Chapter 57
“Okay, NOT So Much Under Control As I'd Thought”
or: 'CALL 911 NOW, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!!!”
It was a Saturday in late July, and I was on my way to the Asylum., about 8 a.m. (I'd copped about half an hour extra sleep that morning.). Kimit's PT was going well, his OT had been stopped altogether because Shannon, the OT genius, had said she'd taken it as far as she could there, at the Asylum, but had given us lots of thera-bands, and plastic cones, and taffy like putty to push and pull with his fingers, and bears named Bart and all sorts of things for us to use in his room, and then at home.
His bloodwork was coming back well; he had the phlebotomist (Latin for “vampire”) drawing blood for general labwork weekly, and for some specific things like sodium levels, also once a week. A PSA (prostate) was drawn twice while he was there. It seemed to all be coming back well, as no one had darted into our room and said “We must get you to the Mayo Clinic NOW!”
He had completely discarded the four legged walker and now walked only with a cane, but that right leg, ho baby, don't be on that side when he went for a stroll because that leg was still kicking straight out, which meant he was using mostly his right hip to move that entire leg (remember: 6'4”, 280 pound man: legs, lethal) but he would be getting therapy at an outside physical therapy joint associated with the main hospital that saved him.
So, I was feeling pretty chipper when I walked into the Asylum, past the main nursing station, and said, to the two nurses standing there, “Good Morning, every... what the hell is going on???”
Two things were going on: 1- the nurses standing at the station were looking at me as if they'd just been told they had 8 minutes to live, and 2, the aides and six other RN's were dashing up and down the hallway.
Kimit's hallway. The one where they kept his room. With him in it.
I flashed down to the room and was met with complete chaos. There were at least 8 people in the room (along with the new roommate, who was an old roommate, but he was back) and they were all hysterical, and clustered around K's bed so that I could only see one leg..
I stepped into the middle of this mishegoss and said, in a voice I could not ever in a million years duplicate (like the “Rebel Yell”): “WHAT IS GOING ON?”
Everyone stopped moving. Everyone stopped breathing. I looked desperately for Lori, but I knew this was her day off, and one nurse stepped up to me: it was her. This was Lori's day off, and K's regular nurse for when Lori had a day off had called in sick (I found this all out much later) and standing there, with the smallest smirk on her ugly mug, was Cruella.
I demanded, “What is going ON, goddammit??”
She said, “It appears, Mrs. Muston, that your husband Kimit...”
I stopped her by saying something that all of you knew I would say: “Faster, or I will end you.”
She actually flinched, and DID pick up the pace. “Kimit has been very nauseated since 5 a.m., has been vomiting and has a slight fever, and a headache.”
“Headache”. His head is where he keeps his brain, and his brain is what got all fermisht and Strokey in April. The nausea put several millions voltage of terror down my spine, too, as nausea was the second of three main complaints on that horrible day (the third being, “Gee, I can't seem to move my right side.”)
“And no one has called an ambulance, or his doctor, or ANYTHING?” I was pretty near screeching now.
Cruella folded her arms, and said, with a bigger smirk, “You know we can't do that, Mrs. Muston, the family has to be the ones who make that decision, to call for an ambulance to transport to the emergency room.”
That was it. I said, to the room in general, “CALL AN AMBULANCE RIGHT NOW THIS VERY SECOND NOW NOW NOW NOW!!!!”
“Okay, we're going!” said one nurse, and the extraneous RN's ran away to the nursing station, presumably one to dial, the others to hold the earpiece. (One RN, whom Ihad never seen before, stayed.)
Cruella also stayed. Big. Fucking. Mistake.
She had her smirk on again, and began to say, "You know, Mrs. Muston, sometimes these things just happen and..."
I shoved her aside so hard that she fell into Kimit's roommate's closet. I went to Kimit. His eyes were closed, he was moaning, grabbing his stomach, and retching. All he had left to bring up was bile, and I think he'd even run out of that. Didn't stop the nausea, though, so he was retching.
I asked him, “Does your head hurt, too, babe?”
He opened his eyes, and saw me. He took my hand in his left, and said, “Oh, thank God, get me out of here, honey, please, make them to take me to... you know....” He retched again, and the RN held up a spit basin for him.
The fact that he couldn't get the words “emergency room” out scared me right down to my toes. It was April 17, 2006, 8:35 a.m. all over again. I was stone cold terrified.
However, the EMT's must have been close by, because they were there in minutes. As they lifted him onto their gurney, I saw Cruella, having gotten out of the closet at last, and now standing by it. She was still smirking.
The EMT's had K strapped in and were ready to fly; I said, “Oh, let me get this useless thing out of the way” and gave Cruella another shove. Bam, right into the smelly shoes section of the roommate's closet.
