The HospitVALzation: Part 2, A Big Fright

This ER is just that. An ER. There are a few office suites at this facility, but it does not have beds for care. We've used this one several times. Genius got 11 stitches in his eyebrow there. The Pony was treated for a severe reaction to amoxicillin when he was around 1 year old, and soft-splinted with his first broken elbow. My grandma went with heart failure, and got Lasix until she was stable and released. They treat you for your immediate issue, and send you on. We knew this. But getting me seen fast was the goal.

I was gowned and in a bed, with that "permanent" IV thing in my right inner elbow. They put me on 2 liters of oxygen with the prongy things in my nose. I had several heart monitor sticky thingies attached for telemetry. And an ET red thingy taped to my right index finger to measure oxygen. A nurse came in and said she was giving me a steroid in my IV. She named it, and I asked again. Just to know. It was dexamethasone. After she pushed that, I could breathe a little easier. Then over a few hours time, an X-ray tech came in with films to put behind my back. And another tech who hooked up all the leads for an EEG.

During this time, I was going crazy. No small part from the steroid, perhaps. I didn't have my phone to communicate with my Sweet Baboo, who had been banished to the parking lot. I asked if my husband could bring me my phone, and one of the nurses laughed and said, "No. He can't bring in your phone." Not sure why that was funny. But another one brought me a phone and told me how to use it, so I could talk to Hick. Hick sat and watched assorted patients come and go. He had to drive to Casey's to use their bathroom. He refused to leave me. We talked every hour.

"I know they ain't gonna let me in to see you. But when they take you somewhere, I'm going to run up to the stretcher and give you your phone and charger. I'll go home to get it in a little while. Unless they know when they're moving you, and where."

Nobody knew. I got there at 3:00 p.m. By 7:00 nobody knew anything. Although one kind nurse let it slip that she THOUGHT they had found a bed for me. "Because you are responding to the steroid and oxygen, I think they were able to get you a bed over in Bill-Paying Town. I can't be sure. But I think it's just a matter of when they can have it ready." Where we could have gone to the ER, except it had been way too busy all day. According to patients who'd driven over from there that Hick talked to in the parking lot while waiting here for me.

Hick saw the ambulance come and go three times. He'd call and ask if I was moving. No. Wasn't for me. Hick said I should ask for something to eat, since I hadn't had anything since we left home after lunch. I didn't feel much like eating, but who knew if I'd ever get anything all night. So I asked for some water and maybe a snack. The nurse brought me a tiny bottle of water, and a cardboard basket wrapped in cellophane. It had a roast beef on wheat, a bag of plain chips, a cup of applesauce, and a Fig Newton two-pack. That was the best sandwich ever! Except I didn't eat much of the bread. I also had the Newtons. That was all.

It was shortly after 7:00, the shift change, when a new nurse came in. She signed in on the room laptop, and came over beside me with a bag of something.

"I'm going to give you some medicine in this IV."

"Oh. What am I getting this time?"

"Remdesivir."

"NO! I won't take that! I refuse! Do not give that to me!"

"Oh. I just punctured the bag. I wish I had known that before..."

Well. Maybe she should have clearly announced what she was giving, before puncturing the bag!

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Here's the thing. That remdesivir scares me to death. It can cause the lungs to fill with fluid. I would never advise anyone else to take it or not take it. All I know is that IT'S NOT RIGHT FOR ME! I have a degree in biology. I've had many a physiology course. I have an idea how the body works. I look into treatments. I don't just rely on heavily-censored mainstream media. I don't just rely on conspiracy sites. I look up research studies. I read the comments on local news sites. Anecdotal tales from people who have no reason to fabricate. How such a drug has affected a loved one. AND there is the matter of Hick's Cancer Girlfriend, who was doing fine with her treatment for The Virus Pneumonia, but was given it, then had setback after setback, and died a couple days after her daughter thought she was coming home. Not all drugs are for all people, yet remdesivir is pushed on all VIRUS cases in the hospital.

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Anyhoo... that put me in a panic. IF I was responding to the steroids and the oxygen, why rush another drug into me so soon? I'll tell you why. It's the standard of care. The policy. Many people don't know what they're getting. They don't have an advocate there to ask questions for them. 

"Can you tell me why you don't want it?"

"Because my husband's friend had it, and died. I don't want it."

Somehow, Hick had broken through the front lines, and got my cell phone to the front desk, where they put it in a hospital baggie thing and brought it to my room. When I called him, he was crying! 

"Val. Please. You've got to take what they need to give you. Please."

"I am still shaking. We talked about this last fall. About not taking remdesivir."

What Hick didn't tell me until I got home was that the people around the desk were talking about me refusing the remdesivir. "She thinks she might die." "Doesn't she know that she might die if she doesn't take it?" That's what Hick heard when giving my phone. Classy.

Anyhoo... I was really antsy after that. No way was I falling asleep. I needed to know every single thing they were putting into me. I had no one but myself to depend on. With his phone mission completed, Hick decided to go home, since he couldn't see me even if they moved me. Which they did.

Around 10:30, an ambulance came to load me up for a 20-mile trip to the hospital. The EMT told me it should be an uneventful ride, since all I had was oxygen and an IV. He sat behind my head, buckled in, and told me to raise my hand if I needed anything. I could see his reflection in the door glass. I tried to tell where I was by the smattering of lights as we passed through towns on the way. An ambulance ride is never comfortable! I had a death grip on the rails of my stretcher, as I was slung from side to side. We might have had the lights on, but no siren.

I was SO relieved to arrive at my destination that I was able to choke down the fear at being about 10 feet in the air, poised as if on a slalom, while they wheeled me off the rig and down the hall.

TO BE CONTINUED...