ED dizzying enough for me, never mind nurses
It is particularly daunting to face off with a nurse in a hospital emergency department at two o’clock in the morning, particularly when they are busy and particularly when you do not actually want to face off with them.
It feels silly, bordering on embarrassing, to be having a minor confrontation over something as simple as swallowing a couple of painkillers, especially – and this shouldn’t be laboured – because you want to take the painkillers. You are in pain. They have responded correctly. There should not be an issue.
Unfortunately, this unexpected trip to Wellington Regional Hospital is the result of what paramedics suspect is vertigo. Swallowing is not really on the cards. Sitting up is also not on the cards. In fact, you can barely speak from a combination of pain, dizziness and the large amount of violent ‘‘non-swallowing’’ you have done earlier in the evening.
You are dehydrated and sore. A cup of water and pain relief would be delightful. Then maybe the pesky issue of regaining control of your sense of balance can be addressed.
Nausea has other ideas. Anyone who has ever been overly intoxicated, struggled with food poisoning, or caught a stomach bug from an infant knows that when the ‘‘tummy bouncer’’ says entry is closed, there is no negotiation.
‘‘You need to take the medicine,’’ the nurse asserts.
‘‘Sorry,’’ you whisper. It is not meant to be a whisper, and whispering is not really helpful since your hospital bed is not in a quiet room, but parked next to the nurses’ station in the corridor.
The rooms are occupied, and also you only have ‘‘suspected vertigo’’. The spew bag the paramedic left you is comforting. A bed is a necessity. Privacy? Not so much. Other people will need privacy, and space. Other people need this nurse.
‘‘Sorry. Can’t. So sorry. Too hard.’’ That’s it. That is all the energy your body can commit to talking; whispered twoword sentences. Memories of older relatives communicating similarly in hospital pop up. You feel a bit sorry for yourself at that point; a little helpless.
‘‘You need to take the medicine if you want us to help you.’’
Hang on a second. Was there subtext in that statement? Was there an accusation? You are not anti-medicine. You have had three Covid vaccinations and a flu jab, plus the occasional Berocca to keep up your ‘‘b-b-bounce’’!
It is highly likely there is no subtext and you are simply exhausted and dehydrated, in the middle of the night, in a stressful situation. The nurse is being very understanding about you seemingly wasting their time.
Whether it is pride, or ego, or sleepdeprived psychosis, that little jolt of adrenaline gets the gears going. You need to take the medicine now, not to get help but to make a point; to the nurse, to yourself, and possibly to your older relatives from your memories. You are a medicine-taker, and those pills are going down.
Like a raging tortoise, your hand slowly moves the paper cup to your mouth and, with some sluggish gulps and a bit of spillage, the painkillers vanish. Success.
The nurse, who has had and will have far more traumatic interactions that evening, nods and walks away. They make it all of a metre when you grab the spew bag and use it as god intended. The tummy bouncer cannot be reasoned with. ‘‘I’ll get you the nausea medicine.’’ One syringe and a paper towel later, you are lying back, eyes closed, surgical mask on your face, and a closed bag of spew sitting on the blanket over your legs. At some point the staff judge you to be dormant and the spew bag is matter-offactly lifted off your legs and deposited in a nearby bin.
Around 4am you are awoken by the bed travelling and someone snoring. You are snoring. You are that patient. An orderly is gently moving you away from right in front of the nurses’ desk to the other side of the corridor. A full two metres.
‘‘Don’t stress bro, I got you. Bit cold, ay? Let’s grab you a couple more blankets’’
The blanket angel’s intervention allows a chance to sit up, albeit briefly, for the first time since getting into the ED. Patients keep arriving, or returning from procedures, and staff react with what sports fans might think of as a ‘‘motion defence’’, constantly switching and adapting to what is required.
They check in regularly on patients and each other. There is an effort to keep things light. Why shouldn’t they? They deal with traumas on a near-constant basis.
It has been around three hours since admittance. It will be 10 more till being discharged. It never stops being busy.