Thursday, May 14, 2009

TSI PART II

Just as I managed to unlock the door, a gurney with two extremely large EMT's appeared. (I could have sworn they were wearing red soup bowls upside down on their heads) Evidently I wasn't calm, imagine that! One of my inquisitors rescuers kept yelling, "calm down ma'am", over and over, louder and louder. Evidently I must have started screaming again when they picked me up off the floor and put me on the gurney. Out from behind them appeared a gray faced township police officer, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else but at my back door. He asked if the phone in my bra might have my husband on the other end. Then I understood his appearance. J has that effect on people when he's using his official voice. Back on the gurney, they decided to put me in the ambulance s l o w l y. Turns out my blood pressure registered something akin to "barely breathing". My sister said it has to do with immense pain and shock. Even though you're screaming bloody murder, you can have a vagal incident, which sends your blood pressure into the basement.
From here on out I will refer to the EMT's as T1 and T2 (think Cat in the Hat). T1 was the calm down ma'am female who was in charge and T2 was the jolly driver who promised me the slowest possible ride to the Hospital and wanted to know why I had so many cook books. I'm not kidding here. He then proceeded to tell me in front of the baffled cop that he wanted to go to the CIA, which I understood, but the poor cop looked like he had fallen down the rabbit hole. Oh, I forgot to tell you that once I was safely on the gurney, I lost use of both arms. My right arm was holding on to my left arm, pressing it into my stomach for dear life. I'm not sure how long it took T2 to drive to the hospital, but it was long enough for my blood pressure to come up just enough to have 50mg of fentanyl 5 times. When we arrived, T1 told T2 that she would take the flack for dosing me so heavily. Seriously, the stuff never touched the pain until that last 50 mgs.

Next stop: The ER that I never knew existed

This was the ER that whisks you into a large private treatment room, no flimsy curtains in this ER. A team of medical professionals start swarming before you've been transferred from the ambulance gurney.
"No allergies, can you tell us your name, do you know where you are?.....ok, here's some dilaudid, now lets put sticky tags all over you, hook you up to machines that are going to blink and beep and bleep and warn us if you as much as sneeze."
Unfortunately Click and Clack in the x-ray department didn't get the memo that they should be quick, competent and professional. If I had a third arm, I would have attempted to smack both of their silly faces. At one point I said that I couldn't perform some contortion they devised and I would need help. Both of them looked at me like slack jawed yokels and asked what I wanted them to do. I'm afraid I lost my inhibitions somewhere between the fentanyl and dilaudid and told them to "shoot me". I then pretended to be anywhere but there, closed my eyes and let them figure it out. But I digress.
Six hours passed from arrival to discharge. The orthopod on call couldn't be f----d to come in, so he diagnosed over the phone and told them to jam my broken shoulder back into the socket..... "the piece that shattered at the top of the humeris will just jump right back where it belongs"
One minute J was there and I was awake, the next I woke up and it was all over, but the shouting, as they say. Seems that unruly broken bone decided to misbehave again and jammed itself into my humeris two inches below where it had come from.
Time to rest.....catch up with it tomorrow.

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