I’m back in another emergency room, but this time it is for my mother. Being at Evanston hospital emergency room has re-confirmed our decision to take J to Children’s Memorial hospital. Primarily because there are too many emergencies going on with people from all stages of life. There was the puking child next to the little boy with pink eye near the adolescent with a serious cough next to the elderly lady in a wheel chair. Once my mother was given her temporary room, I got to see the E.R. in action.
My first observation is there are many more male nurses than I’ve ever seen in one setting. In fact, I saw so many men working or moving through there that it made me wonder if hospitals prefer men in the E.R. It also seems like there are every color scrub one can imagine. I know there is a scrub pecking order, but with so many colors, it is hard to put it all together. While there, my mother was moved into the hall on a cart because they needed her room for a “code red.”
I was pretty impressed at how all these different scrubs came together to respond to a man only identified by the contents in his wallet. There were the nurses, doctors, x-ray technicians, and even the ambulance medics all moving in and out of this man’s room. It was like watching the Harlem globetrotters quickly passing the ball from man to man. Some how the ball keeps moving and they all seem to know where they are going. And while that was going on, a baby was crying loudly, an overweight woman was barfing, and nurses and doctors were making calls or using Purell to disinfect their hands.
A male nurse came and maneuvered both the cart my mother was resting in and the I V attached to her. I was pretty impressed. Upon entering her room, a nurse came to greet her, an aide asked her questions including who baths her, another butted in and asked my mother to open her mouth for the thermometer, housekeeping came to check the TV and to confirm that a paper seal was stretched across the toilet seat. I get it. Hospitals want you to feel like you are staying in a hotel not a hospital. However If I were feeling sick and could barely move, the last thing I’d want to hassle with would be a strip of paper draped across the toilet seat. But don’t you dare forget to leave a piece of chocolate on top of my bed after its been made.
Before taking her to the hospital, my mother asked Ry to pray for her. As I waited for her in the hospital, I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal about someone who hoped prayer alone would cure their son of type 2 diabetes, the child died. Had the boy taken insulin, he would have been OK. So I wondered what I would tell Ry-did his prayers help? As of this writing, I think the anti-biotics have taken the lead over the prayers.
4wrdthnkndad
