Modern Medicine

For the most part, the last five days of my travels on the UCLA & Santa Monica/UCLA medical interstate have been mostly smooth and efficient. (That is of course overlooking that fact that UCLA ER put patients in THE HALLWAYS! as if they were shooting a scene in some developing nation-world war epic set 50 years ago. Except that it’s in Los Angeles. And it’s about as contemporary as one can get.)

So gurney’s in the hallways aside, UCLA ER did an effective job given the space and resources. (Speaking of resources, during one of my short stints in one of the actual patient rooms (as compared to the hallway) I was able to see two people, clearly not medical staff, with their little hand inventory guns strapped on, apparently updating either the order or taking inventory of the items on hand. In my room. At one point, while my nurse was putting in an IV, one of the inventory-takers tried to squeeze past my nurse and the wall, thereby bumping him, and poking me. It was then that she coughed. And finally said, “Excuse Me.”

Neither of us were sure whether the “excuse me” was for the bump or the cough.

My nurse tried his best to keep me comfortable despite me being moved every time he came out to check on me. (Apparently the spots in the hallway have priorities!)

Finally, in order to get the spinal tap, which by the way they have so eloquently renamed lumbar puncture so you forget that they’re TAPPING YOUR SPINE.

Shortly thereafter I was taking Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride (AKA Ambu Serve) from the UCLA main campus to Santa Monica UCLA but Mr. Toad didn’t wanna listen to his copilot’s advice to take the 10 West to Santa Monica and instead took the 10 East to Los Angeles, which added much more mileage and hence excitement onto the trip.

But once we reached Mecca Santa Monica UCLA Medical it had been all worthwhile. Since being admitted on Thursday at midnight (so Friday morning) I have (mostly) received the most timely and supportive care possible. The nurses outdo themselves to ensure my comfort (well, except for the construction of a new medical center that’s happening right outside my window, but we can’t really hold that against them, now can we?!)

But I can seem to find a story even in the most mundane and dull interactions. And yesterday (Monday) was no difference.

See, after seeing the excellent care I was receiving all weekend, I began to wonder: what is their weekday staff going to be like? In my mind, the more experienced nurses (and I guess I’ll continue the judgment and say, “better nurses”) prolly gobble up the weekly, day-time shifts, leaving the nights and weekend shifts for the newbies (expanded judgment: worse nurses).

So imagine my surprise when I got Nurse Nickel yesterday for my day nurse on a Monday. She seemed to look like a good nurse. She had a stethoscope and there weren’t any blood stains on her clothing or hands.

The more I interacted with her (which actually wasn’t much as I like my privacy) the more I began to realize that I took care of her more when she was in my room than she took care of me.

At one point she was trying to feed my IV into the machine that pushes it out (I’m guessing) and couldn’t figure it out and kind of smacked it. I just said, “Calm down, I’m sure you’ll get it” and she opened it right up.

Then after she saw my partner and son leave the room she asked who she was and I told her who they were and (I swear on my iPhone!) she started to cry and babbling about how unfair it was that I was in the hospital and how much he needed me and I should be there taking care of him and… I slowly laid down and covered up and wished I was sleeping.

And the piece-de-resistance: last night she came in to give me my 4pm meds via IV. At 5:15. Whatever, I’ll cut her some slack, maybe she wasn’t have a bad day.

But prior to then I had been noticing problems with my IV but I also knew I didn’t feel comfortable to have her be the one to change it. So I didn’t say anything.

Well, she’s more observant than I gave her credit for as she saw it too and said she’d need to do a new IV line (or whatever the medical term is for it). And she went to gather her supplies.

She came back with her Charge Ram Charge Nurse and it was clear from the moment they were both in the room that there were issues. I should have packaged it up and sold it back to Southern California Edison!

So after watching Nurse Nickel putz around for a good 5 minutes, the Charge Ram said, “You may want to use a tourniquet.”

Anxiety isn’t something I feel often, but I started feeling it then because I could just tell the Charge Ram wasn’t there to support Nurse Nickel but to ridicule her. And I was going to be the stick pin it was going to happen on.

So, in my infinite wisdom, I said, “I’ve been told I have tricky veins.” To which Charge Ram said, “A tricky vein for one is an easy vein for someone else.” To which Nurse Nickel said, “All three of mine have been difficult.”

I’m not sure how I allowed it, but I did let her try her foolishness on one of my poor veins. But when the Charge Ram started saying something about how Nurse Nickel needed to be careful about the vein “spraying out” and threw her a shower towel, I put my foot down. Geesh.

Even Perfect Ms. Charge Ram couldn’t get one in after two tries, she said, “You have very tricky veins?”

The night went downhill from there. I got a visit from my Infectious Disease doctor who told me all the MRI, CTscans, blood tests, etc had come back negative with the exception of the MRI they had just taken that day on my left hip.

Apparently they saw some small “lesions” on the pelvic bone and needed to find out what those were. The two ideas I had been given were that they were from a viral infection in my bones (How does that happen? I thought everything was nice and sterile in there?!) or a form of lymphoma.

That word blew the wind out of my sails as it wasn’t anything I had been expecting. I haven’t had the nerve to go online and look around out of fear.

Sometime this morning the techs were supposed to come to do a bone marrow biopsy of my pelvic areas. Then I was supposed to have a bone scan of my skeletal system to determine if there are other areas in my body like this.

I’m not sure how to end after laying that out there, other than to say thanks for your well-wished and kind words. I’m trying not to freak out by looking all the absurd information on the internet, so please don’t post any of it in the responses. Your hugs, and thoughts, and attempts and making me laugh are far more valuable and meaningful to me right now.

Oh, and my partner and my son have been super supportive through all this. So if you know them and how to contact them, send them a good word, would ya. I wouldn’t be in nearly as good shape without them.

xo
Frank