally responsible for her medical decisions, they were not required to notify me about this.

She was given an anti-seizure medicine and an Alzheimer’s medicine—even though there was no diagnosis of Alzheimers. These drugs build up in the system over a period of days and apparently worked so well that she was practically in a catatonic state.

I called her doctor and asked that she be taken off the medications. My mother is feisty. If that is too inconvenient for a facility then they SHOULD discharge the patient rather than do a reenactment of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. She is, after all, a human being, not a commodity. Is society so regimented that children and the elderly are being drugged up if they show an iota of spirit?

While I sympathize with what health care workers have to endure, they signed up for care giving when they took the job. My mother did not have much choice in being placed in their environment. She will be discharged tomorrow—and that can’t come too soon. Maybe on our way out, I’ll toss something heavy out the window in a commemorative gesture to Randle McMurphy and everyone else who has ever endured an involuntary lobotomy. Mom would like that—if she doesn’t grab it out of my hands, first, and do it herself.

Tenacious G at the Hospital

 Tenacious G makes friends. This is not another patient, just a Halloween decoration.

Hospitals are not fun. One could even say that they are no place for sick people. This past week my mother was a bit dizzy and walked like she had had one too many at the neighborhood bar. The nurse at the assisted living facility was concerned and suggested Mom be taken to the ER for an evaluation.

So off we drove to the local hospital. It took the staff there about three hours to determine that she should be admitted for more tests. It took another two hours for them to find a room—not just for Mom but for several other people in the ER. In the meantime, gurneys of other patients were piling up in the hallways. Apparently, there was a shift change and no one could be admitted until the new shift had made the rounds of existing patients. During our entire five-hour odyssey in Room A of the ER, Mom complained quite loudly that this was no way to run a hospital. Oddly enough, she was right.

When I visited her the next day, she had a nonfunctional phone. Granted, this is not as serious as a nonfunctional heart monitor, but being able to talk to loved ones is a morale booster. The nurse immediately replaced the defective phone with one that worked. Quickly, I texted everyone in the family with her new phone number, encouraging them all to call. I stepped out of the room for a moment and when I returned, the same nurse was grabbing the phone back. When she turned and realized I was still there, she started mumbling about how the phone had frayed wires and had to be replaced. This resulted in an unintended practical joke. Family members dutifully called Mom/Grandma, but no one could get through because there was no longer a phone.

During my visit on Day Three, Mom told me that “they” would not allow her to get out of bed by herself to go to the bathroom—reasonable considering her wobbly gait. Apparently, she had been asking for a while if she could go and was very uncomfortable. I went out to the nurse’s station to ask if someone could help her. “Of course!” said the nice lady there. Fifteen minutes later, I returned to the nice lady to ask why no one had yet come to assist Mom—and would it be all right if I did since Mom was on the verge of uremic poisoning? They preferred we wait, and five minutes later, a nurse came in and asked my mother if she wanted “to go potty.” I suggested to the nurse that since my mother was an adult, she need not speak to her that way. The nurse proceeded to lecture me on how she talked that way to everyone. One can only assume that she showed no particular bias when condescending to her public.

Another nurse came by to ask Mom questions that would assess her mental functioning. Mom was not pleased to be in the hospital and her way of expressing that was to answer the questions sarcastically, which was interpreted by the nurse as senility.

Next, a physical therapist came by with a walker to suggest to Mom that she might need a little help. Mom smiled, but was quietly seething. “I DON’T need a walker,” she insisted. Walkers, after all, were for old people. (Mom is only 84.) To prove how unnecessary the walker was, Mom raised it a few inches above the floor and shuffled quickly along without it. Unfortunately, her balance was a bit off and so she looked like a race car in a hospital gown careening out of control.

Finally on Day Four, Nurse Roberta called me in the afternoon to inform me that several days of tests had not found any evidence of a stroke, but it was determined that Mom would be discharged to a rehab facility in a nearby town. This, hopefully, would rid her of her drunken walk.

While Nurse Roberta was talking to me, the doctor was telling my mother that she was being discharged. Before we hung up the phone, my mother was already dressed, packed and ready to go. The nurse discovered this when she rushed to my mother’s room because Mom had disengaged all the heart monitor equipment, sending a flat-line reading to her desk
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I arrived shortly after all the excitement. When Mom saw me, she hopped off the bed, ready to make a mad dash for the door. She had to be held back until the obligatory wheelchair was fetched for her departure.

As the sun set on St Clare’s Hospital, a weary staff watched us depart. “I’m glad to be out of THAT place,” Mom said. I’m sure the feeling was mutual.