Tuesday, June 29, 2010

SERIOUS AS A HEART ATTACK

                                                   PART 4
                                 “ROCK & ROLL HOSPITAL”


            Limp and drugged, I was being wheeled from Doctor Yun’s surgical lair to points unknown. At that moment in time, I can honestly say I could have cared less where I was going. I was just wishing we would get there and get there soon. This night and morning had gone on far too long and I just wanted it to end. Well, like the old saying goes, be careful of what you wish for.
             Just in case you missed the last chapter in this little saga, the “hospital” I ended up at was Arcadia Methodist and to put it as diplomatically as I can, it was not my first choice. Not that my first choice of the evening, San Gabriel Valley Medical Center, was any better.
Then again, I only went there because of insurance issues and it was geographically closest, but I have covered all this so let’s move on. Let’s just say next time I’m going to Huntington Memorial if I have any choice in the matter and hope that they are not as inept as these two turned out to be.
            Where I ended up was one of the Intensive Care Units. When I woke up…. let me rephrase that. When I was awakened for the first time after the surgery, I was in the ICU, or at least that’s what I was told. It certainly wasn’t the same ICU my sister Sue was in a couple of years ago. While she was in the “A” unit, I was in one somewhere a little further down the alphabet. It was a throwback to another time referred to as ICU South.
            I remember going to see Sue when she was in her ICU, and where I was didn’t appear to be built in the same decade. Change that, the same century. The beds, TV’s, and the buzzers were so antiquated that they didn’t work properly. As a matter of fact, the air conditioning didn’t function properly, before and after the repairman decided to show up.
I was rousted from my slumber because it was time for me to make the first of what would be many blood donations. I don’t know if you have ever been unfortunate enough to be an overnight guest at a “health care facility”, but if you have you will understand what I am about to say.
            I don’t know who puts together the schedules for the nurses, but they should be forced to spend a week at the mercy of the mandatory schedule the patients are subjected to. It might give them a new perspective when putting together their next nurses schedule.
            It is one of those twisted little annoyances that make you crazy at a time when you are supposed to be relaxed and stress free. It is almost like they have it planned. As soon as you are lucky enough to drift off to sleep, that is the time they decide that you need to have your temperature taken or your blood drawn.
If it isn’t sleep that is being interrupted, then it is when you are about to choke down the pitiful excuse of what they call food. You would think if they can come up with the miraculous procedure that Dr. Yun performed on my heart, that they could come up with food that doesn’t taste like plastic and won’t redamage your heart. The bland food that they force you to consume makes the cardboard they serve at McDonalds seem like a culinary wonderland.
Luckily my time being ignored in the ICU came to an end and I was moved upstairs in the Tower of Terror. At first I was a little surprised that I was going to have a roommate, but it had to be better than the dilapidated version of an ICU I was just in. Well you know what they say about assuming?
My roommate was there for elective surgery. He was having some stent work done in his legs, something that I believe is going to be coming up in my future, but that’s another column for another day. Aside from his nonstop need to have a conversation with me, he suffered from one other malady. He was under the delusion that a hospital was the same as a restaurant and that the nurses were his waitresses.
This fruitcake was hitting his nurse call button every 15 minutes asking for food, sodas, coffee, and pain killers. It was as though he thought he was the only patient on our floor and the nurses were there for his amusement. His actions were not only annoying to me, but the expression on the nurses' faces spoke volumes as to how frustrated they were. If I was supposed to be resting, as I was told I should be, they definitely had me in the wrong room.
The one calming influence during my time there was the presence and consultation given to me by Dr. Alisa Rock. She was the yin to Dr. Yun’s yang. She was the one who came in to consult with me on which drugs I would be taking while I was there and in the future. She also explained, in terms I could understand, what I needed to do once I left. It was nice to have someone who honestly seemed to be concerned with my well being and my feelings. She was also a little mystified that they had put me in a semi private room, especially after she got a load of my roommate.
There were a couple of other nurses who did a good job while I was there, but for the most part I felt as though I was just another room number on the floor. Just another faceless name on the white plastic rotation board at the nurse’s station. I was hopefully that the next round of tests would give me the green light to go home in the next day or two as I had been told. So I figured all I needed to do was rest and bide my time until then.
That was until mid morning the next day when my phone rang. It was Victoria from the hospital financial office. She was calling me to discuss my insurance and the terms of my payment. At first I thought I was being punked, but I don't know anyone sick enough to try and give me another heart attack so soon after just having one.
After listening to her for a couple minutes, the words of one of our great maritime leaders came to mind, “That’s all I can stands and I can’t stands no more!” I told her to mail me a bill like every other patient and hung up. Thank you Popeye for the strength.
I picked up my nurse call buzzer for the first time since I’d been there. When the nurse arrived I told her two things. First, that I would be checking out that day and second I wanted to see Dr. Rock immediately.
Next I called my wife Stacey and told her what was going on and that I would keep her posted. Dr. Rock came in and could see how upset I was. As soon as she heard why, there is no way to describe the look of horror that crept across her face. Apparently this isn't the first time the finance department committed this egregious error.
I guess doctors frown on the finance department calling their convalescing heart patients and upsetting them. Dr. Rock shot out of my room to, well, go rock somebody's world. The nurse returned and said that Dr. Yun would have to approve my leaving and that they would let me know as soon as they spoke to him.
Things started moving rather quickly from this point forward. Dr. Rock had been busy shaking up the people in the administration and finance offices. I know this because within the next hour I had representatives from both of those departments in my room apologizing and asking questions to make sure this error never happens again. Unfortunately too little, too late.
Dr. Rock returned to tell me I would be home to see the Lakers playoff game and that they were putting my paperwork in order. Dr. Yun would be coming by to give me some final instructions soon. I called Stacey to tell her to come and get me and I packed up my belongings. As soon as these things came to pass, this part of the party was over and I was ready to roll.
Soon Stacey and I were leaving the hospital in our dust. I was heading back home where it all began and where the changes in my life were truly about to begin.

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