ENT: The Nose Out Of Joint Saga VII
ENT: The Nose Out Of Joint Saga VII
It’s a typical recovery area: many gurneys partly showing past lots of ineffective, green curtain partitions, muffled conversations, bland-painted walls, practical, mottled floor tiles, an assortment of bored and uninterested medical people huddled at desk with countless pads of forms on the other side of a waist-high counter. This assemblage is positioned in such a way that noises and entreaties from the recoverees won’t intrude on their conversations.
A Nurse Substitute appears with a large blood pressure machine on a wheeled cart, and cuffs my arm. The results earn an unhappy grimace. “Your blood pressure is high. It was high when you came in. You’ll need to wait a while before you can leave.”
I roll my eyes. The wife shakes her head and shuffles through the magazines, looking for something that doesn’t feature colons or exploded views of infected gall bladders. I’m still sufficiently mellow that I’m content to explore my surroundings from my now lopsided perch.
I focus in on the private conversations going on in the other booths. These people are just as boring as I am. This is going to be a long afternoon.
Eventually, the Semi-Nurse returns with the cart. She redoes the blood pressure with unhappy results. 175/101. Wow. That’s really high for me. In fact, a personal best. She slaps a patch of something white on my chest, some icky compound which is supposed to bring down my BP.
I’m concerned about this. Usually, if I’m even a little above my normal range, I feel it. Doctors will tell you that you can’t feel it, apparently because it’s against their creed to encourage you to trust yourself. But I can usually feel it, and I’ve met plenty of others who say they can, too. I’ve checked it often enough to know that I’m usually correct. Not this time, though, because I just don’t feel it. Maybe it’s the leftover drugs from the anesthesia.
The Partially Nurse returns in 20 minutes, machine in tow. She says the machine is acting a little funny, and she thinks the battery may be getting low. She plugs it into the wall while the cuff is trying to inflate. 180/105. Worse! And the stuff on my chest isn’t doing a thing, except possibly beginning to harden into a white stucco.
This is becoming annoying. I want to leave. I watch the other curtains, thinking that the occupants there are going to go home, and I’m still stuck there. Another Nurse-Like Substance is in the curtain area kitty-corner to mine. I hear her say, “Your blood pressure is very high. It was high when you came in, too. You won’t be able to leave until it goes down.” “Hah!” I think. “Just like me. You aren’t leaving either.”
My Nurse-Apparent comes back again. She wants to try a bigger cuff. I agree. Anything to get out of here. The magic cuff goes on. Now it’s 185/115. She points out that even with the plaster on my chest, my blood pressure’s actually getting worse, and that never happens.
This brings the anesthesiologist out of hiding. She announces that I am especially vulnerable, and it’s very likely that I am about to have a stroke and die. This soothing approach calms me. She wants to have me brought to the hospital now. She also wants to know why I am not taking anything for my uncontrolled blood pressure. I try to explain that I take my blood pressure regularly, and it’s never anything like this. She plainly doesn’t believe me. She has already phoned my family doctor and told him about my dangerous and unmanaged blood pressure. He wants to see me.
I am passive, but unimpressed. She mutters that I can sign myself out against medical advice, if I really want to (I do: I do want to), but she predicts a stroke for me if I don’t go to the hospital shortly. She strolls briskly away, obviously annoyed at people’s stubborn ignorance. No action is taken, so I treat it as a standoff, slightly in my favor.
A third QuasiNurse arrives to visits the lady in the booth next to me. We hear her inform the occupant that her blood pressure is very high, and she can’t leave until it’s back under control. I find little enjoyment in this shared misfortune now. I find myself empathizing with her and the lady diagonally across as well, because we’re all trapped in medical Limbo, a place of drugged semiawareness, neither ready to be forgiven and released to the pearly gates of our homes, nor yet condemned to the Emergency Room.
A few minutes later, my Faux Nurse comes back to us in a heated rush, looking very excited, and avoiding eye contact. She makes a show of taking my blood pressure with a manual sphygmomanometer, which she plainly doesn’t know how to use. She barely gets it on, when she declares that my blood pressure seems to be closer to 100 now. “Let’s try the machine again,” she says, speaking very quickly, and throws the cuff on as fast as she can. However, I have already realized what’s happening from her evasive behavior. I look past her, and see that in the rolling stand is a different blood pressure machine. 138/82. Not a sterling BP, but considering the circumstances, not that bad, either.
My wife is looking at me quizzically. “Gift horse,” I say, “Let’s go.” They tape a new gauze pad under my nose, and give me a clear plastic bag with a small roll of tape and a lifetime supply of large gauze pads. I dress, and we pick up. Then we’re out past the counter. The lady in the stall next to mine is packing up. The new machine is now parked outside the booth kitty-corner to my abandoned cubicle. She, too, will likely have a miracle return to normal blood pressure.
All because between the three of the Pretend Nurses, they either didn't realize the original BP machine was broken, or didn’t know how to operate it properly. And everyone trusts the machine readings: no one ever questions them. I hope she tells the anesthesiologist. I hope the anesthesiologist un-calls my GP.
We get in the car and head for the house. To break the mood, we stop at a farm store. I figure I’m scary enough looking that I should wait in the car. I want to go in, though. I change the already bright red, wet gauze pad, in order not to frighten the locals. I realize the clean gauze pad taped crookedly to my face will look pretty odd as well. Nonetheless, I determine that I will probably be all right as long as I leave the public view before it too becomes a display of gratuitous gore. I go in and amble around. I find Honey Crisp apples, which I love.
Soon, we’re headed back to the house in bright sunshine. Not too bad, I’m thinking. Now it’s just recovery time, until my ENT postsurgical visit on Tuesday morning. How tough could it be..?
