As I’m sure some of you already know due to my rather obnoxious tendency to complain about things via Twitter, I recently spent a few days in the hospital. Now would probably be a primo opportunity for me to cite the reason for said hospitalization, but quite frankly if I did I’m pretty sure every male who ever has or ever will be attracted to me would find cause to stop and rethink their life choices. With that being said, I’m just going to be vague in order to avoid sentencing myself to singledom for the rest of my life: I had a “stomach thing” that I, rather ironically, may have picked up while I was in the hospital a few weeks prior for a blood clot. It most definitely was not a good time, folks, but I’m home now and feeling like my normal, painfully sarcastic self again. Anyways, as anyone who has ever spent any time in a hospital would likely attest, you’re bound to see some weird shit (perhaps even literally) while you’re there. The best place to witness said weird shit is, without a doubt, the ER. I had to be admitted to the hospital twice due to a doctor mistakenly discharging me too early (ya dunn goofed, doc, ya dunn goofed), so I spent quite a bit of time lurking in the ER waiting to be taken to a room. Naturally, I came away from the experience with quite a few stories to my name, so I decided to compile a highlight reel for your pleasure. But be warned: if you have a weak stomach or are easily offended, you probably shouldn’t read this. Then again, that goes for pretty much everything I write, so carry on.
Not-So-Untold Story #1: Nurse, Am I Dying?
Let me set the scene for you. When you enter the ER, you’re told to sit in a row of seats outside of the triage rooms and wait for a nurse to call you. With the exception of individuals in critical condition, it’s a first-come, first-served type deal. When I arrived, there were several people ahead of me, so I plunked myself down and prepared for a long wait. This waiting area is, as previously mentioned, right outside the triage rooms, so if the doors are left open and the patients speak loudly enough you can hear what they’re saying to the nurses. Or maybe I could just hear it because I was listening intently... I was bored, okay? Anyways, one man entered the triage room and began to tell the nurse about a skin abnormality that was developing on his chest. He seemed very concerned and spoke about it at great length. Eventually, the nurse asked him to lift up his shirt so she could examine it. When he did, she glanced at it for about two seconds before her face did one of these:
-____-. And here’s where things pick up. “Sir,” she said, “Technically I’m not supposed to make a diagnosis, but I can confidently tell you that what you have is a skin tag. You can go home.” Now, for those of you who have never heard of skin tags, they’re an incredibly common condition in which you randomly grow a tiny excess flap of skin somewhere on your body. They’re completely harmless and painless, and eventually they go away by themselves. In other words, THERE’S LITERALLY NO REASON TO EVER GO TO THE ER FOR A SKIN TAG. Know what the best course of action is when you notice a small, painless flap of skin on your body? Make a fucking doctor’s appointment. Or look it up on the Internet. Even WebMD will be like “lol chill bro, it’s just a skin tag!” and that says a lot since according to WebMD growing armpit hair means you have Hep C. The other people waiting to be seen included myself, who at the time was a ticking time bomb of gastrointestinal distress, several people who looked equally unwell, a cancer patient, and an old woman who I think actually may have died during Skin Tag Man’s lengthy tirade. I’m no doctor, but I’m inclined to say that a skin tag does not take priority in this case. Seriously, dude. Stay home.
Not-So-Untold Story #2: Never Judge a Book by its Cover
This story takes place during my second stint in the ER waiting room. My mother and I were mighty peeved to be back in that hellhole, so naturally our bitchitude was kicked up a notch or two. Still bitter about the whole skin tag debacle, we were incredibly dubious of any patients who looked like they were doing a little too well to warrant a hospital visit. A woman sitting a few seats up from us was dressed professionally in a pencil skirt and ruffled top, fiddling around on her Blackberry and looking like the very image of health. Naturally, we started quietly kvetching about how she “didn’t need to be in the ER” and was “taking attention away from people who needed it more”. After we fumed silently for a few minutes, we saw the woman get up with a start and start walking briskly toward the bathroom. Within a few seconds she was sprinting, and it’s then that we noticed she was leaving a trail of blood behind her. And I’m not talking a little bit of blood – suffice it to say, images of Moses parting the Red Sea came to mind. My mom and I looked at each other, eyes wide. We felt like total assholes. Everyone else in the waiting area wore a similar “oh fuck” expression, so evidently we hadn’t been the only ones judging her seemingly healthy exterior. When she came back from the bathroom she sat down, leaned against a wall, and a few minutes later started throwing up. The “oh fuck” expressions intensified and a whole lot of uncomfortable glances were exchanged. Eventually she was taken away on a stretcher and awkward small talk about “not seeing that one coming” ensued. I had the misfortune to be the only one still be stuck in the waiting room several hours later, and eventually the woman returned. She came over to my mother and I and thanked us for being kind to her during her ordeal (if you haven’t figured it out, lady problems were involved and since the waiting room was full of men we were the only ones to sympathize). She told us that after a blood transfusion and some IV fluids she was feeling much better and wished me luck with my stay. She even offered to lend me a book to help keep me busy. Needless to say, we felt AWFUL, and I’ll probably be reincarnated as a fat man’s ballsack in my next life as penance. The moral of the story: for every Skin Tag Man, there’s an Actually Needs Medical Help Woman, so don’t be a dick.
