Want a job full of excitement, humor, and pathos? Take one as an overnight security guard at an inner-city emergency room.
Saturday night about 8:30 I slipped the leash around our dog’s neck and moved to the front door to take her out. She’s a strong dog, and she gets a little… exuberant, when she sees other dogs. So I always, always, have her sit in the doorway while I look outside to see if anyone, or any dogs, are coming down the street. Always. Except last Saturday night.
I stepped outside and was pulled immediately. Violently. I stumbled down the steps and into our small alley street, where a neighbor was passing by with her dog. Mine lunged forward, fast and hard. I had the leash wrapped around my hand and couldn’t let go. In the middle of the street I went airborne and actually flew head-first into the iron rail and marble steps of the house across the street.
As I pushed myself up off the sidewalk blood was gushing out of my head like a firehose. It’s amazing how much your head will bleed. My leg and shoulder hurt, but I got up and my wife ran out with towels so I could feebly attempt to keep the blood in. Amazingly, in the shock and surprise and trauma it didn’t hurt.
My dog just sat on the curb with this look on her face that said, “Oh shit. I really f****d up now.”
There was a hustle of activity, more towels, a stumbling walk back across the street, a bucket brigade with my daughter’s 40 oz Stanley Quencher to wash all the blood off the sidewalk, and a general consensus that I needed to go to the hospital. The bleeding all but stopped. It’s amazing how fast a serious cut will clot. I pulled myself up our steps and looked into the mirror inside. The gash on my forehead was long and deep. I pressed the towel back on my head as my neighbor opened the passenger door of his car and drove me to the hospital.
The emergency room didn’t look very full, and they took me into the triage room almost immediately. They said, yup, I needed stitches and no, my knee wasn’t broken. So they sent me back to the waiting room to sit and wait. And wait. And wait. Over the next few hours a good four people came in for every one that left.
Hospitals always put me on edge, and I have a tendency to spike uncomfortably manic when left feeling forgotten in one. But in the crowd of the waiting room, both suffering and enjoying the incredible adrenaline rush of violent injury, I sat in awe of the activity. Cars pulled up and discharged people in various states of disrepair as the hospital staff swung from boring coffee to hectic mayhem with each admission. A helicopter landed. People burst through security gates chased by security guards, and two old homeless women, sitting in wheelchairs because all the seats were taken, rolled up to each other shouting, squared off, and began to fight.
If you want to see true equality in action, an equality without racial, gender, or socio-economic boundaries, drift through a city emergency room at 1:00 AM. It doesn’t matter who you are. You are going to wait. A woman complained about the wait and was told, “you’ve only been here for and hour-and-a-half. Some of these people have been here for five hours.” Another objected to people who came in after her being taken back before her, and was chastised that people were seen based on the severity of their condition, not when they checked in. There is no first come first served or air of privilege at the ER. A man came through the doors, approached the counter, and announced that he had a sore throat. The woman behind the glass kidded that they’d get to him by Tuesday.
If you want to see the vast canvas of mental illness in America, and the failings of the mental health industry, come to the emergency room at the same time. Homeless people, obviously troubled, crowded about, swathed in blankets, muttering incoherently, kept off the floor by understaffed security, who were occasionally distracted by real threats of violence and seeming drug overdoses.
A family huddled upset when a doctor approached and said, “She’s not going to make it. She’s on a respirator so you can gather family to see her before she goes.” An older couple was told by a nurse, “He’s refusing treatment and refuses to see you. I’m sorry you had to come all this way.” Empathy gave way to exhaustion and the expressions of emotion became tactile.
Another head injury came in. A woman much too old for the late 70s punk era clothes she wore. Her bloodstained jacket proclaimed “More Discipline. No Surrender.” At the counter she couldn’t say where she was. She was sure it was 1924. At the club she had climbed onstage to stage dive. No one caught her. When asked if she was drinking she said maybe two beers. The man with her, a black clad man she introduced as slug, said “no, three 24 oz beers.” They gave her a CT scan rather quickly. Then sent her back to wait with everybody else.
At about 1:30 AM they took me back, put me in a small room, pulled the curtain, and left me for another couple of hours. This is when the trouble often starts. All was quiet for a long while. A baby started screaming. A woman said, “If you’re going to be a mother you should know better than to bring your baby to the hospital for a 104 degree fever.” A man across the hall begged for surgery, any surgery, and sleeping pills. In my room the flecks in the floor began to move and I couldn’t tell if it was psychosis or my head injury. I decided to keep it to myself.
I got a tetanus shot and two cups of water. A doctor looked at my knee and ordered an x-ray, which I declined. It was swelling and in pain, but it still worked. My wife and I are both unemployed. We do have insurance, at least for now, but it’s a new year, all the deductibles start all over, and you know what they charge for things in the ER. The doctor offered something for the pain and I said no. Not at $200 for a Tylenol.
The doctor was great, as was all the staff, as abused by patients as they were. I told him that as I left for the hospital my daughter pressed me to tell him to make the scar look like Harry Potter. Then everybody implored me to demand a plastic surgeon to stitch me up. They might leave no scar. My daughter thought a plastic surgeon could also give me Botox for the wrinkles on my forehead. The ER doctor assured me he had stitched up many more bashed in heads than any plastic surgeon we might find at 3:30 AM on a Sunday. He draped a cloth over my face and put in a few stitches on the inside and six to close me up. Without a bandage and without a knee brace I limped unceremoniously down the long hall, out the swinging door, through security the wrong way, and into the waning night.
I got out of the hospital just after 4:00 AM. I stood on the sidewalk in the rain with Slug, Ubers taking forever. My wife was up when I got home and she helped me inside. I dumped onto the couch. My head still didn’t hurt. There was no way I was sleeping. Sunday afternoon we watched the football playoffs and I sat unimpressed as running backs with helmets and shoulder pads put their heads down and hit the line. I went headfirst into a stoop of iron and stone with nothing between impact and me but my thinning hair.
Everything can change in an instant and, of course, everything will be OK. For now I just limp ahead, the gash and stitches sure to be the first thing anyone notices. I wait for the possibility of some imbalance that often follows trauma, and still, my head doesn’t hurt.
"Botox," LOL !
Well, now you dont have to worry about your hair being the first thing that's noticed, right?
Regarding the lack of pain: you may still be in some sort of shock. Sounds like youre monitoring your symptoms and you'll know if a time comes to consult a neurologist.
I'm SO sorry, George. It sounds like you have a great support system around you. If you &/or your wife do find that you need anything, that I can do -- a ride somewhere, etc. -- please let me know, I live right over the WW bridge in NJ. I mean it. G-d bless you and your family.