We were off. I jumped into the back of the bus, with K, holding his hand, as the EMT started an IV with Ringers Lactate (sorry, jargon attack: it's hydration fluid). We were speeding down the road, lights and sirens going, hopped onto 52, the main road through town, and were at the doors of the ER quicker than I thought possible.
They pulled into the ambulance bay, a gaggle of ER people emerged from the hospital; they unloaded him and the EMT who was with us in the back of the bus said to me, “I think it's the flu. He's got a fever, and that ain't stroke related.” I thanked her, and made my familiar way to the intake area, where they ask you forty nine bazillion times about payment.
“Medicaid pending.” That was my response to everything now. And he was checked in. I was told I could go back to his drapicle, but when I got there, he wasn't. A nurse ran up to me and pulled over a chair; I must have looked like I was going to black out. She sat me down, took my pulse (standard reaction with these wonderful people) and said, “He's just upstairs, he's okay. The doc wanted him sent straight to MRI, all right?” She patted my hand. “Let me get you some water.” She left the drapicle and I said to myself, “Water. I can get water. What am I, a crip?” I stood up, and, ha ha, turns out I COULDN'T get the water because I fall down go boom.
Oh, such excitement they hadn't seen in, what, hours! I didn't exactly faint, my legs just refused to follow my brains command to stand and fetch some H2O. They wanted to put me in my own drapicle, but I refused it, and asked them to please not tell K that I'd, well, fallen. I sipped the water, I took deep breaths, the nurse stayed with me the whole time. I felt better.
I felt even more better (I, english?) when Kimit was wheeled in, moments later, from MRI. The doc (same Marlboro man as before) was following, holding the newest MRI scan.
And he smiled. Smiling is good. I liked smiling. He said, “Good news: the MRI is showing that the original blowout (yes, he could have used a more genteel couple of words, but I got the point) is smaller still, so that's great.”
I agreed. “Brain thing smaller, good, great, chas v'chalilah,” I muttered. And he looked at me, with such a look of surprise, that I didn't hear quite what he said next. I asked him to repeat it, and he said, “I don't believe it, you're mishpocha?”
“Mishpocha”: yiddish for “family” as in, “of the Jewish family”. Yes, I told him, just as stunned as he was now. Neither of us looked it. (It's not racist if I say it.)
And then a voice behind us said, “I hate to break up this little conclave, but what the hell is wrong with me?” I threw myself on Kimit's chest and said :”Your brain bleed has gotten smaller!”
Kimit asked, “So why was I nauseated and puking and had a fever?”
The doc stepped closer and said, “Well, I think it's a touch of the flu.”
(I KNEW that woman's ice cream spoon was gonna bite us in the ass.)
They'd given Kimit scopalomine patches for the nausea, and a shot of something called TIGAN which, believe me or not, was an anti-nausea medication that had been accidentally invented by some lab guy, who experimented with it a while, before reporting to his fellow labrats, “This is good against nausea!” TIGAN. This Is Good Against Nausea. True? I have no idea, but it worked. Kimit was no longer nauseated, and the doc discharged him.
Now, after the fear, the terror not fear, had abated, we were stuck in the ER. The fact that it was a pretty good idea to keep me away from Cruella for a while wa son our minds, but we still had to get Kimit back to the Asylum. His nurse told us that the ambulance that had brought us in was not available for another hour, and everyone else was dealing with heat prostrated picnickers or kids bashed in the head by fastballs during little league games.
So, we had to wait. But, as I was walking away from the nursing desk, someone pulled on my arm. Turning, I saw MaryAnne. She'd been on her way home, but wanted to stop in and see how K was doing! (They really liked him! Me, they could shoot and cover with raked leaves. I didn't care. Except for MaryAnne and Lori, that is. And they both like me.) She asked if we'd been seen and what went on, and I told her.
Then she said, “Well, if you're discharged, I'll give you guys a ride in my car back to Heritage (she was so loyal, not calling it "That Place of the Whackjobs".).” We took her up on the offer. We got Kimit into a wheelchair, pushed him to the back pick-up area, and MaryAnne went to get her car.
We had no idea what MaryAnne drove a shoebox with wheels. It was actually a Geo, and it was the miniature version, but, we were grateful for her offer, and somehow we managed stuff Kimit into the back seat, sideways. I think I rode in the trunk, I don't recall. All I knew was that, chas v'chalilah, my baby had not had another Stroke, and was going back to the Asylum.
When we made it back? Practically everyone who worked there was at the side entrance, and all raised their voices in a “Huzzah!” fashion. That was nice. No, it wasn't.
It was terrific. The scary, horrifying, paralyzing, screechingly awful morning had become a terrific afternoon.
Can't ask more than that.
And yes, Cruella was gone. I expected her to press charges, but if she had, I'd faced down a far worse opponent than the legal system, so I wasn't too worried.
Chas v'chalilah.
57