Phil Elmore: Individual Authoring Services

A Visit To the Emergency Room
In Which Our Hero Wears a Hospital Gown

The evening started with a rectal exam and got better from there.

For several days I'd been having abdominal and chest pains. I figured it was something I'd eaten. When nothing I took made it go away, I drove to the 24-Hour Medical Center.

The theory behind the 24-Hour Medical Center is that, regardless of your problem, you can seek medical attention around the clock. A staff of trained doctors and nurses are on hand to see to your needs immediately and expedite your treatment.

The reality of the 24-Hour Medical center is that, regardless of your problem, you will be asked to fill out extensive paperwork, led into a small examination room whose walls are studded with mysterious parallel ports and medical equipment, and left to wait for a minimum of 45 minutes. Once you have been ignored sufficiently, someone who claims to be a doctor (and even has "Dr. So-And-So" silk-screened on his white Doctor Coat) will enter the room, ask you a bunch of questions, and tell you he hasn't the vaguest clue what might be wrong.

After waiting for 45 minutes in a small room, wondering how many patients die in these little rooms and are found by the cleaning staff the next morning, I was seen by Dr. Kaia of Temptation Island. I call him Dr. Kaia because he looked just like the latently homosexual Kaia of Fox's infamous Temptation Island television show. He had the same slim, dark looks, the same clueless and tentative demeanor, and inspired the same utter lack of confidence as the male model for whom I've named him. It was my wife who first pointed out the link between Dr. Kaia and TV Kaia.

Dr. Kaia, who never met a patient he didn't wish to give a rectal exam, started our doctor-patient relationship with just that.

"You're going to feel my finger," he said ominously.

"Well I guess so!" I hissed.

Having dispensed with this unnecessary procedure, Dr. Kaia went on to attempt to pierce my stomach in several places with two of his fingers.

"Does that hurt?"

"No more so than if I was trying to pierce your stomach lining," I told him.

A nurse was sent to draw my blood. She was quite pleasant; one wonders how these people maintain their cheerful dispositions trading in bodily fluids all day long. Eventually Dr. Kaia returned to tell me that my white blood cell count was up, and that I had a fever.

"Is that bad?" I asked.

"Well, that, with the abdominal pain... It's... ummm... kind of an Emergency Room kind of thing."

"It is?"

"Umm... yeah... I... kind of think so..." Dr. Kaia stated tentatively, which is apparently the way he states everything to everyone.

Dr. Kaia minced away, and the nurse returned. She announced she was going to give me an IV after I had some x-rays taken of my abdomen.

"An IV? What for?"

"Didn't Dr. Kaia explain it to you?" she asked, looking horrified.

"No."

The nurse fled. Some time later Dr. Kaia reappeared, shifting his weight nervously and stammering that a saline IV was standard procedure in these cases. My wife pointed out that he seemed afraid I would ask questions he couldn't answer. My own theory is that he thought I was going to hit him, which I was seriously considering.

The IV insertion was almost as much fun as the rectal exam, involving as it did a large quantity of my blood spraying or dripping about the room. If one more person tells me I have hairy arms and my veins are hard to find, I'm going to go kill someone.

Dr. Kaia reappeared yet again to give me his professional opinion regarding my problem, having pretended to examine my x-rays. He seemed to think there was a very good chance my internal organs would liquefy, or that I would burst into flames, or that I would start bleeding out my eyes, or something. He was not very helpful.

Eventually a couple of cheerful paramedics arrived to cart me off in an ambulance to the local hospital. I have never ridden in an ambulance before; I took the opportunity to ask the paramedic riding with me if he had enjoyed the film Bringing Out the Dead. "I ask because meteorologists seem really angry over Twister," I babbled. To his credit, the paramedic was tolerant of me. It seems he thought Bringing Out the Dead was artfully shot, but poorly written.

I arrived at the Emergency Ward, or whatever they call it, of the local hospital. A crazed patient who had a security guard hoving outside his door was busy screaming at the top of his lungs. I started picturing the hospital scenes from Jacob's Ladder.

The nurse responsible for me in my little room in the E.R. was a friendly fellow named Bader, nationality unknown. He took one look at the IV taped to my arm and muttered, "Oh, what have they done here?" I don't know about you, but "Oh, what have they done here?" is right near the top of my List Of Things You Don't Wish To Hear Medical Professionals Say Of Your Treatment.

The pains in my abdomen and chest were getting worse, at this point. For this I was given a little blue pilled called Lorcet, which is apparently a brand name for "placebo." Bader sent me a nice, toothless phlebotomist named Kerry. Kerry spent about twenty minutes fondling my arm trying to find a vein, before stabbing me several times in an effort to take my blood. Bader then gave me a large plastic cup -- I swear it was a specimen cup -- full of rancid dishwater for me to drink.

"Drink this," he said, seeming to take it on faith that a patient in the E.R. will obediently consume any mystery fluid handed to him. Proving him right, I did. Bader claimed the liquid would be used for something called a "Gastroview," which in some way involved a CAT Scan machine.

When the pain got worse, someone sent a nurse to give me morphine. I had never had morphine before. It was interesting sensation. First I felt slightly light-headed, then drowsy. I felt at peace. I felt at one with the world, as all my limbs began to grow heavy. I felt the urge to sleep, to dream... to vomit.

Apparently morphine makes some people nauseous. I chundered like there was no tomorrow. It was at that point that I raised my estimation of hospital nurses a thousand fold; anyone who can cheerfully look you in the eye while holding a disposable plastic bedpan under your chin as you throw up into it is the most incredibly devoted medical professional I have ever met.

My father and his girlfriend Donna arrived shortly thereafter. "You missed the best part," I told him. We spent a lot of time waiting -- first for the required amount of time for my "Gastroview" exam to pass. By the time they wheeled me in my little hospital gurney to the CAT Scanner, I was so doped up and tired that they could have wheeled me to the morgue, for all I cared. I have to admit, there is something comforting about the fact that you can just recline while people wheel you here and there.

We spent a good two hours -- by then it was 5:00 a.m. -- waiting for the results of the tests. At some point, Donna -- bless her heart -- marched out to find a doctor, demanding, "We're waiting to see a doctor. Aren't there any doctors here?" When one of the physicians told her he'd be with us in a few minutes, she stood there and watched him until he followed her. I can't tell you how much respect I have for that woman right now.

Ultimately, my fun-filled all-nighter of colon inspection, spraying blood, saline drips, arm punctures, and arm hair ripped free by medical tape was over. The doctors concluded that they officially had No Freaking Clue, and decided I must have some sort of stomach infection. The pains were abating, finally, and I was in no mood to argue. "I have to admit," I said as Bader filled out my paperwork, "I was kind of enjoying being carted around everywhere."

"Don't expect that at home," said my wife.