I'm back from my holiday break. Now for part 2.
Early in the emergency room. The VQ scan was yesterday.
Doctor Hamilton brushes through the curtains surrounding my bed. She holds a clipboard.
"So, we found it."
My insides jump. For the past 24 hours, I've labored under the idea that this could be just a
ghost. Imaginary. No real reason for being shipped in an ambulance, poked and prodded, scanned. I'm not hemolizing, so what else could it be? Really, what is it? Sitting in an emergency room bed does not contribute the a feeling of zen-like calm and well being.
"Bi-Lateral P.E."
Wah?"We found it, blood clots in both sides of your lungs."
"That sounds serious."
She rubs her forehead. Like in a pain reliever commercial.
"Yeah, problem is, you're not supposed to get this. You're too young. This never happens. Like, never. Maybe a clot in one side, maybe, but not both."
"What does that mean for me?"
"Well, you go on blood thinners. Problem is, you were already on blood thinners, so that really confuses us. We have to draw blood for a real close look. Then we have to look for genetic predisposition to clotting. That will take about a month. Until then, we just give you thinners to melt the clots."
"So I want to pass these out of my lungs?"
"No. Definitely not. We want to melt them. If they dislodge, the next place they end up is in your brain..."
"...which means a stroke."
"...right."
Wow.
"You're just a box of suprises!"
Hamilton leaves.
At least, at the very least, I know what it is. Not knowing is, in effect, a poison. It sticks like a pin in your brain, clouding how you think, how you process your situation. Uncertainty about a dangerous medical condition is like being told, while speeding down an icy freeway, that your brakes
might work.
The porter carts in a wheelchair; I have a bed available. It's at the opposite end of the hospital from where I was, on the top floor. On the way there, we wheel directly over the Stollery ward... there's a groovy open-air play area. There's puzzles, books, a crib with a toy doll hooked up to a toy-IV. It's bittersweet and angering to look at.
I flash back to when I was 16, when I first got this.
I was in the pediatrics ward, only a year or two before it was renovated into the existing Stollery. The pediatrics ward is different - nurses are calmer, quieter. They use smaller needles. It's a little more cheerful, also a little more depressing that the rest of the hospital. The image of a five-year-old hooked up to seven IVs is something that doesn't process easily.
Remarkable though, is the resilience of human beings in general - the children in these hospitals, definitely, need to be able to endure a fair amount of sickness and medical-treatment-related traumu. But the parents, who tend to be financially stretched, over-commuted and exhausted, not to mention dealing with the emotional strain of having a child in the hospital, seem to adapt remarkably well to this kind of situation. Life goes on, chemo treatments happen, good news, bad news, wait, wait, wait. It seems to develop into a lifestyle for many parents of children with serious and chronic illnesses.
But, I'm back here. And even though I'm grown, have a child and a wife, I'm still kind of a child when I'm here in these hospital walls. The control of a situation is torn from your hands, and everyone looks at you with sympathy because they can't do anything, and neither can you.
So, back to getting wheeled to my new bed.
Lo and behold! The Urology ward. Once again a ward, having the poor fortune of having nothing at all to do with my condition, but having the merit of an open bed. I will learn more about my bladder in the coming days than I ever cared to know.
I get to my room.
On my left is George, a Scotsmen who wants out as soon as his Chron's will let him keep down food.
On my right, Gary. An aging hippie and former musician, he sings along to 60's rock on his headphones in a broken, wheezy tenor. We'll talk more about him later.
And me in the center. Welcome back to capacity lodgings at the Chez U of A, Nialle.
