Bowel Obstruction #4

    !:45 pm Friday, April 15, 2016:
    The receptionist for the emergency room asked me maybe two simple questions and said to go on into the ER. All day, I had been practicing deep breathing to try to calm myself down. I walked in, was shown into my room by a male nurse, walked into it with him, and a medical doctor was right behind us.
I was taken aback by her very young age, her smallness, and the slimness. I wondered if I was getting a teenage genius doctor. I was my usual direct, open, concrete self with her. Her name was Dr. McFadden. Patricia, I think. Within a few sentences back and forth, I was comfortable with her. I was internally seeing
her as a modern woman but with the spirit and toughness of the Irish. After a week of not feeling safe, I now did. She assured me that she could look at the X-rays Paul Stanchfield had but wanted to order a CAT scan to thoroughly see my lower abdominal area to look for obstructions. The nurse had me lie on the bed, and gave me a remote for the television. The latter is a great treat for me as I can't afford televison. Philosophers don't make much money. I turn on the TV and start watching the History Channel's series on people trying to survive in the wilds of Alaska. This particularly interests me as my father and mother were in Alaska in the 40s preparing to homestead in the boonies when mother got pregnant with me and insisted we return to the USA. The needle poker comes in and makes a hole for the IV. The nurse sets up the IV and then starts setting me up with a machine to take my blood pressure. Immediately, an alarm goes off. "Your blood pressure is too high," the nurse say. Holding my wrist, he adds, "So is your pulse rate." He fiddles around me and then says, "They're still too high. I'm going for something." He comes back quickly with a bag of water and puts that into my IV. "Let's see if that helps. Give it a little time. I'll be back." I wonder if I'm going to stroke out and try to change the subject mentally by watching how I would have lived if we had stayed in Alaska. It looks cold, lonely, hard, but extremely beautiful. Having sled dogs would have been fantastic. The nurse comes in, takes my vitals, and finds they are acceptable. I  wait for my CAT scan while I watch brutal life in Alaska. The nurse checks on me, seemingly surprised that I'm watching such a program. Do I look that much like a sissy? Soon my bed and I are wheeled over to the CAT scan room. It takes only a few minutes and I'm wheeled back into my room. The "teenage" doctor comes in and tells me it will take about 10 minutes for the Dartmouth hospital in New Hampshire to read and interpret the scan. I ask about Paul's X-rays, and she says she's having a little problem with that and will try again. Immediately, she's back with a piece of paper apologizing, "All I had to do was push another button." I look at the paper and think, "That's all Paul had to do, and he wouldn't?' By now I am very respectfully calling Paula "Doctor." I'm impressed with her, the rest of the staff, and the machines. The paper says there's nothing wrong except that there's a rough area in my ureter. I even think I hear the words, "a bend." I say I'll tell my urologist about it. Two different people talk to me about getting a primary practitioner, one giving me a phamplet of how the hospital will do it for me. I find "needing a primary practitioner" ironic. The doctor comes in to discharge me, asking me for questions first, and then suggests I take Milk Of Magnesia for constipation. I agree, thank her, and she leaves. Then a worker takes out my IV and tells me I can go. Greatly relieved, I walk to my truck and call Wendy, my daughter in Florida -the veterinarian-to-be. No answer so I leave a message. Then I drive to Price Chopper to get the laxative. The store is now no longer open 24 hours but is closing at midnight - in ten minutes. A worker marches me around the store to find the laxative and go to checkout. I see that there are no checkout clerks anymore. They've been replaced by about four self-service checkouts. I see this and mentally ask, "And they want workers to get $15 an hour? There won't be any more workers. But the crazy socialists can't see that. They think they can legislate anything, and it will just magically happen because they passed a law!"
Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, William and Mary,
MS at VCU, 1975 and MSW at NSU, 1993