part 2. admission and pain.

Jan 28, 2012 14:17

so. I have pneumonia and an epyema. I am in the ER waiting for a room because the next day I get to have tubes stuck in me and poison sucked out of the sack around my lungs.
but mostly I am in pain.
(I understand why they do not medicate for pain in the ER. They are trying to figure out what is wrong with people, and pain is a sign of things that are wrong.
And usually, people do not stay in the ER for 12 hours.)
A bed is found, and I am wheeled up there. Getting settled in, I am given all kinds of neato medications none of which are designed to alleviate pain. I ask about this and am told, "gee, the doctor didn't order anything for pain.

That BASTARD. He forgot. But clearly, this patient is in pain. It is very clear to the nurses (the backbone of the medical profession IMO) that I HURT. So they set about finding a doctor to write an order for something for pain. Oh, and the next day, the GF tells the Hospitalist that he did not write the pain medicine order he replied, "didn't I?". Never appologize. It's a sign of weakness.

Finding a doctor that will answer their phone on Christmas eve eve is not easy, but those nurses kept at it.

At some point, the GF goes home to rest and I continue to writhe around in pain. Before she left she had requested a priest stop by and give me communion and the sacrement for the sick and dying.

From behind me I hear a voice calling my name. I am laying in the hospital bed on my non-hurting side. I look over my shoulder and standing over my bed is a man. He is dark complectioned, close cropped dark curly hair and a neatly trimmed goatee. the phrase "Christ-like" occurs to me. "I am Father Adam" he says. "That's a good look for you" I say. So I make as good a confession as someone whose last confession was a couple of generations ago, receive communion and the sacrement for the sick. I thank him and go back to being in pain, although feeling somewhat better. And that makes me think.

See, when you are a little kid and you are a Catholic and you lose something, you pray to St. Anthony to help you find it. My GF is still a big believer in this and really, so am I. So I decide that St. Anthony can find my pain medication. So I ask him to help and seriously, fifteen minutes later there is a nurse with a syringe full of some lovely stuff to send me to painless dreamland. Seriously, she pushed that stuff into my IV and the pain was gone. It was amazing.

The rest of the story is really pretty dull...except for the series of misadventures I have along the way. It truly was a Murphy's law hospital stay, except I lived.
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