Tales From the Hospital, II

"Angels have very nasty tempers.

Especially when they're feeling righteous."

~ Clive Barker

When last I left you, I was on my way to do a nuclear stress test at 1:00 pm on Sunday.

Head pounding and stomach queasy, I said to Gio the Tech, "I hope I don't throw up on the way down there."  He said nothing.  I made another comment, and again he said nothing.  It wasn't until he pushed the doors of the nuclear test lab that he finally addressed me.

"We're here."  He wheeled me to a counter and stopped.  "I'm sorry we're a little late, but I had two patients before you.  One was paraplegic, and I was with him almost three hours.  The other one took over two hours."

"They told me I'd be first today," I told him.

"When did they tell you that?" Gio the Tech asked me. I told him the story as he injected the isotope in my IV.  "They sent me home at 10 am yesterday because they said they didn't have any patients."  I probably don't need to tell you that my blood pressure probably went up at that point.  After 10 minutes, he wheeled me to the imaging machine.

Rather than go into a blow-by-blow of the test and everything that happened during my two hours in the downstairs labs, let me just say that I've had four stress tests. Three of the four included using the treadmill, but for this one, the injected Lexiscan, a medication that races your heart as though you were on a treadmill.  NEVER AGAIN.  NEVER. EVER. EVER. AGAIN.  If you've ever had the Lexiscan, you know what I mean.  If you haven't, remind me to tell you about that someday when the horror has passed and I can deal with the memory without wanting to pass out.

After the test, Gio the Tech took me back upstairs, and I climbed back in bed.  Mike the Husband had piled my clothes on the bed, so I gave him a quizzical look.

"They told me it would take 45 minutes for them to read the scan," he explained. "We're leaving in 45 minutes."

I admit that I was more stressed at that point than at any other.  My head was killing me. I was still sick to my stomach. I wanted to go home. I started crying.  Jenny the Nurse brought a lunch tray and coffee into my room.  All I cared about was the caffeine.  "Are you okay?" she asked me, looking at Mike the husband.  I nodded, and she left.

Let me interject here that when one goes to the hospital, the law requires the nurses to ask whether someone is abusing the patient physically or mentally.  They asked me that both in ER and the room.  Both times I simply answered, "No."  Mike the Husband was sitting there both times, and while my answer would have been the same, I thought it odd that they ask that in front of him. 

While Mike the Husband and I watched the football game, I mentioned what Gio the Tech had tole me about going home the day before.  Mike the Husband was not happy and paced my room.  I tried to sleep a bit, but I heard the door to my room squeak.  I looked at the clock and noticed that I'd been back 90 minutes.  Uh oh.  The door opened, and Mike the Husband walked in.  "They're going to release you in 10 minutes," he said.  Relief flooded over me as I figured my stress test had been okay, too. "Of course," he added, "that could be four hours from now."


Soon after, Jenny the Nurse hurried in with her little cart of machines.  She removed the IV line and telemetry unit. She hurried through discharge instructions and said, "Let me know when you're dressed so I can call a wheelchair." 

"Call them now," Mike the Husband said. Since I was still wearing the jeans I had worn the day before, I really just had to put on my shirt.  "She'll be ready in a few minutes."  Jenny the Nurse looked at him and scurried out of the room.  I had just finished putting my shirt on when someone knocked on the door.  I thought it was the wheelchair already, but instead I found the Laverne the Head Nurse (of the entire hospital) and Kim the Nuclear Lab Nurse.

What I did not know at that particular point in time was that Mike the Husband had held a bit of a meeting in my room while I was having the stress test.  Included were Laverne the Head Nurse, Dr. A-S the Admitting Doctor, Jenny the Nurse, and someone else I never met.

"We have figured out what happened," Laverne the Head Nurse said.  She and Kim the Nuclear Lab Nurse explained that the day before, the lab had not seen the orders for my stress test and let Gio the Tech go home. They both talked and talked.  I said nothing, but Mike the Husband, livid as he was, did not stay silent.

"We are NOT paying for this admission," he insisted.  "We are not paying a dime. End of story."

I have a few comments about this whole incident, so please bear with me.

• Chest pain, pressure, or whatever you want to call it, is nothing to ignore.  I made the right decision to go to the hospital.

• I went through the tests and feel okay that all came back negative. My internist is sending me to a cardiologist just to be safe, but I'm okay.

• That said, if I was in real danger of having a heart attack and needed that stress test, why did they wait for 36 hours? Did that not put me in more danger?  If it were not that critical, could they not have sent me home and asked me to return the next day?

• Why would they ask me if someone were abusing me if my husband were sitting right there? Does that make any sense in any stretch of the imagination?  By the way, truth be told, what I wanted to answer was, "Do you see that my husband is sitting here alive and well? Well, if he abused me, he wouldn't be either." 

• We all have to be our own advocates when dealing with health care.

• Chest pain is nothing to ignore.  I made the right decision to go to the hospital. I have to keep telling myself that.


The two nurses finally left my room, and Amy the Volunteer came in with my wheelchair.  She wheeled me down the hall, and not one nurse, CNA, or secretary was visible.  I wonder why.