August 25, 2011
10. Newblog2011: 08/25/11 Tufts Medical Center, Emergency Room
This past Sunday, August 21, 2011, I got sick. First I got a headache, and then I got sick to my stomach.
Being homeless adds stress to everything that you go through. If I'd had a place of my own to go to, I probably would have tried to go back to it and dealt with however sick I was from there. As it was, I asked someone to please call a doctor.
I felt bad because the only response possible for that kind of request in public is for someone to call an ambulance. While I was waiting for the paramedics, I threw up in the restroom.
Then I went out and sat on the floor outside of the restroom.
A police officer walked up to me; I think he must have been told that I was feeling sick. He asked me what was going on anyway and I told him that I was feeling sick. He asked me for my name and I gave him my driver's license so that he could write it down. After he saw my name, he started repeatedly rubbing his nose. He did that at least until the paramedics showed up; maybe he kept doing it even after the other police officer and the paramedics were there, but I was being asked questions from then on so I didn't see it.
I threw up at least once on the way to the hospital.
A vomit bag is a good invention. The one I used in the ambulance had a funnel at the top, attached to a clear, plastic bag. The funnel keeps all the vomit going where it's supposed to go.
The hospital was Tufts. I didn't choose it.
For the most part, the staff that I interacted with were fine; they were professional.
Unfortunately, there were a number of unnecessary Wet Floor signs around the Emergency Room.
After I was put into a room in the ER, an Asian American guy who might have been in his late twenties asked to take some information from me. At about the same time, a female staffperson asked me to change into a hospital gown. I changed into the gown in the restroom that was right outside the room. Once I'd put my clothes back in the room, I went back into the restroom and threw up.
While I was in the restroom, I heard the guy outside the door saying to someone "Yeah, she's in there," and laughing. I could hear him, so I don't have any reason to believe that he couldn't hear me throwing up.
When I opened the door to leave the restroom, I saw that, while I was in the restroom vomiting, someone had taken a large, yellow, Wet Floor cone, not the sign with 2, flat sides but the large cone, and put it next to the circular desk that was a few feet in front of the restroom, where I couldn't miss it when I got out. The guy was standing there, watching me as I got out of the restroom.
This is a part of the story where I lost my temper for a minute.
I went back into the patient room. He followed me into the room and said "I need to get some information from you." I said "I can tell you really f---ing care. I heard you laughing out there." He kept smiling and asked me the questions to which he needed the answers in order to fill out his form.
I told him the answers and then I told him "Don't come back."
He said "I'll try not to," and left.
While I was waiting for the doctor, I heard the patient on the other side of the curtain in the room talking to what sounded like his family. It sounded like a man, a little girl, and a woman. The little girl said something that sounded completely innocent, and then the woman laughed and started singing the words to a song that was on the radio several years ago. The song is called "Lick It." Here are the lyrics that the woman sang from the song:
"You gotta lick it, before we kick it,
you gotta get it soft and wet so we can kick it"
I have never before, never in my life, heard people behave that way around children in public. Never. I've sometimes seen or heard adults say something when they didn't realize that children were nearby, but that is not what happened in that room.
I got an IV for maybe an hour, and some blood tests. I also was given some anti-nausea medication through the IV, which I appreciated.
After a while, I felt better and was told that I could go.
After I'd gotten dressed back in my clothes and had put the hospital gown aside, gathered up my things and pulled the curtain back from the front entrance of the room, I saw that someone had moved the Wet Floor cone so that it was just in front of the curtain to the room. It was on the completely dry floor, in the middle of a narrow hallway, not even a foot away from the curtain, in front of the room where I'd been laying on a bed, sick to my stomach, for the past 2 hours.
Copyright, with noted exceptions, L. Kochman August 25, 2011 @ 5:26 p.m./last edited August 27, 2011 @ 3:38 p.m.
10. Newblog2011: 08/25/11 Tufts Medical Center, Emergency Room
This past Sunday, August 21, 2011, I got sick. First I got a headache, and then I got sick to my stomach.
Being homeless adds stress to everything that you go through. If I'd had a place of my own to go to, I probably would have tried to go back to it and dealt with however sick I was from there. As it was, I asked someone to please call a doctor.
I felt bad because the only response possible for that kind of request in public is for someone to call an ambulance. While I was waiting for the paramedics, I threw up in the restroom.
Then I went out and sat on the floor outside of the restroom.
A police officer walked up to me; I think he must have been told that I was feeling sick. He asked me what was going on anyway and I told him that I was feeling sick. He asked me for my name and I gave him my driver's license so that he could write it down. After he saw my name, he started repeatedly rubbing his nose. He did that at least until the paramedics showed up; maybe he kept doing it even after the other police officer and the paramedics were there, but I was being asked questions from then on so I didn't see it.
I threw up at least once on the way to the hospital.
A vomit bag is a good invention. The one I used in the ambulance had a funnel at the top, attached to a clear, plastic bag. The funnel keeps all the vomit going where it's supposed to go.
The hospital was Tufts. I didn't choose it.
For the most part, the staff that I interacted with were fine; they were professional.
Unfortunately, there were a number of unnecessary Wet Floor signs around the Emergency Room.
After I was put into a room in the ER, an Asian American guy who might have been in his late twenties asked to take some information from me. At about the same time, a female staffperson asked me to change into a hospital gown. I changed into the gown in the restroom that was right outside the room. Once I'd put my clothes back in the room, I went back into the restroom and threw up.
While I was in the restroom, I heard the guy outside the door saying to someone "Yeah, she's in there," and laughing. I could hear him, so I don't have any reason to believe that he couldn't hear me throwing up.
When I opened the door to leave the restroom, I saw that, while I was in the restroom vomiting, someone had taken a large, yellow, Wet Floor cone, not the sign with 2, flat sides but the large cone, and put it next to the circular desk that was a few feet in front of the restroom, where I couldn't miss it when I got out. The guy was standing there, watching me as I got out of the restroom.
This is a part of the story where I lost my temper for a minute.
I went back into the patient room. He followed me into the room and said "I need to get some information from you." I said "I can tell you really f---ing care. I heard you laughing out there." He kept smiling and asked me the questions to which he needed the answers in order to fill out his form.
I told him the answers and then I told him "Don't come back."
He said "I'll try not to," and left.
While I was waiting for the doctor, I heard the patient on the other side of the curtain in the room talking to what sounded like his family. It sounded like a man, a little girl, and a woman. The little girl said something that sounded completely innocent, and then the woman laughed and started singing the words to a song that was on the radio several years ago. The song is called "Lick It." Here are the lyrics that the woman sang from the song:
"You gotta lick it, before we kick it,
you gotta get it soft and wet so we can kick it"
I have never before, never in my life, heard people behave that way around children in public. Never. I've sometimes seen or heard adults say something when they didn't realize that children were nearby, but that is not what happened in that room.
I got an IV for maybe an hour, and some blood tests. I also was given some anti-nausea medication through the IV, which I appreciated.
After a while, I felt better and was told that I could go.
After I'd gotten dressed back in my clothes and had put the hospital gown aside, gathered up my things and pulled the curtain back from the front entrance of the room, I saw that someone had moved the Wet Floor cone so that it was just in front of the curtain to the room. It was on the completely dry floor, in the middle of a narrow hallway, not even a foot away from the curtain, in front of the room where I'd been laying on a bed, sick to my stomach, for the past 2 hours.
Copyright, with noted exceptions, L. Kochman August 25, 2011 @ 5:26 p.m./last edited August 27, 2011 @ 3:38 p.m.