Chapter 11: Opening day at the ER

We arrive amidst the rain drops at the entrance to the ER at the NYU medical center.  John is at the phase of low electrolytes where he can only follow on task at a time and doesn't adhere to commands or suggestions.   He tries to head for the entrance that the ambulance crews use and three guards and myself are trying to route him to the front door.

Here's where that palm scan thing paid off.  We get into the front of the ER where there is a front desk with a palm scanner.  I give our name, she asks him to please put his hand on the scanner, she looks at her screen, hands me a security badge and says "Triage, is right through those doors, Mr & Mrs Cartcath.  Can you walk or would you prefer a wheel chair?"

I don't know about John but I'm exhausted. I'll take the chair.  Oh and our name is Cartwright,  not CartCath,  The first of many butcherings to come.

We get into the triage room, where they do the usual, B/P, temp, 20 questions. The questions are things like this:

1.  What is your name (John Carwright)
2.  Who is this?  ( usually points at me) (My Wife)
3.  What is today? (Tuesday)
4.  what is the date? ( April 22-23)
5.  What is the year? 2014
6.  Do you know where you are? Hospital
7.  Do you know why you are here? Cancer

And more along that vein.

He's still alert enough to answer the questions, but he's starting to get a little frustrated.  They move us to a cubicle in the nicest, cleanest, most high tech ER I've even been in. We get in there and I ask for a chair which takes them awhile to find.  Once they get us in and comfortable, the first of a long, seemingly endless, line of doctors and nurses come sweeping in,

We are there about 45 minutes and I'm exhausted and its getting hard to remember what each doctor is saying, so I ask to bring Jeanie in, who is sitting patiently, adhering to the 1 person rule, in the waiting room.  The hours are climbing by.  He gets more blood drawn, a Sodium IV hung, A Foley Catheter put in to monitor output,  A CT Scan, Xrays, you name it.  With each test, brings a new doc and the endless list of questions ( see above).

"Did you know he had a broken arm?"
"Why yes, we did, in fact we told you that."
"OK well I'm the resident Orthopedist and I just wanted you to be aware that it broke at the site of one of his lesions".
"I was told at South Ocean the Lesion was on the elbow"
"No.  The Bone scan ordered by the original oncologist showed the lesion in the upper arm where the fracture is"

Every day, in every way, I am thankful we fired that guy. I am so angry I can barely work out what the doc is saying.

" We aren't planning to put a cast on it at this point.  The Setting will happen more naturally because the break is so high, if we let gravity do it's job here.  We are going to sling it as needed but only as needed. Take it off when you are sitting up.  At some point, we may do surgery to put a pin or rod in to stabilize the bone but that's not our immediate worry."

Well that doesn't sound horrific.

They take him away for yet another test.  Jeanie and I finally notice the TV in the cubicle.  Its on Fox News.

OH BOY.  I"m just grateful John was not in the right place mentally to notice. I immediately ask a nurse aid to please change that.  In fact I said, "If you want him to get well, that channel will need to be changed."

Jeanie is laughing.  The Aide is laughing and we set about to find the remote.  Jeanie wins the hunt and puts on ...

The Yankee game?  That's as bad as Fox News for him.  We both laugh and as he's being rolled back in she quickly changes it to a recap of the Mets game

It's well after 11 at this point.  None of us has eaten. He finally gets some morphine and wants to sleep.  I ask the nurse where the light switch for the overhead light is.  She doesn't know as it's her first day.

And everyone Else's. This is a BRAND NEW ER.

That explains the fine, shiny patina of "new" that is everywhere.  Then I recall why.  Super storm Sandy had knocked this ER out of commission.  Today was it's first day in operation.  Not the Official ground breaking, ribbon cutting day, that's two days from now.  But today is it's first day in operation.

We go through a nice smooth orderly shift change.  In my whole life and the myriad of hospitals I've been to with parents, siblings etc, I've never been in a hospital where the shift change was not only smooth, but virtually unnoticeable except for the introduction of the new nurse.  Our new nurse is perky.  A little too perky for midnight, if you ask me.

Another interesting protocol that I like, is that the ER .nurse, takes the patient all the way to their room, once admitted, and does the transition and outtake with the floor /room nurse.  So Jeanie and I hightail it behind Nurse Perky up to the 17th floor in a patient elevator that has an operator in it.  I haven't seen one of those since.... wait- I've NEVER seen one of those.

We wait outside the room while they transfer him to the new bed and get him weighed with a scale that looked like something you'd hang a whale on while cooking over the fire. At the very least a torture device, The thing was practically medieval.

It looks a lot more tame in the picture.  But if you imagine the bed piece is removed and the clamps are intertwined....  this thing is freaky.   We watch it roll by us on the way in, then on the way out.  I could only surmise from the lack of screaming that it is a fairly benign process.

We are allowed in to see John, and the very first thing we do is get him set up with his remote for the TV.   Once he's settled, I kiss him goodbye and Jeanie and I hit the road.  It's 4AM.  We have a long drive ahead of us.