Mom drove me to the hospital emergency room which only 5 minutes up the street. She knew to go to the far entrance for the emergency room, and she knew where to park for ambulatory emergency care. My brother had had many visits here over the years. Stitches in his chin, his arm, his leg, his head – pretty much full body stiches over time. I had never been to the emergency room; not this one, or any one.
We went to the front desk and checked in. When my Mom described the problem as “My daughter’s shoulder really hurts” it sounded so pathetic that I felt the need, even through the pain, to emphasize the “REALLY hurts” to the nurse. She didn’t seem to be able to tell from my face, as my Mom had, the seriousness of this injury and I wished that the pain was accompanied by blood dripping from my eyes or an arrow sticking out of my forehead.
My Mom handled all the check-in details and the paperwork. I just stood beside her occasionally saying “It REALLY hurts,” knowing how pathetic I seemed. Then we took a seat in the waiting area and waited. I find it odd that an emergency room even has a waiting area. If I could wait, would it not NOT be an emergency. But we waited.
For the prior 10 years, I had handled my own health care, my own appointments, my own driving, and my own checking-in to places. And I was both so glad to have my Mom there, bearing the brunt of the administrative burden, and a bit bewildered as to how I had come so quickly full-circle to being 12 again. Just moments ago, it seemed, I was in whirl-wind relationship, living an ndependent life in beautiful and environmentally friendly Seattle, 3,000 miles away. I watched the TV hanging from the waiting room ceiling. The pain was slowly fading.
Someone called my name after about 30 minutes of waiting and I went in, alone, to see a triage nurse and to give her more details about the pain. Of course, it was now getting much better, and I was able to focus on my conversation with her, and I felt a bit cheated that by the time I got to assistance, I had little evidence left of a real issue, let alone an emergency. This nurse looked about as interested and concerned as a dead person. I did see a doctor afterwards and she checked me over quickly, didn’t find anything, and concluded, “Maybe it is a pinched-nerve.” An at least possible explanation made me feel better. I was sent home with a prescription for a pain-killer much stronger than Tylenol and told to make an appointment with my regular doctor for a follow-up.
Which I did the next day, for the following week. But before I made it to that appointment, I was right back in the emergency room the next night, with my Mom, and with a pain in my shoulder even worse than the first night, which I had not thought possible. The pain was now accompanied by numbness in my left arm. It had started out as a strong pins-and-needles feeling, but was slowly getting worse and making my arm difficult to use. This time, too, tears were still streaming down my face when we checked in. That seemed to help, along with the repeat business, because my Mom and I were shown right into a room and I was seen by a doctor immediately.
A tall young man with wild curly hair came in and introduced himself as “Dr. Pain.” I wondered if there wasn’t anyone else available and felt a tad like I might be in a “Little Shop of Horrors” type- movie and that it wasn’t out of the question that he might start singing. Of course, I soon saw that his nametag read “Dr. Payne,” an unfortunate name for a doctor regardless of spelling.
He examined me, first asking if I wanted my mother to stay. And, surprising to myself, I did. He checked me all over, poking and squeezing and asking “Does this hurt?” The examination included a majority of body locations that seemed could never be at all related to shoulder pain, but I was too exhausted to argue. He said that he still believed the pain to be a pinched nerve and spoke with a nurse to arrange for an x-ray right then. I got dressed and my Mom and I relocated to the x-ray department in another wing of the hospital. They x-rayed my shoulder, arm, neck, back and head. None of the x-rays showed anything. But “Dr. Pain” continued to insist that a pinched nerve seemed the most likely and that I would need further testing, for that and to rule out other things. They always say “to rule out,” never admitting that ruling something in is just as likely. So before we left, we scheduled an MRI for the following morning – I’d have to take the day off work – and we also scheduled a meeting for me with my mother’s primary care physician at the hospital. Being that I was just recently back to Boston, I didn’t yet have my own doctor in the area. “Dr. Pain” also gave me a prescription for an exceptionally strong painkiller this time, Darvocet, and a sling for my arm, to immobilize it until they could confirm what was wrong. My entire left arm, shoulder to finger tips, was now numb.
