I was resting quite comfortably in the ER, in a special area set aside for patients who come in complaining of chest pain. It's like a V.I.P. section, except instead of getting finger food and champagne, the main benefit of getting past these ropes is that you are far less likely to perish.
They pride themselves onthat in any ER I've been to: having their patients not expire. These are trained professionals with years of experience, and on a daily basis all their considerable skills and education are thrown into the task of keeping people like you and me alive, sometimes in spite of our best efforts to kill ourselves.
They have a lot of good days in any ER. A good day is when you and your colleagues are able to beat back the wave after wave of injury, pain, and suffering that crashes up against the counter and spills out into the waiting room. On many - even most - days, they get everybody fixed, bandaged, stitched, splinted, medicated, and sent back out the doors.
But they also have bad days. And unlike the rest of us, who count it as a bad day at work when the cash receipts don't balance or the copier gets a paper jam or Darlene goes on a rampage because somebody put their coffee cup in the sink without washing it, in the ER a bad day is measured by the number of people who won't be shopping at Eaton's tomorrow.
(That was my mother's utterly charming euphemism for Death. I would go over to her house and she would be reading the obits, and would say "Well, I guess Beryl MacLean won't be shopping at Eaton's tomorrow."
The concept of shuffling off this mortal coil was not considered polite dinnertime conversation, so Mom would never address it directly. People did not die. They simply would not be shopping at Eaton's tomorrow. )
(And by the way, it amused me greatly when I was able to go over one day with the business section of the newspaper and say, "Well, Mom, I guess Eaton's won't be shopping at Eaton's tomorrow.")
My point is, the people in the ER - the doctors, nurses, and technicians - are in it to win it when you come waltzing through the door. These people are not dabblers and hobbyists. They are working. They have nothing more pressing to do than take care of people just like us. In fact, taking care of people just like us is what they do. For a living.
The test results came in from the first round of blood work, and the ER doctor said he wanted to bring in a cardiologist. He also asked if there was anyone else I thought should be here. Like, perhaps, say, my wife?
"Right. Yes. If you're saying you're going to admit me to hospital for a few day, that is just the kind of thing she might appreciate knowing about."
Because I was not allowed to use my cell phone, I got the ER doctor to make the phone call to my wife. Also, I really wanted to see how he was going to pull this off. Because frankly, if I get a phone call and the first words I hear are, "Hello, this is Doctor ...", I am not going to hear much more than that.
It's a common human reaction, shutting down like that. One time I was away on a business trip and both our daughters were out with friends. It was 11 o'clock at night, and my wife answered a knock at the door. She opened it to find a couple of RCMP officers. They were investigating a break-in down the road, but it took them a long time to get my wife's full attention to what they were saying. "Really, Ma'am, we wouldn't tease you about this, you have to believe us ..."
So the doc called her. He was able to calm her after an initial explosion of concern and convince her to get right down to the hospital because I was in immediate, urgent need of a lecture about all my bad lifestyle choices over the past forty years.
So she arrived and launched in, but then the cardiologist showed up. He looked over all my charts, checked me out, asked a few questions, and said, "You won't be going home for a few days. And you're not smoking any more. Ever. Any questions?"
So, I resigned myself to settling in to the hospital, because the doc said he wanted to run "... a few tests."
Over the next 96 hours, I would begin to quibble with his definition of the term "a few tests".
And over the hospital's definition of "... a few days". Oh, and "food".
To be Continued
Nils Ling's book "Truths and Half Truths" is a collection of some of his most memorable and hilarious columns. Send a cheque or money order for $25.00 (taxes, postage and handling included) to RR #9, 747 Brackley Point Road, Charlottetown, PE, C1E 1Z3