Not-So-Untold Story #3: But First, Let Me Take A Selfie
An hour or so after the departure of the woman mentioned above, a Juicy-clad mother came in with her toddler and the toddler’s nanny. All three looked totally healthy, but after what had just happened I was in absolutely no place to pass judgment. The trio sat down in the waiting area and the toddler started getting a little rowdy. His nanny picked him up and started to walk around to calm him down while the mother stood at a safe distance (because AS IF she was going to get baby germs on her velour), snapping pictures on her bejeweled iPhone. I mean, if ever there’s an opportunity for an Insta, it’s “Baby’s first visit to the ER,” right? This was comical in and of itself, but things only got better from there. The toddler (whom I shall hereby refer to as “Young Money”) started getting squirmy again so his nanny put him down on the floor, allowing him to roam freely. It was then that I noticed Young Money wasn’t wearing any shoes, or even socks for that matter. All of a sudden, the lil nugget made a beeline for the exact area where the woman I mentioned earlier had power-yacked on the floor and sat himself down. Young Money was soon joined on the floor by his faithful nanny, and Lil Mama resumed her photo taking. It was clear that everyone in the room was debating whether or not to tell them what had recently occurred right where they were sitting, but ultimately no one said a word. After a few more minutes of documented floorplay (see what I did there?), Young Money was scooped up by his mother and the three of them left without even seeing a nurse. So like… what? Are hospitals the hip new place to take one’s child for a day trip? “Yeah, I was going to take Jimmy to the zoo or the park but you know what, I think we’ll check out the ER instead!” Yeah, that seems like a totally fun and sanitary excursion to me. Maybe next time you guys can visit a brothel! THAT would be fun for the whole family.
Not-So-Untold Story #4: And YOU Get Chest Pains, And YOU Get Chest Pains…
After a few more torturous hours, quite a long line up of people had accumulated. Unfortunately the triage nurses were occupied with a series of trauma cases (one of which involved an OPP officer getting into a motorcycle collision with a goose because duh Canada) so things were at a standstill and people were getting restless. Eventually a poor, unsuspecting triage nurse entered the room, just starting her shift, and was immediately swarmed by people complaining about their ailments and the length of the wait. The whole thing kind of called to mind the stampede scene from The Lion King, except in this case I wasn’t openly weeping (RIP Mufasa). She tried to deal with all of the remarks being thrown at her for a few minutes, but eventually she had to silence everyone for a moment so she could actually sort stuff out. She began to ask general questions in order to figure out whom to help first, one of which was if anyone was experiencing any chest pain. Two people answered yes, and she asked them to come with her to be seen. This caused quite the uproar amongst the rowdy waiting room populace. When the nurse returned from assessing the people who were genuinely having chest pain, she was greeted by a symphony of other people claiming that they were experiencing it too. I shit you not, regardless of what they were in for, everyone suddenly had chest pain. “I sliced my finger open! But mostly I’m having chest pain.” “I sprained my ankle but man, my chest!” “My kid swallowed a piece of Lego but I’m pretty sure I’m having a heart attack.” It was like an SNL skit come to life, and it was beautiful. There’s really nothing else to this particular story, but I felt it was worth a mention nonetheless. Mostly because I could pay homage to Oprah’s Favourite Things in the title.
Not-So-Untold Story #5: Brb.
The woman at the center of this particular story holds a special place in my heart due to the consistent amusement she brought me. She was rather rotund, maybe in her mid-sixties, and entered the ER wearing a surgical mask and carrying a bag the likes of which would have made Mary Poppins jealous. She began her wait patiently enough, not making much of a fuss until after she saw a nurse for her preliminary assessment. Like most people, she was told that since her case wasn’t urgent she needed to return to the waiting area until further notice. Let me tell you, homegirl was not pleased. She sat back down, and for the first half hour or so after that didn’t do much other than periodically stare daggers at the triage rooms, but eventually she got fed up and things got interesting. She produced a thermometer from her behemoth of a purse and began to take her temperature every five minutes or so, then going to the triage rooms and requesting that the nurses, who were already incredibly busy with other patients, take her temperature with their thermometers as well. They complied a few times, but seeing no problem they kept sending her back to her seat. Since this course of action clearly wasn’t getting her admitted any faster, she adapted a new one, requesting several blankets from the nurses, swaddling herself in them, and proceeding to make a pointed effort of shivering while staring at the nurses. This went on for a while and eventually I started wondering if maybe she actually was really sick and the nurses were merely being negligent. But just as my icy heart had begun to thaw to her antics, she simply stood up and left. Seconds prior she had been in her seat trembling and emitting faint but guttural moans, but she looked downright spritely as she walked out of the place. She was called to be seen by a doctor shortly thereafter, and when she was nowhere to be found the medical team assumed she was gone for good and moved on to other patients. However, a little while later she was back in action, hobbling into the waiting room anew and informing my mother that she had just gone home for dinner. Here’s a fun fact for you: if you leave the ER while you’re waiting to be seen, you forfeit your place in the queue. This is a well-known concept, but instead of inquiring as to whether or not she had missed her turn our dear friend stuck it to the man once again and simply went to sleep in one of the waiting room chairs. I never truly understood the meaning of the word YOLO until I watched that lady snore so aggressively that her glasses fell off. It was almost poetic in its beauty.
Since I’m already well past the point of “TL;DR”, I’ll try to keep my conclusion brief. There are several valuable lessons to be learned here. Don’t jump to conclusions. Don’t leave the waiting room before being seen. If you make a big deal of your skin tag people will probably hate you. But the most important lesson I learned is that there is humour to be found in almost any situation, no matter how bleak it may seem. Or maybe things just seemed funny in retrospect because I spent the next four days on morphine. Who knows, really. That’s all folks, may your lives be ER-free into the foreseeable future!
