I INCYST... Part 2

One of my favorite feelings is walking into an emergency room waiting room to find one person waiting.  I love that I can hear the TV and that all the chairs are empty but one.  That almost always means I will not have to wait very long, if at all, to get a room (or a section behind a curtain).

The intake nurse was sweet as she checked me in.

“Was it busy tonight?” I asked as she typed in my date of birth.

“You’re lucky, you missed the rush.  We just discharged several patients.”  A breather on the weekends is a treat for the nurses at this hospital. 

I was told weekends used to be much worse.  Before renovations, everyone went to the same emergency room.  You might think you were the next person to head to a vacant room, but when all the gunshot and stabbing victims were brought there, you could find yourself waiting for hours- even if you were next in line.

The new renovations kept the trauma out of this part of the hospital so it was pretty much non-life-threatening stuff here.

The same nurse who signed me in and gave me my hospital bracelet let me through some double doors and immediately started triage.  I can’t stress how important timing is.  I remember going to an emergency room when I lived in south Austin, Texas.  I was having a Crohn’s flare, and I waited an hour just to see the triage nurse.  All she did was take my vital signs and put my chart under a pile of others. 

After two hours of waiting, there were still at least eight to ten people ahead of me.  I was so upset that I drove home, watched a movie, took a nap and drove back to the hospital… just in time to wait another hour.  If I hadn’t left, I would have waited seven and a half hours just to be able to put on a gown and rest on a hospital bed.  Once in a gown it was still an hour and a half before I was given any pain medicine.  I never went to an emergency room at 7 p.m. again.

My blood pressure is usually right around 105/60.  Early Sunday morning it was an intense 152 over 85.  That’s the highest I ever remember my blood pressure reading.  Elevated blood pressure is a good indication of pain, so the nurse knew I was hurting.

Before I had a chance to ask her her name, another nurse was waiting with her back against one of two double doors that lead to the rooms.  I thanked the triage nurse, Nate grabbed my bag, and we headed for my room.

Rooms are similar to what they were when I was first diagnosed with Crohn’s.  If it’s not busy, you usually get a room all to yourself.  The call button is still the remote control and it’s still how you hear the TV.  Those TVs are are flat screens now, but Nate still has ridiculously uncomfortable chairs.  How I wish I could have a queen sized hospital bed so he could lie down beside me.  I was grateful his chair was at least padded, but it would make me feel a lot less guilty if it could recline.  


Sometimes I feel worse for Nate than for me.  At least I get pain killers.  He gets a stiff neck that still hurts a few days later.

The first nurse to come in was Lina.  She had dark hair and dark features, though I couldn’t tell if she was Latina or Indian.  A curtain covered the entrance to the room, so when she knocked on the door and started to enter, Nate and I gave our usual high-pitched, “Go away, we’re busy!” followed by laughter.

Patients don’t joke around in the E.R., so we almost always trick and tease our nurses and doctors simply because they’re not ready for it.

I once had a nurse who bragged about his ability to start an IV line.  He was a nice guy, so when he put the needle on my skin, I shouted, “OUCH! What the hell are you doing?” before he even tried to push the needle in.   

He was mortified.  Then I started laughing and he lost it.  He was laughing so hard he had to wait at least two or three minutes to start that IV.

Lina timidly moved the curtain to see what the heck this couple could be doing.  There we were, silly smiles and laughing at ourselves.  When we’re in the hospital, we get a big kick out of ourselves.  OK, I get a kick out of myself regardless of my health or my being in a hospital.  


But the laughing at myself is how I survived years of hospitalizations and four surgeries for Crohn’s.

I turned serious for a moment as I described my pain.  Because we thought it was Crohn’s, I had the pleasure of describing my bowel movements over the past two days.  Nothing brings a couple closer together than a full description of bodily functions. 

If you must know, my bowel movements were normal.  Should have been my first indication that this was not Crohn’s.  I’m so used to going to the hospital, having blood work or x-rays, and then having every test show I’m healthy, that I didn’t even think something else could be causing pain.  When a doctor pushes down on my belly, it hurts… every time.

It was probably five minutes later when a guy came into the room.  He had on a white coat which meant he could be a doctor or a phlebotomist.  He was average height and in shape.  He shaved his head- probably because he was balding.  He must have been early 40s.  He had enough color to show he’d already been enjoying the summertime.  But he was way too casual and cool to be doctor.  I was wrong. 

A week after I posted that doctors like to be called doctor, he said, “Hi, I’m Greg.”

I said, “Hi.  I’m Mary.”

He laughed.  “I mean, I’m Greg.  I’m your doctor.”

“Nice.  I like it.  And I was just saying how you doctors like the sound of the word doctor,” I said.

“She really did,” Nate added.

“I really did.  I blogged about it,” I told Greg.  “I’ll probably blog about you, so don’t screw it all up.”

Greg laughed and shook his head.   

“On a scale of one to ten…”

“And here we go,” I interrupted.

Oh, the infamous pain scale.  A ten was what it felt when I fell after my last surgery because I forgot about the epidural I had, swung my legs body to the side of the bed and tried to stand up.  Falling 24 hours after having some of my ileum removed was a 10. 

But for other people, their worst pain could be worse than that or feel like nothing at all to me.  I do know that unless it’s a certain level, I’m not taken seriously.  So I pick what I think the doc will want to hear.

“Let’s go with eight-point-five,” I said.

“Seriously?” Greg asked.  I was joking around a bit much for someone in that much pain.

“Oh, it’s bad, or we wouldn’t be here.  Look- my eyes are bloodshot.  I never cry.  I totally cried over this,” I explained.

“Well, let’s get you some pain medication and some fluids.  We’ll draw some blood…”

“And it will show you I’m a healthy individual,” I said, interrupting him.

“Every time we come, tests never help,” Nate also explained.

“That’s one of those big problems with having an illness that affects the middle of your intestines,” Greg said.

“I think if I just get some pain meds and fluid, hopefully I can still get to work today.  I’ll bring a few pain pills to work in case the pain gets bad, and we’ll see my gastro tomorrow.”

My plan made perfect sense in my brain.  Greg looked at me like I had seven heads.  “You know, I can give you a doctor’s note.  Where do you work, anyway?”

“Oh, I want to work.  That’s why I’m here.  And they’re counting on me,” I explained.

“She works over at FOX 9,” my husband said.

I explained my job in the newsroom.

“Very cool,” he said.  And he turned to Nate.  “And what do you do?”

“I work at WCCO.  I produce the six a.m. news.”  He grinned.  Nate loves how much people love to hear that we work for competing television news departments.

People in Minnesota are funny.  TV news here is like TV news in small market.  Everybody knows the names of the anchors.  Everyone has been watching the same channel for years.  If you’re on TV, boy, you’re really something.  If you work in a TV newsroom, you’re still pretty special.

I had been on TV with WCCO as a freelance reporter a year and a half ago, and when people learn that, they treat me just a little differently.  Pseudo celebrity, I suppose. 

Greg enjoyed our story, as he clicked his way through my file on the computer. 

My gastroenterologist had transferred from the hospital at the University of Minnesota to this one about a year and a half ago.  So I hadn’t been in the system very long.

“I don’t see a CT scan in your records,” Greg said.   “I think you should have one.”

The three of us talked about the options, and in the end we figured even if I had a test that showed nothing… if I needed a test in the future, at least I’d have something to compare it to.

Little did we know that CT scan wouldn’t be void of an answer.  It would show internal bleeding, and that would explain my pain.  Except the bleeding wasn’t part of my digestive tract.  It was on the outside of my ovary.  I was bleeding internally.